It's no secret that I think Anthony Bourdain is a bit of a tool. Old guys who talk about how much they party and how much heroin they used to do are a sad speciment.
Still, I would love it if the Food Network was populated with guys like him and Mario Batali and Julia Child reruns, instead of Rachael Ray, Giada DeLaurentiis, Sandra Lee, the Hearty Boys (WTF??), Ace of Cakes, the Obese Detective...oh, pretty much everyone on that horrible channel. The Food Network is essentially like the intelligent design movement: designed to throw us back to the dark ages of food in America, where people like Sandra Lee and Rachael Ray were considered good cooks instead of the hacks they really are. It was a much better channel when it only had 6 million subscribers and people like Batali and Bourdain were dominating the programming.
I was watching Bourdain's Travel Channel show "No Reservations", which is sometimes cringeworthy, when, during a trip to South Carolina, he asked the owners of a restaurant that Rachael Raytard had included in her "$40 a day" total how much she tipped. He said he had 'done the math' and it didn't add up. Reluctantly, the owner admitted that Ray had only tipped 10%.
Shame on you Food Network. Shame on you Rachael Ray. Not only do you encourage this kind of cheap-for-cheap's sake eating, but you do it by cheating? Double shame.
Blog Archive
-
►
2008
(85)
-
►
November
(16)
- Momofukus
- Happy Thanksgiving
- Ducasse = Douchebag?
- Apparently...
- Farmer Brown
- How to read/write a recipe (or why Mark Bittman su...
- Dynamo Donuts
- Cooking duck (MTK, Pt. IV)
- Obama h8s Beets (MTK, Pt. III)
- Mamoun's
- On the road...never again
- Stuff: Absurd Rankings/Top Chef
- Taco Tours (Part III): El Castillito
- Keller/Achatz Dinner Frenzy
- Delfina
- Eating Hobbs/Lovington, NM
-
►
November
(16)
Food Blogs
Friends of Mine
Not food, but still delicious
Labels
- bay area (8)
- berkeley (6)
- california cuisine (1)
- DC (15)
- east bay (3)
- events (2)
- Future $$$ (1)
- history (2)
- home (1)
- media (6)
- montreal (1)
- my tiny kitchen (7)
- napa (3)
- news (16)
- nitpicking (1)
- NYC (6)
- oakland (2)
- opinions (25)
- philadelphia (1)
- politics (2)
- press (2)
- products (2)
- recipes (8)
- restaurant (92)
- restaurant week august 2006 (3)
- restaurant week january 2006 (1)
- restaurant week january 2007 (3)
- san francisco (13)
- shop (2)
- stuff (3)
- stupid (2)
- taco tours (3)
- travel (9)
- TV (2)
- updates (17)
About Me
The Deal:
6 comments:
do you have any opinions about standard tipping practices? do you do the percentage calculation before or after tax? (i do before)
also, it's "specimen," no "t" (since you are my copy editor, i'll be yours)
typo, elaine. (you can do a check on all my previous uses of the word on this blog).
standard tipping practice (in this country) is between 15-20% on the pre-tax amount. for a party of 6 or more, it should be at least 18%, but the restaurant usually does that as policy.
in general, i think that in places that tend to place an emphasis on service (i.e. at a certain "level" of dining) you should start high and take dolla billz off for errors in service. otherwise, i start at 15% and work up for unusually good service. in bars, i'm told it's common to tip $1 on a drink, unless we're talking a complicated cocktail. again, if you have a tab, somewhere between $15 and $20.
if your waiter in particular was bad, but you were ably assisted by another in the same restaurant, i've heard of people actually writing a note on the back specifying that the majority of the tip go to the more skilled waiter.
in any case, 10% is unacceptable. there's a guy who comes into our restaurant every day and gets a three course meal, and never tips anything, so i guess you could do worse than rachael ray. but she still sucks at life.
I wonder what that deleted comment was. Was it...the Hungry Detective?
Not to be a shameless promoter, but you should check out my latest post here.
NYT had a good article on the Food Network "makeover" earlier this week. I agree though. The best cooking shows on television seem to still be the ones on public television, except iron chef and top chef.
Also, the next iron chef was a great show. They should do that kind of thing much more often.
Sorry for the slew of comments today. I normally read your feed so don't comment, but sometimes I get inspired to comment and one thing leads to another and you know, these things just happen.
Post a Comment