I know I shouldn't use this Blog as a vent mechanism. But I have. And I do. And I will.
Saturday we were very busy, lots of regular returning customers and plenty of new faces as well. The last table to arrive on Saturday night was of the later genre, although we don't assume anything and treat one and all with equal professionalism and courtesy. There were only three tables left when I made my final rounds to check on their meals. I approached this last table with my usual question, "Are you enjoying everything?". Of course I noticed that the woman had piled all the shrimp from her enchilada onto her dining partner's mussel shell plate. (Mind you, the enchilada small plate is a new menu item, but it got rave reviews all night long.) She answered my question by saying that the shrimp were old and they had affected the taste of the enchiladas in a negative way - she'd eaten maybe two bites of the corn tortillas in their green sauce. This is bad - old shrimp are not pleasant and we have been on the receiving end of such a meal and would never serve any thing that smelled of ammonia like old shrimp do. I was pretty taken aback, knowing that all of our seafood this week had arrived on the first day we opened back up for business - Thursday. How could these shrimp be old already? And why hadn't anyone else complained?
One of the cardinal rules of the Hospitality Industry is you do not argue with a customer. This is one of the rules I forget about most often.
I picked up both the shrimp plate and the enchilada and said that I was very surprised that she found the shrimp to be old, since they had just come in on Thursday. She replied:
One of the cardinal rules of the Hospitality Industry is you do not argue with a customer. This is one of the rules I forget about most often.
I picked up both the shrimp plate and the enchilada and said that I was very surprised that she found the shrimp to be old, since they had just come in on Thursday. She replied:
"I am from Baltimore and I know what old shrimp taste like".
I took the remains into Kevin. We both tasted one of the shrimp. They were sweet, tender, perfectly cooked. I gave one to a server who doesn't like "fishy" fish - she agreed they tasted fine. I went back to the Baltimore Lady and assured her we would take the dish off the check, but, in no way were those shrimp old, that perhaps she wasn't used to sauce verde and maybe it didn't agree with her taste buds. She did not respond that she was from Baltimore and knew what sauce verde was supposed to taste like. She just said thank you.
What I really wanted to ask her though was, "What the heck does being from Baltimore have to do with recognizing the taste of shrimp that are past their prime, huh?" Or perhaps, "I am sorry that you people from Baltimore have to eat old shrimp so you don't know what fresh shrimp taste like". But for once I held my tongue...
Okay, my question back is - what does being from Baltimore have to do with it? Was she implying that us folk from the back woods of the Eastern Shore wouldn't know an old shrimp if we found it green and molding in the deepest recesses of our ice box?
I took the remains into Kevin. We both tasted one of the shrimp. They were sweet, tender, perfectly cooked. I gave one to a server who doesn't like "fishy" fish - she agreed they tasted fine. I went back to the Baltimore Lady and assured her we would take the dish off the check, but, in no way were those shrimp old, that perhaps she wasn't used to sauce verde and maybe it didn't agree with her taste buds. She did not respond that she was from Baltimore and knew what sauce verde was supposed to taste like. She just said thank you.
What I really wanted to ask her though was, "What the heck does being from Baltimore have to do with recognizing the taste of shrimp that are past their prime, huh?" Or perhaps, "I am sorry that you people from Baltimore have to eat old shrimp so you don't know what fresh shrimp taste like". But for once I held my tongue...
While I'm not *from* Baltimore (actually I'm from about two miles south of Kennedyville), I live in Baltimore now, and I, too know about "old shrimp." I'd have been more than happy to check out this plate...of course, it might've taken three or four plates of Marvesta's best before I had a reliable reading....
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