yet another takeaway food shop debacle.
_________________________preamble
i like "steak sandwiches with egg and cheese and extra onions and barbecue sauce.
in australia, a standard steak sandwich is:
2 pieces of buttered toast, between which are (is? i think "is" the correct word) lettuce, tomato, beetroot,caramelized onion, and a 1 cm thick steak (always cooked to the point where no pinkness remains).
extras can be egg and/or bacon and/or cheese or whatever .
i am particular (in a few simple respects) with my tastes pertinent to steak sandwiches, and i always order "a steak sandwich with SOFT egg and cheese and extra onions, and the sauce is to be barbecue sauce".
most of the time, steak sandwiches have too much lettuce on them, and the lettuce is not well drained, and they put too much sauce on it which is not viscous enough, and so by the time i get to the car, the toast is soggy and the steak sandwich just disintegrates in my hand into an amorphous mess of unappetizing garbage after a few bites.
another annoying thing is that stingy shop owners often use dry, tough and sinewy cheap cuts of steak which one can not cleanly bite, and the result is that the meat is pulled out of the sandwich and slaps onto my chin (sauce and all) as i pull the sandwich away from my mouth after biting it. i hate that.
___________________what made me unhappy today.
i finally found a shop that makes (almost) nice steak sandwiches. they do not put too much lettuce on it, and the steak is tender and juicy and not sinewy. the only problem with them is that the bread is not toasted sufficiently, and the egg's yolk is dried out (not soft).
i got one last week, and i was distracted by a phone call as it was cooking, so i did not monitor the process, and when i got to the car, i noticed the toast was only toasted to the point where it was stiff, but it had no color. it was still white and not brown. i was not happy, but i tolerated it.
today, i went to get another steak sandwich, and i told the girl that i wanted the toast cooked properly, but it became obvious that her entire english vocabulary was limited to what was chalked onto their menu board. she was of asian extraction and could not understand any word said to her that was not on the menu.
her: yes wha you wan?
me: a steak sandwich with SOFT egg and cheese.....(she was writing it down and i noticed she did not write "soft")
me: sorry "SOFT" egg.
she looked at me in a a blank way but still did not write the word "soft" on the order docket.
me: you know "soft"? it mean "runny". no well cooked (i had to resort to basic language that i tried to tailor to her limited vocabulary).
her: ok.
me: you write it down? soft?
her :ahh ok ok.
i thought "she still doesn't understand", and i was starting to be moved toward irritation when another asian woman with better english skills came out from the back of the shop, and she understood what i meant and she said some asian words to the girl who was taking my order which the girl seemed to understand, so i thought i had scaled that hurdle.
me: and cheese and extra onions and barbecue sauce (she wrote that, so i was satisfied)
her: is that all?
me: i like bread to be toasted "well" (she did not understand)
her: you want toast?
me: yes but toast has to be cooked so it is brown.
her: you want brown bread?
me: no i want white bread, but cook long time until look brown.
her: ahh ok. (the other woman had returned to the back of the shop by this time, so did not provide a translation to the girl).
she started cooking the steak sandwich (which i was monitoring as i was not distracted by the phone).
onto the grill plate went the steak and onions which was an acceptable preliminary step. i watched as the steak was cooking, and shortly after she put the steak on the grill, she cracked the egg onto an egg ring, and i thought "oh no!! the egg will not still be runny if you leave it to cook for the same time as it will take the steak to be done".
me: is that my egg?!?
her: yes. you wah egg?
me: yes, but runny.
her: ahhhhhhh
me: soft!
her: hmmmmmm. ahhhhh...
me: never mind. (i had resigned myself to the idea that i was not going to get an ideal steak sandwich and i was not happy at all)
then i realized that the steak was nearly done but she had not yet put the bread under the griller element to toast, and i realized that the whole process was out of synch so i said
me: you start to cook toast now?!
her: ahhh yes. (i wanted to kill her)
then when she put the bread under the griller, i saw that the wire rack it was on was slid into a slot far from the element, and i knew it would take ages to cook there so i said
me: rack too low
her: (blank (she was tired of me))
me: bread no cook fast enough!! everything else cook too much while bread cook too slow.
her: (blank)
then she retrieved the bread from the griller, and it was white and uncooked!! !!
me: excuse me!! ! bread no cook! cook bread more so go brown (she had no idea what i was saying, but the other woman had come back into the front of the shop and translated what i was saying to her, and so she put the bread back into the griller, but by that time, the steak was overcooked and the egg was hard, so i said..
me: no worry about toast!! take meat and egg off now and make my sandwich.
so i got a steak sandwich on almost raw bread (stiffened only by heat but not colored), and with super hard egg and dry tough overcooked steak!! !! !! !! !! !! !!
people should not be able to serve in shops if they do not understand the language of their patrons!! !
14 Dec 2012, 5:41 pm
