1. Having your coat taken off you and put somewhere secret. Not knowing where to get your coat from when you leave. Hovering around a door which may be a cloakroom or, alternatively, may be the gimp cupboard. Blushing after the idea of taking a much more expensive coat and flogging it on ebay flashes through your mind.
2. Being allocated a table for two hours only, no matter how many courses you are intending to order or how long you would like to spend enjoying your £45 steak. Being asked to move to "take coffee" in the bar. AKA "Your two hours is up. Shift."
3. Having the serviette carefully placed in your lap by a spotty teenage waiter who spends just slightly too long down there. And checks your cleavage out while he's at it. Get. Off. Me.
4. Being offered bread and butter, and then finding a £3 per head cover charge has been added to your bill. To cover what exactly? Excessive profit?
5. Being shown the label on the bottle of wine that you have chosen, so you can check it is the right one. Is that not the waiter's job? They don't ask you to check the water or your starter before placing it in front of you, so why the label on the wine?
6. Those who think that tasting the wine is a method of checking that you like it. Of course, if you have chosen badly, they won't mind at all if you send it back and try another one.
7. Having white wine held hostage in an ice bucket somewhere between your table and Australia. Waiting empty glassed to be served more wine or, on the other hand, having your glass filled every 30 seconds until the wine has gone and you haven't even caught a glimpse of your first course.
8. Unintelligible menus. Fennel. Shallots. Lardons. Confit. What is this muck?
9. An 18 inch white plate which arrives with all (what little there is) of the food piled up in the centre. Having to unstack before you can taste anything. This is a meal, not an exercise in building a wall.
10. Ordering the £45 steak and then having to order vegetables separately. This is not tapas. I am paying for the chef to put the meal together, not me.
11. Being asked how your meal is before you have got the first forkful to your mouth. Give me a chance to taste it and I will tell you exactly how it is. Impatient C_ck.
12. Finding a 12.5% "discretionary" service charge has been added to your bill. Here's your tip: Look up the meaning of "discretion".
© 2010 Wilma Kay
