Written all over it?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Written all over it?

My favourite story is the one about a waiter who has seen me coming to the Golden Dragon at Vasant Vihar for the last 35 years - he has seen me grow up and he has turned grey, he insists on calling me baba, and delights my sons with stories of my callow youth.

With his funny stories, he has made sure Golden Dragon will have a third generation of loyal customers. I am certain when the boys go on their first dates, he’ll entertain their girlfriends with his fund of stories about the chhota babas.

That’s old-world restaurant service for you, the kind you’ll get only at the Connaught Place veterans or in the aging establishments of the old South Delhi.

It is personal, affable, yet not obtrusive. I know of old-world waiters who know exactly what their guests want when they say, “Get me that thing I had last time and I liked very much.” That culture, though, may not last for long.

The problem with the new restaurants is that there are too many of them vying for a shrinking talent pool. The demand-supply gap is especially telling in the service department, for you can find good cooks in Delhi without much effort, thanks to our proximity to Uttarakhand, and also to the number of them in five-star hotels who want to break free. Getting a good waiter who doesn't trip on his words or fumble with the order is like extracting water out of stone.

Desperate restaurants poach talent without any let-up (watering holes thrive in this market because people under the influence are more generous with tips), which may be good for waiters (they keep flitting from one better-paying restaurant to the other), but bad for the culture of dining out (because the sense of continuity that used to glue customers to their favourite restaurants is disappearing slowly).