Tobiko

Is the customer really always right? Why is this the motto with which the American customer service sector is governed? I am pretty sure the customer is not always right. In fact they are sometimes and oftentimes wrong, partially correct, rude, and downright obnoxious. Don't we, as restaurant workers, have an obligation towards people to help them learn their manners? When you have children, it is common practice to teach them how to behave at the dinner table. Well, adults of America, isn't it time that you started to learn some manners yourself?

Yesterday night at La Terrasse I was working the entire floor of the restaurant on my own. No host, no manager, no busser, no runner, and no bartender. The restaurant is really not that big, and there were only 7 people in the books on this particular night, but there were about eleven other people in the restaurant beginning their meals at the same time. The largest party size of these eleven was two. Needless to say, I didn't really have time to deal with anyone's bullshit, or indecisiveness, or any other of the many general displays of rudeness common amongst customers.

One of my guests ordered our smoked salmon pizza. On the menu, this item is described as having, "red onions, creme freche, and tobiko" in addition to smoked salmon. This customer never asked me what kind of "tobiko" came on the pizza. If she was such a connoiser of this ingredient, than she should have known that there are three types of tobiko in addition to the traditional ingredient. These types are "colored" with different ingredients: wasabi (green), ginger (pale orange), and squid's ink (black). She never did ask this question. Apparently, she assumed that we were using the traditionally colored tobiko, which happens to be red-orange in color.

When I deliver the pizza to her, she exclaims without hesitation, "This is not tobiko. Tobiko is orange, it's the stuff that comes on the outside of the sushi rolls." Feeling like I was just given a spanking from my high school history teacher for not remembering what day in July our country celebrates independence, I replied, "Um...um...yes, I think this is tobiko. It's Japanese black caviar." The customer pounced on me like a lion and growled, "No, this is not tobiko. It's not tobiko. It has squid ink in it which gives it the black color. I can't eat squid ink." Whoa there mama, I thought. Hold your freakin horses, I can get you a god damn stupid fucking pizza without those black things on them, whatever they happen to be called. Of course I couldn't actually say what I was thinking. Instead, I got her a new pizza, made fresh from scratch. Just because she didn't really know what she was talking about. She was only half right.