If You Have A Complaint Or Praise While Dining Out, Please Speak Up

Nothing ruins a meal quicker than mixed up orders, a waiter with an attitude or sitting there forgotten. Yet, few customers know how to correctly handle bad service, so they sit there and stew.

American Express has recently come up with a tip sheet, offering guidance on effectively dishing feedback to restaurants.

The suggestions, which follow, seem simple enough:

Feel comfortable expressing your opinion. Successful restaurants consider their customers’ comments an invaluable source of information on how to run a better business.

Never assume your opinion is too small.

Be as specific as possible with your comments.

Make your comments in a timely fashion, preferably while you’re at the restaurant. This gives the restaurant a chance to respond.

If the person to whom you address you comments doesn’t respond to your satisfaction, ask to talk to the manager, chef or owner.

Obtain the names of the restaurant personnel to whom you direct your comments. This establishes a personal link between you and the restaurant.

Comment in the way that you are most comfortable with: in person, over the phone, in a letter.

Don’t limit your comments to criticism. If praise is warranted, offer that, too.

Demonstrate your satisfaction with a restaurant’s food or service by asking for a favorite server, leaving a generous tip or telling friends about your experience.

Patronize establishments that welcome and respond to customer comments.

The problem with such advice is that most diners won’t heed it because they are leery of causing a scene, so they skip these steps and just don’t return to a restaurant.

Short of taking an assertiveness training course, I’ve found the most reliable tack is to take a deep breath and ask to talk to the manager. Then calmly explain your concern. Any manager worth his salt should do just about anything to see that customers are satisfied.

And, finally, if the complaint is with the food and not the service, you’ll make a better case if you don’t lick your plate clean before registering your beef.

Tea time

While summer temperatures seem to scream for iced tea, purists will appreciate weekly tea parties thrown at the Clark House mansion on gorgeous Hayden Lake.

The tete-a-teas - seatings are at 2:30 and at 3 p.m. each Wednesday and Thursday through September - include goodies from Pastries and More as well as a lecture on the mansion’s colorful history. Afternoon tea is $12 per person and reservations are required. Call (208) 772-3470 to save your spot.

Also, prix fixe dinners by chef Bill Kaye are available at the mansion Thursdays through Saturdays. A recent menu included shrimp and smoked salmon cocktail, cream of vegetable soup, romaine quarters with roasted pepper vinaigrette and a choice of either salmon with kiwi lime beurre blanc, roasted breast of chicken with a cabernet fig and apricot glaze and a tenderloin of beef with a caper and Roquefort crust. Dessert was a double Dutch chocolate and fruit parfait. Prices range from $32 to $44 per person.

Reservations are required for dinner, with a minimum party of four.

Cutting out the fat

Lately, diners have been fed a steady diet of disturbing caloric revelations about fat content in some of the most popular restaurant meals, including Kung Pao chicken and chimichangas.

It’s comforting to know that some restaurants are making a special effort to serve low-fat foods. Through a program with the Heart Institute of Spokane, dietitians are working with several area eateries to develop lowfat, flavorful entrees. A “Lite ‘n Hearty” symbol will identify dishes that derive less than 30 percent of their calorie count from fat.

Participating restaurants include Cyrus O’Leary’s, Patsy Clark’s Mansion, Rice Time Express, Sandwich Gardens, The Onion and Windows of the Season. Catered for You is also offering Lite n’ Hearty options.

Each of the restaurants will provide a breakdown of calories, grams of fat and percentage of fat a dish contains on request.

From several sample menus, the lowest fat items that sounded the most appetizing (a bowl of brown rice does not a meal make) were the rosemary chicken (463 calories, 5 grams of fat) at Windows of the Season, the crab seashell salad (371 calories, 8.4 grams of fat) at Cyrus O’Leary’s and the Szechwan noodles with fresh veggies (510 calories, 7.8 grams of fat) at The Sandwich Gardens.

Hot off the grill Fed up with the usual bacon and egg or pancake breakfast routine? Java Coffee and Cafe on Sherman in Coeur d’Alene is ready to take your tastebuds on a flashback to childhood. Along with the standard breakfast fare, the menu at this stylish spot offers Captain Crunch cereal. That’s right, the stuff that turns the milk orange when the sugar dissolves in the bowl, sells for a mere $1.75, with refills $1.