I have a pet peeve about lemons - or rather, the way they're used in restaurants. I have nothing against lemons (or other citrus fruit) when used as a seasoning - after salt and pepper, it's probably the one I use most frequently, especially the fragrant zest, which I grate into sweet and savoury dishes. But in restaurants, it's often used incorrectly.
First of all, with water. I know that waiters use lemon (or less often, lime) to help them differentiate between guests who want still or sparkling water. Those who want the former get it plain, but when they ask for sparkling, the waiter automatically adds a slice of lemon or lime - that way, when the staff need to refill the glass, they know just by looking who gets what.
If a waiter adds lemon to my water, I always remove it immediately and leave the slice on my bread plate; this is usually enough to remind the staff of the type of water I want.
Then there are the seeds. The bitterness of the seeds is even stronger than that of the pith. At expensive places, it's not too much to expect that the seeds of any lemon served with the meal should be removed - it's just one of the many refinements that separate a good restaurant from a top-tier place. If the restaurant serves a half-lemon with seafood, the seeds can be hard to spot, so the fruit should be wrapped in cheesecloth, so that when the diner squeezes the fruit over the food, the seeds are contained.
At inexpensive places, I don't mind taking out the seeds myself - after all, at a busy dai pai dong, you can't really expect the seeds to have been removed from the lemon slices in a HK$6 glass of tong leng cha. But if you're at a top restaurant paying HK$60 for Earl Grey tea with lemon, then the removal of the seeds is a job that should be done by the staff.
