Hello there Dear Reader,
Things are calm in my life at the moment - calm enough, that is, to add a little blog - a blogette if you will - to this ever increasingly neglected corner of cyberspace.
So where do I start?
Well, over the past couple of weeks, I've been on my travels - going over to The Good Ol' U S of A. California to be more precise. San Francisco to be even more precise. And Las Vegas. I went over to spend some time with Katie, a good friend of mine.
A great time was had and I'm sure I'll go into it in more detail at a later date but one thing I want to bang on about for a moment is "Dining in America".
Dining in America, as we all know, is a different experience from dining elsewhere – big portions, fast service, even faster dining, thank-you and please come again. But it’s not all ‘wham, bam, thank-you ma’am’ – indeed compared with Belgium and it’s 3 hour meals served by indifferent staff, it can make a refreshing change.
The large portions certainly take a helluva getting used to and I don’t think I acclimatised particularly well in that department but the whole time I was there, I don’t recall having a bad dining experience. Perhaps Katie was only taking me to the ones that were OK – but I didn’t get that impression. Most of the restaurants weren’t high-class affairs in the way that so many are in Antwerp – they were just honest businesses trying to make a living.
Iced water is served constantly to diners at no cost – yes of course it’s tap-water, but it’s certainly very drinkable. Waiters and waitresses, whilst initially a little bit overbearing with their “Good evening folks and how are you today? My name is Tiffany and I’ll be your waitress for this evening” chit chat, are generally very attentive but I suppose that’s a by-product of the tipping culture that they have. Something else which can take a bit of getting used to.
I suppose what I’m saying is that there are positives to be taken from both the Belgian and the American dining experiences. I love eating out. I love the restaurant experience – but sometimes I don’t want it to last 3 weeks from start to finish a la Belgique. A simple ‘get there, get stuck in, get out’ experience is ok too.
OK - that's all I have to say about this particular topic!
Things are calm in my life at the moment - calm enough, that is, to add a little blog - a blogette if you will - to this ever increasingly neglected corner of cyberspace.
So where do I start?
Well, over the past couple of weeks, I've been on my travels - going over to The Good Ol' U S of A. California to be more precise. San Francisco to be even more precise. And Las Vegas. I went over to spend some time with Katie, a good friend of mine.
A great time was had and I'm sure I'll go into it in more detail at a later date but one thing I want to bang on about for a moment is "Dining in America".
Dining in America, as we all know, is a different experience from dining elsewhere – big portions, fast service, even faster dining, thank-you and please come again. But it’s not all ‘wham, bam, thank-you ma’am’ – indeed compared with Belgium and it’s 3 hour meals served by indifferent staff, it can make a refreshing change.
The large portions certainly take a helluva getting used to and I don’t think I acclimatised particularly well in that department but the whole time I was there, I don’t recall having a bad dining experience. Perhaps Katie was only taking me to the ones that were OK – but I didn’t get that impression. Most of the restaurants weren’t high-class affairs in the way that so many are in Antwerp – they were just honest businesses trying to make a living.
Iced water is served constantly to diners at no cost – yes of course it’s tap-water, but it’s certainly very drinkable. Waiters and waitresses, whilst initially a little bit overbearing with their “Good evening folks and how are you today? My name is Tiffany and I’ll be your waitress for this evening” chit chat, are generally very attentive but I suppose that’s a by-product of the tipping culture that they have. Something else which can take a bit of getting used to.
I suppose what I’m saying is that there are positives to be taken from both the Belgian and the American dining experiences. I love eating out. I love the restaurant experience – but sometimes I don’t want it to last 3 weeks from start to finish a la Belgique. A simple ‘get there, get stuck in, get out’ experience is ok too.
OK - that's all I have to say about this particular topic!
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