惱人至極的餐廳新做法

你和朋友計劃了好久，終于抽出時間，在餐廳開心地享用美食，而服務員卻時不時地在你們周圍徘徊。你一吃完，他就如禿鷹撲兔一般，迅速撤走你面前的空盤子和一切餐具。而此時，你的同伴才剛剛吃到一半……你跟同伴面面相覷，頗覺尷尬，而服務員則開始了新一輪等待，等著撤走你同伴的空盤子。這樣的用餐經歷，你有過嗎？

By Roberto A. Ferdman

李殊 選 張健 注

The other night I was eating a plate of noodles, and enjoying it. I was out to dinner with a friend, hunched over a meal we had been planning for weeks. The restaurant was newly opened and highly regarded. Life was good. And the food was great.

But then it happened. Again.

“Are you done with that?” the server asked, fingers already comfortable with the rim of my plate. “Can I get it out of your way?”

Yes, I had finished eating, because I am a vacuum ; there was no food left in front of me. But my friend had not. His meal was only half-consumed.

“No,” I said. “We’re not done eating.”

Without my permission, restaurants have abandoned, or simply overlooked, a classic tenet of service etiquette (I’m talking about entrees, not the ubiquitous small plates, which demand a different etiquette). Rather than clear plates once everyone at the table has finished the meal, which has long been the custom, servers instead hover over diners, fingers twitching, until the very instant someone puts down a fork. Like vultures, they then promptly snatch up the silverware —along with everything else in front of the customer. If you’re lucky, they might ask permission before stealing your plate.

When a server clears a plate before everyone is finished, he or she leaves the table with a mess of subtle but important signals. Those who are still eating are made to feel as though they are holding others up ; those who are not are made to feel as though they have rushed the meal. What was originally a group dining experience becomes a group exercise in guilt .

I’m not the only one who has noticed.

“It’s definitely been getting worse,” said Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University who has written extensively about the economics of eating out. “It’s a problem. I don’t like it, either.”

A chorus of disapproval has surfaced elsewhere, too. Some examples: SF Gate, the San Francisco Chronicle’s sister site, ran a short piece in 2008 imploring waiters to be patient. Adam Roberts, the founder of the popular food blog the Amateur Gourmet, did the same in 2012. And the New York Times, as part of a long list of no-nos for restaurant staffers, included this: “Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course. Wait, wait, wait.”

Why that subtlety seems to evade so many restaurants these days is unclear.

It’s possible that there’s an economic impetus behind it. “The price of land is going up, which pushes up the value of each table,” said Cowen. “That makes moving people along more important.”

A similar trend, after all, sees many restaurants hoping that diners don’t order dessert, because the course isn’t terribly profitable and it encourages people to linger.

But maybe waiters are clearing individual plates because they believe that’s what customers want. I have heard as much from servers and restaurateurs.

No excuse, however, should suffice . Publicly, restaurants might argue that they are trying to avoid clutter ; privately, they might encourage waiters to speed tables along; but what it amounts to is an uncomfortable dining experience.

I might go back for those noodles, because they were delicious. But don’t expect me to talk up the service to anyone. It was just okay.

Vocabulary

1. hunch: 弓身，弓背。

2. 這是一家新開的餐廳，頗受好評。

3. “您用完餐了嗎？”服務員問我，說話間就已經捏住了我的盤子邊。rim: 外緣，邊緣。

4. vacuum: 真空吸塵器。

5. 未經我的同意，餐廳就已拋棄，或者說直接無視傳統的服務禮節（我說的是主菜，不是普通的小菜，小菜另有一套餐廳服務禮節）。permission: 許可，允許；overlook: 忽視，忽略；etiquette: 禮節，禮儀；entree: 主菜，正菜；ubiquitous: 普遍存在的，無所不在的。

6. hover: 徘徊；twitch: 抽搐，抽動；instant: 瞬間，剎那；fork: 餐叉。

7. vulture: 禿鷲；promptly: 立即，馬上；snatch: 迅速拿走，奪取；silverware: 銀餐具。

8. a mess of: 許多；subtle: 微妙的，細微的。

9. hold sb. up: 耽擱某人。

10. guilt: 內疚，負罪感。

11. extensively: 廣泛的，大量的；eat out: 在外吃飯，下館子。

12. a chorus of disapproval: 齊聲反對；surface: 顯露，暴露。

13. SF Gate : 《舊金山大門》；San Francisco Chronicle:《舊金山紀事報》；implore: 懇求，乞求。

14. Amateur Gourmet: 業余美食家。

15. 《紐約時報》曾為餐廳員工列了一個很長的“禁做事項清單”，其中就包括“當同桌其他顧客尚未用餐完畢時，不要取走已用完餐的顧客面前的空盤子。等待，等待，耐心等待”這一條。staffer: 工作人員，職員；course: 一道菜。

16. evade: 躲避，避開。

17. impetus: 推動力。

18. profitable: 盈利的；linger: 逗留，徘徊。

19. suffice: 足夠，滿足要求。

20. clutter: 雜亂。

21. talk sth. up: 過分夸獎，吹捧。

（來源：英語學習雜志 編輯：丹妮）