Sunday, May 01, 2005

Why do I carry a dry-erase marker? I'll tell you why.

It's because I like to help businesses. I'm not joking, though you may think I am (immaturity, incredulity, inability to grasp the basic sensibility of the act). For example, whenever I go to a restaurant and something about my dish falls up short, I leave a note around the rim of the plate. This is a more clear message than simply leaving an offending piece of food uneaten. The busboy is sure to point it out to his manager.

Today I went to Greg's Uptown Diner for a vegan scramble. I saw that their chef was new, and though I did consider leaving, I knew from experience that the other joints in town do a much worse breakfast. The devil you know is better than the devil you don't, as I say. Although in this case Greg's new chef turned out to be the worst devil you can imagine.

As I was saying, I like to get the vegan scramble with Tofeggy™, harissa, and brown nut bean paste. Tofeggy isn't something you can screw around with, and I guess you might say I was putting the new chef (just a cook, really) to the test.

I cannot begin to describe the failure of his vegan scramble. First of all, he used egg whites, which he burned into a thin brown "pancake" before wiping on a pathetic amount of harissa and a spoonful of brown nut bean paste. Then he folded it into an offensive, greasy burrito. On the side was the appropriate scoop of fenugreek-steeped quinoa, which I was able to eat, but on the whole I was just disgusted with the affair. That's when my marker came out.

Around the rim of the plate I carefully inscribed the following message, which I first wrote drafts of in my journal so that I could be as concise as possible:

VEGAN SCRAMBLE CANNOT CONTAIN EGG WHITES. FILLING PATHETIC IN QUANTITY. EXPECT COMPED MEAL ON NEXT VISIT. FIRE CHEF IMMDTLY. PAT.

We'll see how that goes. Greg is a pretty sensible guy, and I'm sure he'll be having words with the offending fellow. In fact, I saw the cook and busboy watching me after my dishes were cleared and I started to walk out (no tip, of course, not after a shenanigan like that). I frowned and pointed them out to Greg as we did our usual curt wave goodbye.