Pet Peeves: Service Charges

One morning in Los Angeles, a few years ago, my partner and I, nursing hangovers, dropped into Mel's Drive-In on Sunset Boulevard in need of breakfast and Bloody Marys. A waitress flounced over to take the order. "Hi," she began, breezily, "I'm Honey Bunny and I'm your new best friend". She wasn't, of course. She was our waitress, and the latest of many on that trip who didn't understand the distinction. I enjoy visits to the US, but have never come to terms with the egregious overfamiliarity of the service culture. Restaurant staff should greet customers politely, but not - unless a friendly relationship has built up over time - as long-lost relatives. The subtext to this in the US, of course - particularly in California - is that waiters and waitresses believe there is a connection between how overtly friendly they are and how much they are likely to be tipped. American customers generally seem to accept this, and don't resent the casual passing across to the customer of the restaurateur's moral obligation to pay the staff properly. Visitors sometimes see it differently. I find that my enjoyment of meals and drinks can be seriously undermined by the expectation that, when I ask for the bill, I will leave 20 per cent plus for people who have diminished my enjoyment with their uncalled for matiness. I don't begrudge tips in Hong Kong at all. Even if there is already a service charge of 10 per cent, the staff have to have got something seriously wrong for me to withhold at least that much again. Really good service I am happy to reward more generously. Generally, a reasonable tip is deserved. Service in the restaurants of Hong Kong's five-star hotels is not always quite what it used to be, because the demand for well-trained staff exceeds supply, but across the food business as whole, standards are fairly respectable. The days of spectacular rudeness in Chinese restaurants are largely a thing of the past. Even in the Luk Yu Tea House, last time I went, I thought I detected a diminution of hostility. To get that kind of treatment nowadays you have to go to Gerrard Street in London. There are, however, still certain bad service habits in Hong Kong. One of these is the hard sell of overpriced bottled water. The first inquiry when a customer sits down should be "Would you like to order something to drink?" not "Still or sparkling?" or worse still "Some water for the table?" That last is doubly irritating, not just because it leaves the host with no real choice in the matter, but because it is phrased as though the furniture were going to drink it. Another source of irritation is too frequent top-ups of wine. There are restaurants in which it seems necessary to do no more than raise the glass to your lips for a waiter to be at your elbow, bottle poised, to fill it up the minute you put it down. Wine glasses should be refilled just before the drinker is down to the last sip, not before. That way you have a clearer idea of how much you are consuming, and are not being rather too obviously prodded into ordering a second bottle. Most of us enjoy the informality of the restaurants in areas like SoHo and Wan Chai. But some things are set in stone, and one such thing is that in a Western restaurant, where customers order individually rather than for all present, everybody's food should arrive at the same time. It is not acceptable - and it happens much too often - for diners to be watching a dish go cold while waiting for another guest at the table's entrée to appear. I know synchronisation can be a problem in small, understaffed kitchens, but it is not the diner's problem, and if a outlet can't achieve a timely, simultaneous delivery of dishes, it should consider a less ambitious menu. Then there is chatty service staff - or worse, proprietor. There is a Sai Kung restaurant I visited a couple of times after it opened, and where the food seemed to be good. But the first time I went, having prepared and personally delivered my order, the chef/patron proceeded to stand by the table and talk at me just long enough for the fish on the plate to reach the same temperature as the air conditioning. I suppose I could have told him to go away. But I shouldn't have had to. The second time I went the same thing happened. A pattern having been established I haven't returned. Those problems do not normally occur in hotel restaurants where service of a higher professional level is rightly expected - instead you get multiple inquiries as to whether you are enjoying the meal. The first of these quite often comes while you are still on your first mouthful of food, obliging you to swallow hastily to respond. Reasoning, perhaps, that you had not had time to properly formulate an opinion, a minute and a half later another waiter or waitress then pops up with the same question. There are diners who like being asked by the restaurant staff for their opinion on what they are eating. Fair enough. I'm not one of them. If it is good I'll say so, and likewise if it is not. If it is unremarkable, the absence of comment should speak for itself. If the question is going to be asked at all, however, it should be asked only once, a few minutes after the dish has been served, and emphatically not while the diner is chewing. Most of these complaints, you may feel, are trivial, and in the context of a good restaurant meal served with courtesy and reasonable competence, so they are, but they can make the difference between a thoroughly enjoyable experience and an irritating one My last gripe this week, though, is perhaps the most serious, because even the best restaurants here seem oddly prone to the problem. When a diner has finished his or her meal and asked to pay, it is generally an unambiguous signal that they now wish to leave. Why then, having already finished the last of the wine, coffee or digestifs, are we so often left at the table for 10 minutes waiting for the bill to arrive? In the interests of balance I should say this is not a problem in the US. Honey Bunny couldn't bring it fast enough.