The Bend-Over Files

LTH,

In this first installment of the Bend-Over files I bring you an itty-bitty biscotti from Intelligentsia. A two bite Bend-Over for .92c

Bend Over Biscotti

It should be renamed - Bend-Over and Squint Files

Excellent idea for a thread.

I'm ceaselessly amazed at the price of a glass of wine. I know the mark-up on wine is tremendous, but sometimes it seems I'm paying for a glass of wine pretty much the cost equivalent of a whole bottle of the stuff.

David Hammond wrote:Excellent idea for a thread.

I'm ceaselessly amazed at the price of a glass of wine. I know the mark-up on wine is tremendous, but sometimes it seems I'm paying for a glass of wine pretty much the cost equivalent of a whole bottle of the stuff.

That's pretty much the pricing rule of thumb (the price of a glass costs about the same as the restaurant/bar's wholesale cost for the bottle).

Gary - that biscotti makes Pasticceria Natalina seem like a bargain!

I'd blogged about this four years ago, and it still annoys.

$2.00 for iced tea, no problem.
$2.00 for each 8-oz glass of tea during the meal coming to $6, not so much fun -- add tax and tip and I might as well have ordered liquor. This was on an expense account, and it put me over my per diem.

Soft drinks seem to be my nemesis -- a cola in a Barcelona restaurant (first day, needed sugar and caffeine to stay awake for dinner), that was 6 Euros for a 300ml glass or something like that. I learned later that if you really, really need a Coke in Spain, go to McD's

JoelF, just read your blog entry. What annoys me is the "Can I get you another ice tea?" which is traditionally associated with a free refill (but wasn't in your case). Reminds me of a similar experience at a restaurant recently. The host said something like "Can I get you a drink at the bar while you wait for the table?". I didn't really want a drink, but I was tempted to ask whether "getting me a drink" means "buying me a drink". I presume it didn't.

G Wiv wrote:LTH,

In this first installment of the Bend-Over files I bring you an itty-bitty biscotti from Intelligentsia. A two bite Bend-Over for .92c

I dunno, it is kind of smallish, but for less than a penny it seems almost reasonable.

Plus, if that quarter was included as part of the plating (you didn't specify) then you made out like a bandit!

At the risk of implying grossity, my doc usually adds another command to the "Bend over". I won't exactly say it, but it *does* involve doing something with my hands...


And that's what that biscotti 'serving' truly involves.

Geo

Darren72 wrote:JoelF, just read your blog entry. What annoys me is the "Can I get you another ice tea?" which is traditionally associated with a free refill (but wasn't in your case)

I've noticed the opposite. When the server asks "Can I get you another..." it implies paying for the item again.

There is a subtle difference in language when it's a free refill, for example, "Would you like some more..."
Subtle, but an important difference.

I think in JoelF's case, the salient point is that he was drinking ice tea. It is unusual to be charged for a refill of ice tea (and wasn't charged at Greek Island at lunch today).

The language shift is interesting. Now that I think back on the last month (when I've put 5K miles on the car, and eaten in innumerable places), I'm pretty sure that I typically heard "Would you like a re-fill on that?" when the item was free refill, and "Would you like another one of those?" when it was, say, a beer.

Being charged for an ice tea refill *really* qualifies JoelF for this thread. Sheesh, what did it cost in time, labor and materials—10¢ ??

Geo

Exactly. The language was precisely "another" not "some more." But being iced tea, it didn't even occur to me that it might not be complimentary.

I was at Big Jones for brunch on Sunday and noticed that their unsweetened tea costs $2.50, while their sweet tea costs $3.50 - which qualifies them for a Bend Over Award from me.

Big Jones will set a bottle of simple syrup on the table to sweeten your coffee free of charge, but will then charge $1 for the same sugar in your sweet tea.

One quirk they have is that the sweet tea comes in a large decanter for "refills," but the unsweetened tea does not get free refills. The server asked me "if I'd like another tea" (since I'd ordered unsweetened) and I said no I was fine with water. My dining partner had coffee with the simple syrup and enjoyed free refills on coffee all morning, which doesn't make good sense to me.

Geo wrote:The language shift is interesting. Now that I think back on the last month (when I've put 5K miles on the car, and eaten in innumerable places), I'm pretty sure that I typically heard "Would you like a re-fill on that?" when the item was free refill, and "Would you like another one of those?" when it was, say, a beer.

I've also heard "Would you like to order another tea" which eliminates all doubt as to the charge.

Additionally, at a bar, it's commonplace to hear or say something like, "I'll have another beer" and you fully expect to be charged for it.

JoelF, I'm not trying to marginalize your tea abuse experience, I just want to see if there's a consensus on guidelines to follow so the screws aren't put to us every time. Was your entire visit to New Jersey in a prostrate position?

I think you all may be giving a little too much credit to some servers in their choice of language. I am quite sure that the most common question would be "More tea?" with not a lick of thought to whether the word choice implies an additional charge or not. (Yes, there are exceptions I'm sure....) The restaurant either charges or they don't. The servers ask if you want more whether there is an additional charge or not. Call me cynical for not thinking that words are chosen with the diplomatic precision.

sofrito wrote:JoelF, I'm not trying to marginalize your tea abuse experience, I just want to see if there's a consensus on guidelines to follow so the screws aren't put to us every time. Was your entire visit to New Jersey in a prostrate position?

No, and in fact that restaurant (Eccola) is an exemplar of Italian cooking, whose only other slight is accomodating American tastes in excessive amounts of the condimenti -- which in my mind isn't too bad a thing to do, since they serve very nice bread.

What makes a trip to Jersey a figurative rectal exam EVERY DANG TIME is Newark Airport. 'nuff said.

But look how stylish the coffee is! A leaf or something......

JoelF wrote:What makes a trip to Jersey a figurative rectal exam EVERY DANG TIME is Newark Airport. 'nuff said.

I got stuck in between two stops on the monorail @ Newark (EWR) not too long ago. It was a blazing hot summer day and it got hot in there fast. That qualifies for the subject of this thread.

JoelF wrote:What makes a trip to Jersey a figurative rectal exam EVERY DANG TIME is Newark Airport. 'nuff said.

Yeah, it's the Newark of airports.

[I posted a response when the thread was new and it vanished. I assume it was a random glitch, but if it was pulled "for cause" then I apologize for sneaking it back in.]

My two nominees for egregious "bend-over" categories are sides at steak houses, and omelets almost anywhere nowadays.

I don't go to high-end temples of meat often, so I it's always an unpleasant surprise to rediscover that the query "baked or hash browns?" usually comes with a $6 tag on top of the $30 steak.

And nearly every stool-and-counter joint one might go to for breakfast charges $8-10 for an omelet with a few ingredients now. I mean, the 3 eggs are about 25 cents, and then you have maybe a bit of onion, a scattering of other veggies and a bit of mass produced cheese. (I'm not talking about a smoked salmon/St. Andre omelet on Michigan Ave. here). There just isn't that much room in an omelet for their cost to go up. Throw in the toast and hashbrowns and it's still a stretch for their cost to approach $2. That seems unjustifiably over the 3X cost rule of thumb to me. Yet it's nearly universal.

I don't know if this is a "bend over" example or a "how lazy can you be?" example - but at Binny's and Jewel recently I saw bottles of simple syrup for sale. I didn't check to see how much they were charging but someone can't be bothered to mix sugar and water together and chooses to pay for it? Perhaps there are emergency simple syrup needs that call for buying instead of making it that I'm not thinking of?

IDK, Gary - a biscotti and coffee are one of my favorite breakfasts, and I think they're ordinarily $2 - albeit, double the size, but that means yours is the same in terms of value. I agree that the price is ridiculous, when other cookies are often cheaper and biscotti rarely contain expensive ingredients other than nuts (which most cookies have as well, at least cookies that I eat.

As for the refill policy, we have a frequent problem with this. We rarely order anything but soda, coffee, or iced tea, and I'm with Darren72, I don't think the servers really are fine-tuning their language that much. I understand that it's not exacly polite to say "would you like a refill, which will be another $2" but there's got to be some way of alerting patrons about what's free and what's not. I wouldn't mind if they told me.

Hi,

I can provide several incidences:

1. I ordered a Coke that came in a can. I don't especially like drinking directly from the can. I asked for a cup with ice, if they had it. I got it big time. When they bill arrived, my coke was $1 and the cup of ice was $1 more. I inquired about that charge to learn, "That cup is expensive." I took a picture of the bill, because I didn't believe it myself:


2. I was at Twin Anchors the other night. Three ice teas ordered at the bar were $9. When we were seated, the waitress asked if we wanted our ice teas refilled. We agreed, then she brought a pitcher filled to almost overfilled. When our host received the bill, he questioned the charge for ice tea. He was informed, "We charge for ice tea refills, though not for soda pop refills." I don't know how much he was charged, but it was enough to raise an eyebrow.

3. I absolutely hate it when I ask for light on the ice, then the drink arrives partially filled to compensate for the ice I declined. Or the drink is filled with so much ice, there is very little liquid in there and no free refills. If there are no refills, I order a Coke with no ice and water with ice. Guess where some of the ice migrates to?

Regards,

Not me that was bent over, because I know better, but: a few of my American friends in Spain went out to dinner. I warned them ahead of time not to eat anything placed on the table without determining its cost first, because unlike in the US, stuff given to you without asking is almost never gratis. They didn't listen...and ended up spending 80 euros on what should have been a 40-euro meal, due to the consumption of a bowl of olives and some bread.

I think they got the picture after that, though.

Hellodali wrote:I don't know if this is a "bend over" example or a "how lazy can you be?" example - but at Binny's and Jewel recently I saw bottles of simple syrup for sale. I didn't check to see how much they were charging but someone can't be bothered to mix sugar and water together and chooses to pay for it? Perhaps there are emergency simple syrup needs that call for buying instead of making it that I'm not thinking of?

My wife and I saw the pre-made simple syrup at Marie's and had a big laugh over it. I do think some of these come in flavors other than "simple".

My pet peeve is charging $4 or $5 for a baguette. Last week at the Logan Square Farmers Market, we were looking for bread to enjoy with market cheeses and vegetables. $4 at Golden Rise for a really sad looking baguette that looked to be under 1/2 a pound. Unreal. Yet, folks were still buying them.

Then, at the foccacia stand at the Federal Plaza Farmers Market they wanted $5 for a baguette. This one looked good, but still. I don't care what kind of organic flour you're using. That markup for just flour, water, yeast, and salt is just too high for me.

Got a gorgeous, crusty epi from Bennison's at Green City for $3. Large enough to serve four with dinner. That's better.

Ronna

A bigger issue for me is that there are so few good bread bakeries in town. (And a town with so many great sandwiches!)

Mhays wrote:I agree that the price is ridiculous, when other cookies are often cheaper and biscotti rarely contain expensive ingredients other than nuts (which most cookies have as well, at least cookies that I eat.

No nuts, slight anise flavor. My Bend Over biscotti was more like an American cookie, light, meaning it did not have the dense need to dunk to bite through texture of traditional biscotti. Also, in addition to being small, it was only slightly heavier than a hummingbird feather.

Enjoy,
Gary

Hellodali wrote:I don't know if this is a "bend over" example or a "how lazy can you be?" example - but at Binny's and Jewel recently I saw bottles of simple syrup for sale. I didn't check to see how much they were charging but someone can't be bothered to mix sugar and water together and chooses to pay for it? Perhaps there are emergency simple syrup needs that call for buying instead of making it that I'm not thinking of?

Ouch...guilty. To answer your question, I can be pretty damn lazy I have a bottle of pre-made simple syrup in our fridge right now ($1.99 from Trader Joe's).

My contribution to the Bend-Over Files is the tiny little amuse bouche-sized bagel I had at a Bruegger's on Sunday...$3.50 for an everything bagel that would have been dwarfed by a Fudge Stripe cookie, with a tablespoon or so of gross-tasting cream cheese.

Hellodali wrote:I don't know if this is a "bend over" example or a "how lazy can you be?" example - but at Binny's and Jewel recently I saw bottles of simple syrup for sale. I didn't check to see how much they were charging but someone can't be bothered to mix sugar and water together and chooses to pay for it? Perhaps there are emergency simple syrup needs that call for buying instead of making it that I'm not thinking of?

Hey, some people buy just the water. At least they're mixing it with sugar for you.

Darren72 wrote:

Hellodali wrote:I don't know if this is a "bend over" example or a "how lazy can you be?" example - but at Binny's and Jewel recently I saw bottles of simple syrup for sale. I didn't check to see how much they were charging but someone can't be bothered to mix sugar and water together and chooses to pay for it? Perhaps there are emergency simple syrup needs that call for buying instead of making it that I'm not thinking of?

My wife and I saw the pre-made simple syrup at Marie's and had a big laugh over it. I do think some of these come in flavors other than "simple".

Now that I think about it, one of the funny things about the simple syrup (it was called Bar Syrup) is that it had a ton of ingredients. Water, sugar, plus all of those things you can't pronounce.