Boat Street Cafe and the case of the fatty pork.
Pork Belly is currently all the rage. All the local restaurants are doing it. I've had it in three restaurants, and I can safely say that the Boat Street cafe's version of the dish was disgusting. I can put up with weird food, and do often; but this took the cake. What made the event worse was that the waitress tried to justify the mistake the chef made. The reason I'm blogging is that I didn't complain appropriately. We are either meek creatures or complete jackasses when confronted with injustice.
When the pork belly came it was like a slice of cake. White cake. With a tiny layer of meat at the bottom and a caramel colored layer on top. I'm sure the chef thought it was aesthetically appealing and visually I must admit it was. I poked at the dish, but finally it really got to me that this wasn't a semolina cake it was globs of white fat. I couldn't eat it. I told the waitress that it didn't look appetizing, and this is where my failure came. She said pork belly should be around 40% fat. It was like 85% fat. It was gross. The fat was white and lumpy like fat. The waitress said that the chef thought it was fine. The mistake was in not saying: "This isn't 40% fat. Lemme talk to the Chef." See what a polite society we live in? We let mistakes go by.
I read in a marketing book a long time ago that customers don't complain, they just don't come back. I wonder how many pork bellies were left uneaten, the chef unaware of the mistake she made. Feedback is the essence of adaptation, but with a waitress like that, there is no chance of that. She blamed me for the error. And that was the end of the feedback loop. Do you think the bussers are going to go back to the kitchen and say "No one ate the pork belly?". No the Chef, in her "droit d'auteur" assumes that she is right until people stop coming to her place.
Boat Street Cafe is a good place to eat. But this doesn't bode well for its long term success.
When the pork belly came it was like a slice of cake. White cake. With a tiny layer of meat at the bottom and a caramel colored layer on top. I'm sure the chef thought it was aesthetically appealing and visually I must admit it was. I poked at the dish, but finally it really got to me that this wasn't a semolina cake it was globs of white fat. I couldn't eat it. I told the waitress that it didn't look appetizing, and this is where my failure came. She said pork belly should be around 40% fat. It was like 85% fat. It was gross. The fat was white and lumpy like fat. The waitress said that the chef thought it was fine. The mistake was in not saying: "This isn't 40% fat. Lemme talk to the Chef." See what a polite society we live in? We let mistakes go by.
I read in a marketing book a long time ago that customers don't complain, they just don't come back. I wonder how many pork bellies were left uneaten, the chef unaware of the mistake she made. Feedback is the essence of adaptation, but with a waitress like that, there is no chance of that. She blamed me for the error. And that was the end of the feedback loop. Do you think the bussers are going to go back to the kitchen and say "No one ate the pork belly?". No the Chef, in her "droit d'auteur" assumes that she is right until people stop coming to her place.
Boat Street Cafe is a good place to eat. But this doesn't bode well for its long term success.
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