Restaurant rage

When the f*** can I order?” This is what one irate male customer had spewed at Cecille Ysmael, renowned chef of Silk and Terrace restaurants, one busy evening at a jam-packed Terrace, when she decided to help her service staff attend to customers. 

“The nerve!” I responded. “What did you say to him?  How did you deal with it? With a raw egg cracked on his head or with a dinner roll, buttered first and then stuffed in his mouth?” 

 “I dealt with him in the most professional of ways,” Chef Cecille answered. “He had just arrived to join a group of friends who had come in much earlier than he did. I said to him, ‘Right now, Sir, but please give me a second to get a piece of paper so I can write down your order.’”

Before I could utter a mouthful in protest of her tolerant and forgiving ways, her husband, undisputed club scene king Louie Ysmael, who had joined us at the table over a most unforgettable steak and pasta dinner at Terrace, turned to her in shock and said, “What? Why didn’t you tell me this? I was here that time, wasn’t I?”

 “Yes, you were,” Cecille replied. “But had I told you, you would have strangled him!”

“That’s precisely the point,” the rest of us at the table chorused, still puzzled at the reserve and diplomacy that a premier chef like her, who cooks and oversees two restaurants and delivers excellent food to countless customers daily, can muster.

 She merely broke into a smile and said, “It comes with the territory.” 

Outraged by her story I asked her if she has had other customers from hell and she said, “Oh, of course, I’ve had so many run-ins with characters like that but I simply keep my cool.  What else can I do? Oh, there was this man at the other restaurant, Silk, who was with a group of women. Same scenario: the restaurant was full house so I took it upon myself to assist the staff. I rushed to this man’s table and took their orders. I immediately relayed their drink orders to the bar for processing before I continued with their food orders — you know, in keeping with our excellent service motto. But in the middle of everything, this man changed his mind and wanted another drink instead. But the bottle of his original choice of beer had already been opened so I asked nicely, ‘Sir, the bottle has already been opened, is it okay if you just have it?’”

 She continued, “But he growled at me saying, Ikaw ang uminom niyan (you drink it)!’ So, ever so nicely and with all the self-control I could muster I said to him, ‘Sir, had you just said it nicely, I would have given you your drink of choice on the house.’ In the end, we still gave him what he wanted; we’re in the service industry, that’s what it’s all about.”

 There is much to be said about men harassing waiters in such a fashion but there is murder to be committed on any man who does the same to a waitress, or worse, to the chef who shall cook him his supper.

Ours is a culture that is probably one of the most disrespectful toward service industry workers because we don’t put much value into such a line of work. Unlike Europe, the US or Australia, where there is dignity found in restaurant service and afforded to waiters and waitresses, here in the Philippines we are guilty of overstepping our boundaries in dealing with service staff. Here, the standard call for service is one of several unorthodox gestures delivered from across a room; shouts of “Boss,” “Chief,” “Pssst pssst” or “Hoy!”; a manic waving of the arms, a snapping of the fingers, or a clucking of the tongue. I’ve seen napkins twirling in the air and hand clapping to catch the attention of preoccupied waiters balancing half a dozen plates on their arms and shoulders. Customers instantly feel slighted if the waiter fails to rush to their side in the succeeding seconds. But there are a select few who take it a step further and go into a rage.

 Restaurant rage is what they call this phenomenon. An article in the Washington Post on September 5, 2001 named it such and defined it as “Anger in a restaurant setting over food, service, or ambience that has gone out of control and manifested in irrational or violent behavior resulting in disturbance of the peace, damage to property, or outright physical assault on another person.”

 After hearing Cecille’s stories, and reading the article in the Post, I asked myself: Has human nature really become so complicated and so corrupted that the American Psychiatric Association has had to study and document dozens of types of personality disorders including something as seemingly absurd as “Restaurant Rage”?

According to Wikipedia, restaurant rage, just like road rage and queue rage, falls under the umbrella of what is medically known as “Intermittent Explosive Disorder,” a behavioral disorder characterized by extreme expressions of anger, often to the point of uncontrollable rage, that are disproportionate to the situation at hand. It is currently categorized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as an impulse-control disorder. 

A 2006 study published by Harvard University researchers suggests that the disorder is more prevalent than previously thought and that it is more prevalent in men than in women. It is has been found to be correlated to a low brain serotonin turnover rate — the very same chemical imbalance associated with clinical depression.

 So the next time we encounter these “restaurant ragers” we should have a better understanding of what drives them. Not that we can actually arm ourselves with the information and liberty to deal with them directly but here’s hoping that they become aware of what really ails them and that they remedy the condition accordingly.

 I don’t think many of us have the infinite patience and grace of Chef Ysmael, who, aside from still whipping up the best meals in town — even for characters who rant at her — can also throw them a smile and give them the best service. Even after reading up on the clinical causes of such a disorder I don’t think I can take someone who lobs four-letter words at me and then expects me to feed him with a grain of salt. 

 But all right; instead of holding a chef’s knife at his throat or a carving fork to his chest, I’ll probably serve him the best platter of steak with a side of garlic mashed potatoes liberally sprinkled with crushed bits of Prozac so that he may chill, and so that the rest of the diners, and the entire restaurant staff, who only aim to serve well, may go about their business in peace and relative harmony.

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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com or visit my blog at www.fourtyfied.blogspot.com.