Restaurant Swindlesby Michael R Burden
Handling Waiters - 1
As you are sitting down the waiter asks "Can I get you a drink?" Ostensibly this is a welcoming
gesture from a waiter who seems sensitive to the customer's needs
You are expected to promptly ask for a drink without seeing the menu or knowing the price - because you are gasping for one! However, do not order a drink without seeing the drinks' price list first or else you could have a nasty little shock when the bill is finally presented!
At the start of the meal, and before you have hardly sat down, a waiter will bring a tray
of snacks, canapés or nuts to the table, and offer you a plate or invite you
to take one
This is a more blatant 'con' and relies on the tourist believing that these items are included in the cost of the meal or are 'on the house'. Often they cost at least as much as the main meal.
Refuse any such invitations or offers. Settle down first and get into a focused frame of mind ready to carefully study the menu and to pit your wits against the waiters' if the need arises.
With the meal or preceding the meal, the waiter will bring dishes of side salad, baskets
of
bread, etc. which are accompaniments to the meal, but you have not specifically ordered
these
either by referring to a menu or even verbally
As another means of overcharging customers or running up big bills for them, this is a more audacious variation on asking you verbal questions with no menu. The waiter is assuming that the customer is under the impression that such items are included in the price of the meal, and the customer almost certainly believes that they are - especially when it is the local custom or convention in that country for waiters to always bring such items to a meal table whether asked for or not, and the custom for local restaurants not to charge their local customers extra for them.
The tourist customer rightly does not assume anything - he is aware that everything not specifically listed on a menu or not specifically ordered or not specifically priced is regarded as extra - and that this is even true of the condiments! Check that everything brought to the table has been ordered; or more precisely, check that you are sure of the exact price of everything before you eat it. If in doubt about any particular item, make the waiter take it away; do not just put it to one side.
After you've ordered the meal or believe you've ordered the meal, the waiter removes the menu and then returns soon afterwards to ask supplementary questions e.g. 'Do you want bread?' 'Do you prefer jacket potato or French fries?' or '...and with your schnitzel, sir, would you like potato salad (if in Vienna), potato dumplings (if in Prague), potato noodles (if in Budapest)?
You are under the impression that what the waiter is asking about or suggesting is included with the meal, or will add only very little cost and so you agree to the waiter's suggestions, not realising the price implications. The menu that you have been offered will have been deliberately unclear, ambiguous or misleading on what is or is not included, thereby giving the waiter the leeway and latitude to ask several questions and run up an inflated bill for the more unwary or slow-witted customer safe in the knowledge that any overcharging or cheating cannot be stymied by the customer referring to the menu that he can understand, but by referring only to local language menu - if to any printed menu at all - which only the waiter can understand.
Verbal questions from the waiter or waitress in an English restaurant will invariably have no cost implications but this will certainly not be the case in a 'tourist trap'.
If as is more likely, it is not clearly listed on the English language menu as extra, ask him how much it costs and make him point it out on the menu he has given you. Instead of it appearing on the bill at the end of the meal as an overpriced extra or hidden charge (as the waiter had hoped and intended!) the waiter will now have to 'come clean' and show it to you on the menu - almost certainly on the local language menu where (unlike the English language menu) everything is properly listed and priced.
In an English restaurant, the different kinds of potato which you order verbally are all the same price and included with the menu price anyway. In the tourist trap restaurant, potatoes are not only an unlisted extra, but also the chips will cost much more - maybe twice as much as the local form of potato, given that many tourists - in the same way that many customers even in Chinese restaurants ask for chips - will choose chips instead of rice.
In general, be aware that the waiter is adopting the technique of the con man or the distraction thief. The con man will ask a series or string of questions or make a series of requests and get positive answers, leading you down a certain road until you realise that it's a con too late! The distraction thief gets your attention away from what he wants to distract it from - a street thief gets your attention or awareness away from your wallet whereas a sly and cunning waiter in a tourist trap restaurant gets your attention away from the menu and your awareness away from its prices.
You must be always aware of both your wallet and the menu. Do not reply to the waiter's verbal questions, but make him fetch the menu again! When the menu is back in your hand, study it and establish whether or not the item verbally referred to by the waiter is mentioned in the menu or not. If it is on the menu, albeit vaguely, fair enough - maybe you should have read the menu more carefully.
Remember - keep hold of the menu, for then you and not he waiter controls the dialogue. Also keep asking the questions instead of answering the waiter's questions - for by asking instead of answering you again control the dialogue. And if you continue to ask the right questions in most things, you will eventually arrive at the truth.
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