Last night my husband and I went out to dinner with our friend who set us up. She wanted to go out to dinner. There are a few places, we can go out because of my allergies. We tried a branch of a restaurant we have never had a problem with and normally they handle my allergies fairly well and are accommodating. I guess when they open the new store here in my neighborhood they took all the good workers from all the other restaurants in the area. I was not impressed, I asked simple questions about simply how they made something and they couldn’t answer my question. They where unwilling to look, it was not busy.
We finally decided it would be best not to eat there no sense in possibly causing an allergic reaction. They where rather rude about my asking questions. I hate asking questions but it important to now, because forgetting to ask could be a serious problem.
My husband and I go to a couple of Kosher Restaurants in the area. They are wonderful, we don’t have to worry about the keeping of the grill, because if your kosher there are certain rules that are to be followed. The restaurant we went to last night you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the bathrooms. So I picked at their grill and cooking area, I have to be honest I am surprised of how clean they kept it. I cook often at home, and well I don’t keep things that nice looking while cooking.
When I ordered, I asked the Waitress, how things where made. When she didn’t know what all was in it she go and find out. The nice thing about this place is most of their dinners had a list of ingredients this is important for me it reduces my asking questions down a lot. My husband and myself eat kosher also so there are a lot more options at a kosher restaurant for us then at a normal restaurant. It’s nice not to have to tell them hey pork will kill me, and not to have to ask what kind of grease is being used or what’s been cooked in the grease.
Pork is a real serious problem for me, so I am always careful when I order sometimes I end up only getting stuff not cook on the grill. So it a lot of salads, and sometimes they try to sneak the pork in on you. I don’t know why but it just seems like all the none kosher restaurants are getting on this big everything has to have pork in it. If I wasn’t allergic to it I still would not eat pork. I do eat Kosher and it for religious reasons, but I don’t think I would be so careful to avoid it. I wouldn’t worry so much about the grill possible still having it on it or if they cook in the grease something pork. It wouldn’t matter healthwise.
My husband after finding out some of the things restaurants do, has for the most decided to not get fries because of the cooking pork in it. Well the waitress at our kosher restaurant was more then happy to help and answer question. What I do not get is why is it so hard to ask questions and find out the correct information for a customer. Would they do this to someone with a peanut allergy because they simply felt the need to be lazy. I realize being allergic to pork and beef isn’t a common allergy and it not my fault my body has a problem with it. I didn’t say hey have a allergic reaction it will be fun…
I have noticed some restaurants like KFC, in larger Muslim community will not use pork products. This is great it, shows KFC knows something about making customer happy, but you know there are plenty of Jewish Community in the USA with a few KFC around but they don’t do the same. I just find it odd that they would do it for one major community and not do it for another community which is just as major and large. I don’t have a problem with Muslims neither frankly I don’t care what a person is. I think KFC has the right idea, to make the customer happy, but at the same time I think it important for anyone in the Food industry to understand their community areas, and to understand allergies.Would I eat at a Muslim restaurant I probably would just don’t know of any in the area, and normally when i find restaurants that work I tent to stick with the restaurant or branch.
The thing that bugs me with my experience last night with my husband is that the restaurant was slow that we stopped at first, there was maybe 4 or 5 tables with people at it. They probably felt they had made their customer happy for the day and didn’t need to worry about making another one happy. They had plenty of staff on, so it not like they where short staffed. They had the time to go and look up ingredients, wouldn’t have taken long. Now my Kosher restaurant which was full of customers, and probably didn’t have as many staff working took the time out to find out the ingredient in the same product at the other restaurant. The Waitress did it happily, she didn’t have a attitude about it. She went and looked it up, came back and told me what was being used in it. It took her maybe 2 minutes to do this, so why couldn’t the bigger restaurant which I am sure has more customer darking their door steps, then the Kosher Restaurant in a more Jewish Neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong I am so glad they have good customer service and that they take the time out to make sure their customers are happy. But if anyone didn’t have the time to find out an ingredient it was her.
I guess my solution to the problem is to just go to the Kosher Restaurants and put my money where it would be better spent!
