Posted: Jan 30, 2006 7:09 pm
ok here's my two cents, at way too late a date, but wtf:
firstly, the beauty shop suffers in reputation because it had absolutely no consistency before shaggy took the reins. now that he's there, well it's a no brainer, he's one of the best cooks in town. for a great night in this area, you might want to try taking the hottest girl/guy you can find and getting a couple small plates at Tsunami (i'm biased, but dimitri is the fucking shit, and the small plates are great value for this style of food) and then have entrees with the shag master at the beauty shop. maybe even stop in do first for a quick tuna-strawberry roll or some beef sashimi. then use all this new found weight and power to beat up some dorks at the celtic crossing. if you're really feeling tough, maybe the deli.
secondly: waiters have to put up with shit, all day all the time from everybody. the customers can be assholes, the kitchen can be assholes, the bartender can be an asshole. and this isn't even taking into account what kind of day they had. they shouldn't be jerks to customers, but i think customers take body language and other stuff WAYYYY to personally. try to show yourself a good time, and be pleasant, and i've found usually you'll at least have passable and reasonably pleasant service. however there are a gagillion waiters in the world and your bound to run into a bunch of them who are jerks. trust me, if the cooks were your waiter . . . HOLY SHIT would you want your jerk waiter back.
Thirdly, not every meal is about getting the most food for the least money. i'm broke so most often it comes to that, but having tapas can be great. sometimes it's good not to walk out of a restaurant totally stuffed. and usually with just a little order planning you can get plenty full without dropping your entire wallet in the saute pan. food is meant to be enjoyed in many different ways. and when done right, tapas lets you try so many interesting things. it's not for the "damn i'm starving and i've got fifteen bucks night" It's when you're treating yourself to something enjoyable. often planning a couple of restaurants to hop to in this case can be lots and lots of fun. people in memphis don't do this enough because you can't just walk around much. but planning a night to go to two or three restaurants and just having one or two things at each can be a lot of fuckin fun.
fourth, fuck Cogic. everybody knows it. not just because i'm a waiter, i mean the whole fucking organization, belief system, fuck em fuck em fuck em fuck em.
fifth, sorry for going on so long.