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…a waitress who had a giant spot with a head the colour of a pale yellow egg yolk. The only question was on which of us was it to burst.

‘Too much service in my opinion is practically worse than none. You don’t have any opportunity to enjoy the company of the people who you are with.’

The words of Michelle Garnaut, the former Melbourne restaurateur who launched M on the Fringe in Hong Kong in 1989 and M on the Bund in Shanghai in 1999. (She hopes to have the 400-seater Capital M in Beijing open for the 2008 Olympics, building works around her permitting.)

I recently interviewed her for the business magazine In The Black together with Luke Stringer from Oyster Little Bourke St. Garnaut’s words haunted me as I was over serviced at The Flower Drum recently and nearly knocked a waiters glasses off as he topped up my water for the fifth time in as many minutes.

‘Good service — you don’t even know its there,’ says Garnaut. ‘It’s about anticipation. It’s not about the waiter. It’s not about the person servicing you.’

Booking a restaurant table is a contract for service. What a diner expects in a fine dining restaurant is very different from the medium or bottom end of the scale.

‘If you go to McDonald’s, service is not part of the deal. You can expect that the people serving you when you are in a queue are polite and efficient. That is as much as you can expect,’ says Garnaut.

The story was part of a series called In The Trenches which bring out the management lessons from different industries. The first one I wrote back in 1995 was about what we can learn from the pressure cooker of the restaurant kitchen. I’m currently going through the entire UK and US Kitchen Nightmares series to update this story with more fucking words from the genius management guru himself, Gordon Ramsay.

One aspect that has come to mind since that story is personal presentation and hygene after Gordon Ramsay told someone they had bad fucking breath.
If you are front of house you can’t afford to have BO, bad breath or sprinkle dandruff, as it were Parmesan cheese, on food (or guests for that matter).
But at a time when every waiter or waitress in all these new restaurant opening seems to be 12 years old, what about spots?
Is a spotty waiter appropriate?
It’s not fair to single out individuals but recently in a very expensive two hat restaurant a waitress had a giant spot with a head the colour of a pale yellow egg yolk. The only question was on which of us was it to burst. oh, and she had a bit of attitude.
I think when you are paying two hats prices you don’t expect to see spots, blackheads, chronic skin conditions, weeping sores or, dare I say, deformities.
There again in McDonald’s you’d be surprised not to see staff without spots or blackheads.
Should wait staff be stood down when they have spots?

Food fascist
What makes a successful restaurant? from Michael Bauer on SFGate.

What level of disability are you prepared to tolerate in restaurant service? Would Heather Mills be steady enough on her single natural foot not to spill gravy?

What about long hair and beards?

What about lepers in the kitchen?

Has anybody else noticed how young staff are now at all the new Crown restaurants, saying nothing of St Jude’s Cellars?

Where do we draw the line? Some people hold their knives and forks like apes - should they be thrown out of restaurants as all animals, save small dogs, should?

Popularity: 10% [?]

This is, as Joe Strummer said, a public service announcement and it may “Rock the Casbah” a bit.

The idea of Very Cheap Eats (Email me as gastrotomATgmailDOTcom if you’d like to become a reviewer) is to provide a guide to the best cheap food in Australian in the sort of places you’d actually choose to go out and spend an hour or so eating in. It is about meals of at least two courses costing less than $20 (or roundabouts) excluding beverages.

It is not about takeaways and food courts. I’m happy to keep existing posts up but i just wanted to clarify this as it is important to stay true to the Very Cheap Eats vision.

The idea was bourn out of frustration of the existing guidebooks by AOF over at Confessions of Food Nazi. The Cheap Eats Guide some years ago lost the plot with even its price guide of $30 being fairly meaningless.

The Friday before the latest edition was published I ate at Cheap Eats Restaurant of the Year Rumi up at the far end of Lygon St. Aside from a couple of greasy stuffed fingers of pastry the food was pretty good. The service was excellent and they even went to the trouble of making a special iced tea for me (I was participating in the alcohol free charity event) that was off menu.

I enjoyed the meal immensely despite having ordered too much. The fit out of the restaurant is delightful and the ambiance alluring (apart from one very loud woman nearby).

But it cost about $80 for two. It was an incredibly good value meal. But it was not a Cheap Eat.

Both Cheap Eats and The Good Food Guide give a very comprehensive coverage of Melbourne. But they have incrementally added so many features and seem to want to add more restaurants to their pages to bust the magic number of 500. This is the publishers chasing the dollar rather than serving the reader. They should each focus on what really are the best cheapest and simply the best eats of all.

When AOF posted this I quickly registered a blogger account and a domain because this blog Very Cheap eats is such a good idea. As far as I am concerned it is a community project and anybody can join (we have space for 100 contributors).

But AOF and I feel there should be some strict guidelines to ensure we don’t go down the Cheap eats route and lose the plot.

I’ve also given some guidelines to what should be covered to give a comprehensive review. I know this means a bit more work and observation but it also makes Very Cheap Eats a much better resource if you<span style=”font-weight:bold;”> try and cover the items below</span>.

THE RULES AND REVIEWING GUIDELINES

1.The venue
It should be a sit down venue where you can enjoy two courses and a beverage of under $20 from ordering pretty much anything on the menu. If it’s a few dollars over that’s not too much of a problem. It could be a particular day of the week where the food is cheap. For instance, I must post about the Sunday Lunch at Madras Banyan Tree where the only option is a vegetarian banquet for about $20 plus drinks. Any other time and it would cost more to eat there but i think Sunday is within the spirit of Very Cheap Eats.

The location doesn’t matter. It can be anywhere in the world. <span style=”font-weight:bold;”>It can be anywhere in the world. Please include the name (linked to website if there is one), address and telephone number at the top of the post.</span>
2. Double posting.
Yes, you can double posts and link back to your blog as I have on Very Cheap Eats. It would also be nice to point to Very Cheap Eats to help build readership.

3. The food and ingredients
Is the food fresh and presented well? Does it taste good or inferior. Are the portions large or small? Don’t be scared to give your opinion.

4. Drinks
What did you drink? Does it serve coffee, tea, wine beer or anything else? How much do they cost?

5. Service
Is it self service or table service? Are the waiters attentive or lazy? Was service slow or quick or did they keep bringing you the wrong thing?

6. Money
How much did each thing you ate cost and do you think it was worth the money? Remember, broadly speaking you should be able to buy a meal of two courses for around $20 excluding drinks

What would be really useful for readers is to give the minimum and maximum prices for starters, mains and desserts and the price of coffee.

7. Ambience
This is important as we want to review proper cafes and restaurants that you would want to go out and eat in at night. We don’t want takeaway stores. Is it a place you’d want to spend time in or is it a horrible strip lit tiled room? The reader needs to know.

8. The best and worst of the venues
try and identify what you think is the best and the worst of the venue. Perhaps it is the horrible loos or the rude service. the reader wants to know. be ballsy and show some opinions because that’s what readers want. Don’t be frightened of opinion.

Popularity: 21% [?]