Tipping rant...

Look for my tipping rant tomorrow. I'm too tired to actually type it right now.
Okay, i had it all typed out, and apparently lost it... so... I will work on it later

Okay, if this will save this time...
On Thursday, I joined a group of the mom's from our twin club at a restaurant in Framingham, MA. (Unless it is a RAVE, I try to steer clear of mentioning names. IF you really want to know the restaurant, feel free to contact me with your email.)

I was the last person to arrive, and the waitress NEVER asked me what I wanted, I in fact had to flag her down to order a beverage!! Fortunately, BFF had ordered for me. Thanks BFF! The cook came out (hibachi place) and started cooking. I heard some mumbling from the others, turns out, the sushi we had ordered was supposed to come out BEFORE the rest of the meal, they'd SPECIFICALLY asked for it that way! We did not get served our sushi until we already had our fried rice on our plates!!!

BFF had ordered a veggie roll for me, I'm not a fish fan. She had asked for no mayo, another thing I'm not a fan of! Well, I dig into my first piece, am eating it, and suddenly it hits! Mayo, SUPER DUPER UPER SPICY mayo. I was doing the hot mouth dance, the hand waving, trying to keep my mouth shut... etc. I'm sure it was a hoot. (FTR, the mayo was LIGHT, but HOT AS HADES). Poor BFF thinks I'm gonna be sick. I gave her a piece and WARNED her. A minute later she eats it. Miss-I-Never-Lose-My-Composure was doing the hot mouth dance too, and she'd had WARNING!!! LOL I still ate the sushi, but at least I knew for the rest of it! And the sushi was pretty good, another friend had a FRUIT roll, mango and nummy's, I might have to get more of that next time!

Well, they serve up all our food and the other friend asks where her steak is. Apparently, they had NOT written it down. The cook asks if they can make it in the kitchen instead of on the hibachi. She begrudgingly agrees. Don't blame her, I would want my steak done on the hibachi too! So when it finally comes out, it is OVERCOOKED (cuz they never DID ask HOW she wanted it cooked), and it has a smoke flavor, it was grilled! BFF had a taste of it, and she described it as charbroiled. Ugh.

When all was said and done, we got the bill and had to split it. Let me start with, there were SEVEN of us. MOST restaurants do an "auto-grat" (automatic required tip) of 18% at SIX guests. There was NO auto-grat on our bill! Okay, no prob. The problem is, when you have a larger group splitting the bill themselves, bluntly, you are likely to get less tip. Most people forget about the tax. Our bill, PRE-Tax, was $214. At 15% our tip SHOULD have been $32. BFF and I tipped at 20% AFTER-tax (yes, we did math). I'm a supporter of the 20% tip unless your service was bad, in which case I give 15%. If the service was down right insulting, I'm all for the 2 cent tip. ANYWAY, our group should have left a $32 dollar tip at 15%. Our tip was apparently only $27. Now bluntly, the service was questionable. I know I tipped what I believe in, but it's not MY job to police everyone. Furthermore, since our friend was only comp'd THREE DOLLARS for the screw up with her steak, I don't feel she owed ANY tip! I think $27 was an acceptable tip.

Apparently, the waitress didn't. And her manager must have agreed, because they actually had the GALL to come over and tell our friend that we owed her MORE TIP!! OH MY WORD! Are you KIDDING ME????? We paid our BILL, legally, that's that! We left a tip, but apparently we are bad customers. This is close to a week later, and my blood STILL boils about this. I was a server for a while. I've been left no tip, I've been left low tips, I've even been stiffed for a portion of the auto-grat cuz the customers felt like that was okay (totally not). But never in a million years would I think to tell a customer that they owed me MORE tip!!! What HAS this world come to??? Between the friend with the messed up steak and a couple others, they added another $5. I don't feel it was AT ALL necessary, but they did.

Truthfully, if it wasn't for the fact that the food made up for the service, I'd NEVER go back. But the food quality was EXCELLENT! I will be very cautious about the service though and leave a written note explaining my tip if it is a penny under 20%! ARG.