Hard to Swallow
Sometimes eating out in a country which is not your own can be a real culture shock. Today we found ourselves in a restaurant at 11.20 a.m. In England this would definitely mean breakfast only. But in America, 11.30 a.m. is a common time for lunch. It threw me into a quandary. Should I order breakfast, knowing how quickly the food tends to arrive, or lunch in case it was late?
"Only you would worry about this," moaned Grumpy. "Just order something. What difference does it make?"
In a way he had a point. Especially as most of the breakfast dishes come with dessert toppings anyway, which to me seems a mixture of two meals anyway.
I looked at the menu. Much as I like the fact that most restaurants offer breakfast, lunch and dinner, this one was particularly confusing. It was full of rules and regulations.
Some dishes were only available Monday to Friday between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. I could have a sweet or savoury crepe up until 2 p.m., but oatmeal stopped at 11 a.m. Country fried steak and eggs were only "just 'til 2 p.m." Some items were served daily after 4 p.m. until close, but I had no idea when 'close' was. I had to check my watch so many times I'd forgotten what I wanted to eat in the first place.
Assuming you could get your head around it, the overstuffed menu was decorated with all kinds of symbols which were almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying glass.
Eventually I discovered that ** meant senior discount and CA in a red sun meant 'carb aware'. This was not to be confused with two cherries of the same colour, which meant feature dishes.
Not unusually in American restaurants, the waitress came to check on us every 30 seconds, no doubt because she thought I was too stupid to read the menu. Even after the food arrived, she popped back to see how it looked, how the first mouthful was, how the third mouthful was and obviously whether we required dessert when I was half way through my wrap.
"Ahh, at least that solves one question," I said to Grumpy. "If we're offered dessert, it must have been lunch. Right?"
"Only you would worry about this," moaned Grumpy. "Just order something. What difference does it make?"
In a way he had a point. Especially as most of the breakfast dishes come with dessert toppings anyway, which to me seems a mixture of two meals anyway.
I looked at the menu. Much as I like the fact that most restaurants offer breakfast, lunch and dinner, this one was particularly confusing. It was full of rules and regulations.
Some dishes were only available Monday to Friday between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. I could have a sweet or savoury crepe up until 2 p.m., but oatmeal stopped at 11 a.m. Country fried steak and eggs were only "just 'til 2 p.m." Some items were served daily after 4 p.m. until close, but I had no idea when 'close' was. I had to check my watch so many times I'd forgotten what I wanted to eat in the first place.
Assuming you could get your head around it, the overstuffed menu was decorated with all kinds of symbols which were almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying glass.
Eventually I discovered that ** meant senior discount and CA in a red sun meant 'carb aware'. This was not to be confused with two cherries of the same colour, which meant feature dishes.
Not unusually in American restaurants, the waitress came to check on us every 30 seconds, no doubt because she thought I was too stupid to read the menu. Even after the food arrived, she popped back to see how it looked, how the first mouthful was, how the third mouthful was and obviously whether we required dessert when I was half way through my wrap.
"Ahh, at least that solves one question," I said to Grumpy. "If we're offered dessert, it must have been lunch. Right?"
posted by Hilary at
2:06 PM
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