It’s happened to just about all of us at one time or another: you go out to eat, the waiter tells you about the special of the day, it sounds wonderful, you order it, then discover when the check is presented that the dish cost a lot more than you expected it to, in some cases much, much more than anything else on the menu. We either sheepishly pay or vociferously complain to the manger, after which we sheepishly pay.
An extreme example of that scenario was documented recently in the Haggler column in the New York Times. Writer David Segal told of a diner at Nello, a restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, who was shocked to find that the pasta lunch special he had ordered came with a price tag of $275 (I do not know if that included salad). Nello’s regular prices aren’t exactly cheap — one online source lists the price range as $29-$50 — but five and a half times the highest price of anything else on the menu is beyond extreme.
The dish, of course, featured white truffles, the precious delicacy that can cost upwards of $250 an ounce. A few shavings on top of an otherwise pedestrian plate of noodles are obviously going to affect the cost. The diner — not the first to be caught in Nello’s truffle trap, apparently — contacted Segal for help in obtaining a reduction in the bill.
Segal contacted the restaurant’s owner, Nello Balan, who expressed surprise at the situation, although, as Segal noted in the original column, there are numerous online examples of similarly sticker-shocked Nello diners. The outcome was a 25 percent reduction in the bill.
Was that enough, or was that more than generous? I’m conflicted myself.
I learned long ago that if a waiter recites a list of daily specials without offering the prices to ask what they are. Same thing goes for the regular menu that prints “MP” for market price next to such items as fresh fish. Many people are too embarrassed to ask. They don’t want to appear petty, or they don’t want the people they’re with to think they’re cheap, especially if they’re entertaining business clients or on a date. I don’t care what the waiter or the people with me think — I want to know what I’m paying before I get the bill. Along the same lines, I never get on a plane to take a trip without knowing what the ticket costs. Anyone who doesn’t ask what the special of the day will cost before ordering it doesn’t deserve sympathy with the check arrives.
And yet…$275 for a pasta dish is extreme. Yes, truffles are expensive, but not every diner is aware of that. It’s not unusual to attend events that pass out free bags of truffle popcorn or for burgers to be accompanied by truffled fries without adding much to the bottom line. Those items are usually “truffled” with an oil substance that actually has no connection to the actual fungi that are hunted in France and Italy by specially trained dogs. But still, the culinary world does little to draw the distinction, so in the minds of an unilluminated diner a truffle is a truffle is a truffle.
We also have in our mind that special means “on sale.” And, perhaps, it used to. In order to move out products whose expiration date is approaching, chefs would offer discounts. Better to get something for the trout amandine than to toss it out. But lower-priced specials are becoming rarer. It’s more likely that a chef will take an item — even a piece of fish that is quickly heading south — and make a special creation, then give it a special — read: higher — price. Count on it. All the more reason to get over your intimidation of asking about the price.
Of course, the ideal thing would be for the restaurant to volunteer the cost of each dish or market-priced item. Even better: print out the specials of the day to present along with the regular menu. Why don’t they? Well, some are hoping that you won’t ask and that you won’t complain about the few dollars more that most specials cost.
But I would submit that if a dish costs five and a half times the highest item on the menu, the waiter should volunteer the price. But as was suggested by the Haggler column, this is not the way Nello operates.
We have one or two restaurants in Central Florida that have been reported to do the same. What are their names? I don’t need to tell you that (and I certainly don’t need the certain litigation that would come my way if I were to make such allegations). All you need to know is that they’re out there, and that if you don’t ask how much something costs before ordering it, you shouldn’t complain when the check arrives.
What do you think? Leave your comments below.
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