#high end restaurant

[thedeluxedoll]

@dr_fevi_birara

[heavyheavycream]

03 date night

[msterpicasso]

@_JaylaR_

[columboscreens]

[sinful-lanterns]

City gal reader may not be the best outside the city, but she’ll definitely be the best girlboss guide around the city life for Korryn now I can’t help but think of them going on this fun little adventure in whitesands and the complicated side of discity I blame the manwhas/webtoons

City Girl! Reader who helps Korryn navigate the subways stations of DisCity because this desert dweller is absolutely bamboozled by the maze that is city subways. I like to think Korryn gets very “sick” whenever she enters big cities. Like it’s so crowded and there’s so much pollution and noise, she isn’t used to it and by the time she gets to your apartment, the usually rough and tough cowgirl is collapsing on your couch and groaning in pain.

You both each have your strengths. Korryn can help you survive in Whitesands while you can help her survive in DisCity <3

[raindropsofloev]

20 !

halwai lol

[bookfirstlinetourney]

Round 1

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

-1984, George Orwell

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

-Restaurant At The End of the Universe, Douglas Adams

They never, ever, in their wildest dreams, would have suspected the sweet widow who lived at the end of the street to be a murderess, but a murderess she was, and this is how she got away with it.

-The Murderess of High Point Bay, C.J. Andrews

[alittlepudge-neverhurtnobody]

kinktober #25

Olympian 🏛️ / Kaiju Attack! 🐙

It's been a little over a month since the restaurant reopened when Mako spies him through the little window between the front and back of house. Blond hair, pale skin, navy sweater — she’s seen his headshot on every review he’s ever done.

“Hey,” she says, grabbing Newt the next time she sees him. “I’ll take out table five’s food when it’s ready. Leave it to me.”

Newt squints at her, then stands on his toes and peers through the little window. “You know him?”

“That’s him,” she says, widening her eyes. “Becket.”

Newt looks at her blankly. “The critic,” she says impatiently. “From the Jaeger.”

“Oh, your guy?” Mako nods. “Huh. Thought he’d look a little edgier. Yeah, I’ll leave his food for you. Want me to give him some complimentary sake or something, warm him up a little?”

“No!” says Mako, and Newt grins. “No, I want his honest opinion. Not his opinion after one of your sake pours.”

“All right, all right,” says Newt, holding up his hands. His vibrant movie-monster tattoos practically glow against his crisp white waitstaff button-down. He’s not supposed to have the sleeves rolled up, but Mako’s already gotten tired of reprimanding him for it when it never works. Sensei might have been more militant about it, but Mako can’t bring herself to care that much. She’s got bigger fish to filet, like the fact that her favorite food writer is sitting just through the door.

She slices and rolls with practiced precision as she waits for Newt to pop back in with Becket’s order. She’s been reading the Jaeger for the better part of five years, studying what factors merit a good review and what factors have tanked restaurants she otherwise respected. She’s spent ages dreaming up her own omakase lineup, how she’d introduce each dish and what flavors she would include, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t imagined how she would present it to Becket, specifically. She’s even imagined what he might say to review it, praising her use of seasonal produce to enhance the menu — chirashizushi with salmon and braised pumpkin, carrot, and burdock root— or her take on Edomae-style comfort food —- marinated tuna and conger eel donburi with akazu, shiso bamboo shoots, and shredded egg crepe —- or her unconventional use of traditional ingredients — a totally vegetarian hand roll with miso-marinated grilled Japanese eggplant and matsutake mushrooms that has won over even the staunchest sushi purists.

Newt makes a beeline for Mako the instant he comes through the swinging doors. She raises her eyebrows expectantly, and Newt says, “He ordered karaage and ramen.”

Ten years of omakase menu plans crash down around Mako’s slip-resistant boots. “What?”

Newt shrugs. “I talked up your menu! I even mentioned the wagyu tataki and daikon salad. But no. He was pretty confident that he wanted ramen.”

“Which one?”

“Spicy tan-tan.” Newt shrugs. “He asked for it with everything, as hot as possible. He’s not a coward. You still want to bring it out?”

Mako purses her lips. Their tan-tan ramen is hot, and the menu makes that clear. “I guess so. It might be my only chance to ask what his problem is.”

She stews while the kitchen prepares Becket’s ramen. He’s reviewed every other omakase in the city, but he comes in here and orders ramen? Does he think her place is too offbeat or too new to have perfected an omakase menu worth his time? And who made him the expert, anyway?

She pauses in chopping carrots and takes a deep breath, trying to find Sensei’s voice amid the boiling in her brain and focus on it. He wouldn’t let this get to him. Sensei put in the training; he taught her practically everything he knows. He’d never cared about reviews, just that he was making good food that people enjoyed. He’d be confident enough in his own expertise not to worry what some white guy thought. So too will Mako.

She carries Becket’s food out carefully and sets it in front of him. “Tan-tan ramen,” she says, bowing her head. “For the critic.”

Becket smiles ruefully. “You recognized me, huh.” It’s strange seeing him in person after reading so much of his voice online: he’s a real person, a flush in his cheeks and a few more pounds on him than in his headshot. His jaw isn’t as sharp, his frame broad and soft, folded over the little two-top in the corner.

“Mako Mori,” she says, extending her hand to him. “I own Kaiju now. I’ve been reading your work for a long time.”

He shakes her hand, his own skin warm and a little rough, though his face falls a bit, unexpectedly. “Raleigh Becket, but you know that. Is Stacker Pentecost still here?”

She takes a step back at Sensei’s name. “He passed a little over a year ago. I’m his daughter. I took over after some renovation.”

“Oh,” says Becket. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was an incredible chef.”

“He was,” Mako agrees, and the follow-up question burns on her tongue: Then why have you never reviewed us?

But Becket sounds genuinely saddened by the news of Sensei’s death, and it throws her off her game just enough to feel uncomfortable actually asking. “I’ll leave you to it,” she says. “Please, let me know what you think.”

But Becket leaves without a word, several bills shoved beneath his plate before she or Newt can even duck back out with a check. He overpays, but it doesn’t get the sour taste out of her mouth.

—

Mako keeps an eye on the Jaeger page for her review. When it doesn’t appear after a week, she sets a Google alert and tries to forget about it. But no alerts come in, and she starts dreading that it ever will. Surely so much time between his dining experience and his review can’t be a good thing? Or maybe he’s got a long backlog of stories queued up and hers won’t be published for months still. Or maybe he doesn’t review places where he actually talks to the chef. Or maybe —

“He’s here again,” says Newt one night, maybe a month later. “Your man from the Jaeger.”

Mako’s heart tries to sink and leap at the same time and instead skips a few beats altogether. “He’s back?”

Newt nods. “Guess what he ordered.”

She frowns. “Ramen again?”

“Yup. Kara miso this time. And takoyaki. That’s progress, eh?”

“I’ll take it out to him,” she says, setting down her knife and taking a long sip of water from the plastic quart container that she’s marked as her own with a little cat doodle on the bottom, its ears forming an M. “Give him the extra sauce for the takoyaki. If he ordered the tan-tan last time, he can handle it.”

“You got it.” Newt salutes and hurries off, and she takes another sip of water, brushing her bangs back from her forehead with her wrist.

Becket is wearing another sweater when she goes out with his order, though this one is oatmeal-colored and intricately cable-knit. It’s been so long since Mako has knit anything; the last thing she wants to do when she gets home is another fiddly thing with her hands, but his sweater’s cable has a pattern like a fishtail and it makes her fingers itch to figure out how to recreate it.

He half-smiles when he sees her, his round cheeks pink. “Chef,” he says, nodding, and she returns the nod with the barest trace of a smile.

“Your ramen,” she says. “What did you think of the takoyaki sauce?”

His eyes light up. “The citrus one? Amazing. Was that — blood orange? And togarashi?”

“Yes,” she says, surprised. “And some pickled ginger.”

“Yes!” he says, grinning, and for a moment her guard drops and she grins back. “You don’t bottle that, do you?”

“No,” she says. “It’s a Kaiju exclusive. And you have to ask for it. I only trust certain people to appreciate it.”

“Well, I’m honored to be one of them,” he says, and when she goes back into the kitchen, she dices vegetables like a madwoman as she tries to process the interaction. What is his deal? He can’t just come in here and appreciate her flavors and light up about her food and then not review her. That’s counterintuitive to the whole process. He’s supposed to leave the restaurant already bursting with adjectives and metaphors to tell the Jaeger’s readership how much they need to taste her food. He’s supposed to order the omakase!

She sends Newt out with the check and a complimentary dish of salted plum sorbet and she’s not even happy about it. It’s not a gesture of goodwill, it’s a challenge. If he can eat that and still not feel compelled to evangelize Kaiju’s menu, then she’ll forget all about him. Sensei used to warn her against putting her heroes on a pedestal, and apparently this is what he meant.

She waits and waits. There’s no review.

—

It’s a while before he comes back, and Mako mostly succeeds in wiping him from her mind. As autumn deepens, she develops a new donburi around taro root, soy-braised tofu, and kombu, a eel and sweet potato tempura roll with umeboshi sauce, and a roasted kabocha nigiri. She’s still making up her mind about which one she’ll add to the omakase when Becket shows up again.

It’s fate, or something like that, that he walks in the moment after Mako has clocked out for her break, planning to go sit on one of the parking barriers in the tiny, leaf-strewn parking lot and enjoy the crisp fall air. But as she watches the host lead him to table five through the little window in the swinging door, she hears Sensei’s voice in her head, telling her to go after what she wants. The whole world is hers, or at least the whole world between the four walls he left her. He’d even chosen the name Kaiju for her, after the old monster movies they’d spent evenings and snow days watching together.

Raleigh Becket is not Godzilla. He’s just a guy who writes a column, and he owes Mako some answers.

She lets Newt swoop out and pour him water, but motions him back into the kitchen before he can take his order. He comes when he’s called, one eyebrow raised over his glasses, and she shakes her head.

“I’m taking care of him,” she whispers, and Newt shrugs, nods.

“Fortune favors the brave, chef.”

She waits until Becket has opened the menu to pounce. He looks up and smiles when he sees her, and she does not like the feeling that bubbles up in her chest, like sparkling sake shaken too hard.

“Hey,” he says, and she pulls out the chair opposite his and sits down.

“Hi,” she says. “Can we talk?”

His sweater today is a deep spruce green; she likes it on him better than the oatmeal. The knit is equally complex, and she stops herself from trying to puzzle it out in front of him. “Sure,” he says. “What about?”

Mako girds herself the way Sensei would. She is the expert here. She knows what she’s doing; she knows what she’s made of. This person’s opinion doesn’t mean she’s any less of a chef.

“You’ve reviewed every omakase in the city,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Except for mine.” Then, when he opens his mouth, “Except for ours. I know you didn’t review my father’s, either. Like I said, I’ve been reading your work for a long time. You’ve never reviewed us at all. Why?”

To his credit, Becket looks sheepish. “Believe me,” he says. “It’s nothing against the food. Actually, it’s because of the food.” He clears his throat. “My brother and I used to come here all the time for ramen. We grew up near Pan-Pacific, and when I heard that your father was opening his own place, we defected here instead.” He smiles a little. “I didn’t know your father beyond meeting him a couple times at local events, but I knew I wanted to follow his cooking wherever he went.”

It’s so strange to hear him say the name of the restaurant where she grew up, where she learned almost everything she knows, stranger still to hear him claim such devotion to her father’s cooking. Why has he never written about them, if Stacker’s food meant so much to him? Becket’s not shy about injecting his reviews with personal experience; he’s written extensively about Trespasser, the Chinese-Peruvian fusion restaurant uptown, and his long friendship with the head chef, Tendo Choi, and the travel diary he kept during his trip across Eastern Europe and Asia a few years ago was almost as much about the people he met as the food he tasted.

She squints at him, trying to make sense of it. He’s not meeting her eyes, and she doesn’t love that. “So?” she prompts, trying to keep the steel from her voice. “Why not write about that?”

He exhales. “My brother died two years ago, and it completely took me apart. I even missed the news about Kaiju closing and reopening. When he was alive, I never reviewed it because it was our place, you know? I didn’t want it to get overrun. And after he died, I wanted to keep it somewhere I could come for comfort and always get a seat.”

“Oh,” says Mako softly. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

He nods, staring into his lap. “I’m sorry, too,” he says finally, raising his head. “For not doing this place justice, and for wanting to keep it for myself.”

Mako sits silently for a moment. “I can understand,” she says. “It was the opposite for me. After my father died, I needed to make sure everyone remembered him through his food. We hadn’t even really talked about my taking over after him; I think part of me thought that it would never happen. That it could never happen. But I couldn’t just let it go. I had to make sure he was still alive somehow, even if the menu has a lot more of my fingerprints on it now.”

“Well, let me be the first to thank you for that,” he says, smiling wryly. “It’s been a huge comfort to me since my brother passed.” He rests his hand on his stomach, its round swell visible even through the thick knit of his sweater. “Probably more than I need. The omakase really does look good, I swear. I just get in my head about deviating from the pattern we always kept, you know?”

Mako nods. Even though the kitchen has been updated since Sensei’s death, she keeps everything exactly where he would have, even if it doesn’t entirely make sense. She’s honed her own knife skills through plenty of YouTube videos and high-level culinary classes, but at the end of the day, she always returns to what she learned from watching Sensei’s large, brown hands when she was barely tall enough to see over the counter.

“Come back tomorrow night if you want to try it,” she says. “A little before closing. I’ll do something special for you, so it can feel different.”

He smiles, a little sadly. “I’d like that.”

“Me too,” she says, standing up. “Ramen tonight? I’m impressed by your spice tolerance.”

His smile broadens. “Thank you. It’s taken a lot of time to hone. I really liked the kara miso last time. Anything else you’d recommend?”

“The kabocha nigiri,” she says without hesitation. “I’ll bring it out first.”

—

“Mr. Becket,” she says the next night, stepping out from the swinging doors. “I’m glad you could make it.”

He gives her a little wave from where he’s standing by table five. “You can call me Raleigh,” he says. “Mind if I sit at the counter?”

“No, please do.”

She’s been prepping all day, letting her kitchen staff take the lead on the usual daily activities. She’ll close up at the usual time and do a private event for Raleigh, just the two of them and the menu.

Sure, the prep has taken up a significant amount of her time, but the distraction of the menu has taken up the rest. She intentionally designed it with eleven courses, an homage to Sensei’s own menu. He’d originally designed his own with ten courses to represent having survived his first bout of cancer — the number nine traditionally being associated with suffering in Japanese superstition — but when Mako had gotten interested in cooking, he’d added one course that he’d let her choose, and he’d had the omakase offerings printed on little menu inserts each day, always with one of the ones in 11 stylized smaller than the other to represent himself and her.

Raleigh chooses the stool closest to the swinging door and sets his bag on the seat next to his. Today he’s wearing a navy cardigan over a blue button-down that looks endearingly like it fit better a few pounds ago.

“Do you drink?” she asks, and Raleigh nods.

“I trust your judgment. Whatever you think pairs best.”

She chooses a junmai that’s a little fruity and just a little spicy, almost like sake’s answer to mulled wine. He nods approvingly after a small sip, and she smiles.

“There are eleven courses,” she says, bracing her hands on the counter and leaning forward. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” says Raleigh. “Hit me.”

She starts him off easy with salmon belly nigiri with scallions and yuzu ponzu, then starts rolling the next course — uni with bird’s eye chili mayo, sweet white shrimp, and cucumber — as he eats.

“This sauce is fantastic,” he remarks after the first bite of salmon and ponzu, and Mako grins slyly.

“Wait until you try the next one.”

The bird’s eye chili mayo makes him set down his chopsticks and just stare at her for a moment. Mako beams.

“You see what you’re missing?” she teases, assembling the next course’s wagyu nigiri and snuggling it in between bunches of pickled ginger and daikon.

Raleigh shakes his head. “I can’t believe I told you I came here for comfort ramen and then you made it impossible for me to be satisfied by your ramen ever again.”

She pauses, unsure of how to respond, but he clears and throat and adds, “That was a joke. Mostly.”

“You’re always welcome to order the ramen,” she tells him, sliding him the wagyu nigiri and starting in on the eel and sweet potato tempura maki. “From now on, at least. And you have my permission to ask for the bird’s eye mayo on anything you want.”

“Thank god,” sighs Raleigh, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “I’m already thinking of how good it would be with your karaage.”

“Or I could build a ramen around it,” she muses, drizzling umeboshi sauce over the maki rolls. “I couldn’t name it after you, though. People might think you were biased.”

Raleigh laughs. “Maybe I am. I definitely would be if you designed a ramen for me.”

“I guess you’ll just have to keep coming,” she says, pushing next plate in his direction.

“Oh, good luck getting rid of me now. I’m thinking about asking if you’ll lease me table five.”

“Maybe a seating plaque wouldn’t seem quite so biased.”

They grin at each other, and Mako blushes and looks back down at the bowl of chirashizushi she’s preparing. She layers in salmon, braised pumpkin, carrot, and burdock root over a bed of rice, then drizzles tamari and a sprinkle of chili flakes over it all. Normally people order omakase as a group: this is her first time preparing the whole thing for one person, and she’s becoming aware that it’s a lot of food for just one. But Raleigh accepts it all gamely, making satisfied sounds and enchanted faces.

Next is a torched tuna roll with black salt and togarashi-strawberry chutney to cut through the warm umami of the chirashizushi. Raleigh actually moans when the chutney hits his tongue, and Mako thrills as she rolls marinated crab with avocado, oshinko, and seared salmon.

“How did you even come up with this?” he asks, popping the last roll into his mouth. “I’ve had a lot of unusual hot pepper flavors, but not that one.”

“Strawberry is my favorite,” says Mako. “And it’s a surprise with the togarashi. It tempers the heat and the pepper brings out the sweetness of the fruit, but also some of the acid.”

“I want to put it on ice cream,” says Raleigh. “Have you tried it that way?”

“No, but now I want to. Is Kaidenovskys' still open?”

Raleigh checks his phone. “Nah, I think they close at eight.” Then, at her raised eyebrow, “I live right over there, I don’t just have an encyclopedic knowledge of every restaurant’s hours in the city.”

She laughs. “Well, maybe we can go sometime. I’ll bring the chutney. Do you want more sake?”

He hesitates. “Maybe half a glass. I want to focus on the food.”

He starts on the marinated crab as she pours, sighing happily at the contrast of sweet seafood and sour pickle. Mako smiles to herself and shapes the miso-eggplant and matsutake hand roll between her palms.

“Oof,” says Raleigh, shifting on his barstool, and she glances up at him.

“Getting full?”

“Starting to flag a little,” he admits. “But I’m in this for the long run.” He pats the swell of his belly. “I can handle a lot, don’t worry.”

Her heart jumps like water in a hot pan. “I believe in you,” she says solemnly, and they both laugh.

“You know,” he muses around his first bite of his next course, “I’m not even really an eggplant guy. Or, I wasn’t. But this may have converted me.”

“It has that effect. One of my staff is a real meat guy, very into beef, and it’s one of his favorite rolls on the menu. Even more than the wagyu.”

“Wow. You’re a magician,” he says approvingly. “This has all been incredible.”

“Thank you. We’re not done. I saved some of the best for last.”

“Oh, man,” says Raleigh, pretending to rest his head on the table. “What’s next?”

“Pan-seared Hokkaido scallops with soy sauce aguachile.” She arranges the scallops on the plate so that they overlap. “This is the final crest of the ride.” She mimes a roller coaster with one hand. “We’re going to go savory-sour, then savory-savory, and then finish on sour-spicy-clean. Ready?”

“Oh yeah,” he says, and she slides the plate in front of him. Then, after his first bite, “Oh, that is sour. But perfect. Those scallops are like butter.”

“They’re my favorite,” she says. “In the summer I do them with a grapefruit aguachile and they’re even better.”

He sips his sake. “That sounds incredible. I’ll come back for those. I mean, I’ll probably be back tomorrow, if I’m not too full to move. But I’ll also come back for those.”

She laughs as she plates the amberjack nigiri. “Are you familiar with Edomae? I’m working on putting more on the menu, but I like what I’ve experimented with so far.”

“Fermenting, right? And aging?”

“Yes. This is jukusei aged amberjack, dried and pickled in salt.”

“I haven’t tasted much of it, but I’d love to learn more about it.” He takes a small, experimental first bite, and his eyes go wide. “Oh, fuck, that’s so good. Sorry for the language, but oh my god.”

She laughs aloud. “I’m so glad I got to witness this.”

“Can I sponsor you to get more into Edomae?” he asks, covering his mouth as he chews. “Is that weird?”

“Yes, you can,” she says, smiling. “Through a process called ‘eating at my restaurant’ that will benefit both of us.”

Raleigh laughs. “Okay, fair.”

“All right, last one,” she says as he clears his plate. “How are you feeling?”

“Definitely full,” says Raleigh, palming his stomach. “But also having a religious experience, I think.”

“Well, don’t have it all just yet,” she says, presenting the last plate. “This is kombu-cured sea bass with wasabi oil and lemon.”

Raleigh exhales hard, chopsticks poised in his hand. “All right,“ he says. “I’m ready.”

She watches the sea bass melt in his mouth, watches his eyes close as the kick of wasabi hits, then the zing of lemon. He chews slowly, silently, and then he lays his chopsticks down across his plate.

“Damn,” he says finally. “That’s one hell of a closer, Mori.”

“Thank you,” she says, bowing slightly. “And please. It’s Mako. I don’t do private omakase for anyone I don’t consider a friend.”

“So we are friends,” says Raleigh, leaning back as much as he can, a playful smile crossing his face. “I wasn’t sure before tonight.”

“No, we are,” she says with a sheepish smile of her own. “I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, no apology necessary. I should have reviewed you years ago. You have my word, I will this time. And not just because of the private omakase.”

He muffles a burp in his fist and his cheeks go pink. “Oof, sorry,” he says. “That was … so much food. But so worth it.”

Mako nods. “It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone finish all eleven courses on their own.”

“No!” he says, laughing. “Oh, god, really? I swear I’m not this much of a glutton all the time.”

“Oh, I don’t care,” says Mako, pouring herself a glass of sake and opening the salted plum sorbet to scoop some out for him. “I’m flattered. It’s the best compliment you could give me.”

—

A week later, there’s a new post on the Jaeger’s site: Kaiju’s Homage to Old and New: An Omakase’s Journey through Family, Tradition, and the Best Damn Spicy Mayo You’ll Ever Taste.

[icewindandboringhorror]

It's always interesting to hear about people's weird/unexpected "alternate life paths". Like, something that you could have done with your life, a job you almost took, a school you almost went to, etc - that was still actually realistic enough that it could have happened, but NOW it seems to not suit your current personality.

Like for example, I currently hate advertising (how manipulative it is, brands trying to be 'relatable', social media amplifying it to an obnoxious extreme, etc.) so much that even seeing a little ad before a youtube video is grating to even witness, but there was a point in time where I was genuinely seriously considering going into marketing/making commercials as a career lol. Or like, I have a relative who was very inclined to be a pastor when they were younger, even though today they're a super strong atheist, etc. etc.

[cosmicthoughtzalign]

2H rahu chronicles 😭😭

*Credits to these creators/tweeter, I don’t have a public twitter so I repost on here

[ladylingua]

I have a very genuine question about the tipping post I promise I didnt read it in bad faith: are people who simply cannot afford to tip not “allowed” to eat out? I’m just thinking about how it works where I am from and while tipping is the norm here if someone doesn’t tip because they can’t afford it it really isn’t a big deal (+tipping norm here us only 10%). so if a poor family goes out to eat to celebrate something and they can barely afford the meal would they still be expected to tip 20% because they shouldn’t eat out if they cant afford it? thank you in advance I’m really curious

If it helps, don’t think of the tip as a separate thing. It is part of the cost of your meal. So if you cannot afford to pay for the cost of the meal including the tip you cannot afford to eat at that restaurant. This is something I myself have to calculate when I’m deciding if I want to eat at a particular restaurant- if I have $15 I can’t go to a restaurant and order a $20 entrée and then refuse to pay the remaining cost, and likewise if I have $15 I can’t order a $15 entrée and expect not to pay the server for their service.

Now that doesn't mean families who can't afford a pricy restaurant can't eat out at all. Since it is a % of your bill you can try to go for a cheaper restaurant (smaller bill = smaller tip), or if you go to a counter service place where you serve yourself you’re not expected to tip 20% (sometimes they have a jar out you could kindly throw a dollar or more in, but there is much less expectation to tip because the workers at a place like that receive a full minimum wage, more on that in a sec). I will also say in my lived experience poor families in America understand and tip well, I’ve almost exclusively been under tipped by wealthy people (which is what kicked off the debate on twitter- if your bill is $700 then you obviously can afford to tip a full 20%, no destitute families are spending $700 on one meal).

Technically speaking you can get away with 18% as a tip, and if you go down to 15% your waiter will think you’re cheap and be annoyed (15% definitely implies you were unhappy with their service) but that is the lowest possible threshold of acceptability. 10% is not an acceptable rate here, and 20% is now the expected norm for good service, and going up from there for great service. And I would never, ever not tip at all. I can only imagine not tipping if like the server had done something deeply offensive or dangerous or something. I've never encountered a situation where I felt the server didn't deserve any tip at all.

Because you’ve asked in genuine good faith I’m going to provide some more context to help you understand a bit more why this is the way it is-

Waitstaff in america are wildly underpaid. Our federal government assumes the tips are part of their expected income, and so a) they are taxed on assumed tips and b) it is legal to pay them less than standard minimum wage. Currently the tipped federal minimum wage is $2.13/hr. Now, states set their own individual rates so some states do better, but $2.13/hr is the lowest they can all legally go. And you’ll notice in that link it mentions the assumed tips and taxing them. I said on my original post, when I worked as a tipped waitress I made $2.68/hr and sometimes my biweekly paycheck was like $60 total. Imagine trying to survive on $120 a month, you absolutely cannot. Tips made up my actual wage, and were the paycheck I depended on to pay for my basic needs. I relied directly on customers to choose to do the social convention of tipping for survival, and when someone would choose to do otherwise it was utterly devastating.

Another thing customers sometimes don’t realize is your waiter may not be allowed to keep all of the tip themselves. It’s a common practice to pool tips amongst all the waitstaff and then divide them equally, and many places require that you tip out other employees there. So if you give me $10 as a tip I might be actually giving a large chunk of that to bussers, bartenders, etc. Or maybe we pool tips and someone else stiffed my colleague so now all of us are sharing your $10 tip. So also keep in mind that the money you leave as a tip very often does not go entirely to the actual waiter, so a big tip can actually become pretty small much faster than you would think.

(and that's just legal practices, wage theft and illegal practices run rampant in the restaurant industry, just fyi)

If you are wondering why tipping culture here is so grim, it is because of slavery. Tipping got big here as a way to keep forcing Black Americans into working for free, now with a small tip but still no actual wage. It was designed for oppression. Waitstaff are overwhelmingly not wealthy people. It is very common for them to be on food stamps, require housing assistance, or to otherwise be living under the poverty line. If you are eating out and not tipping because you yourself are poor, you are taking money out of someone else’s poverty wages to do so. When we debate minimum wage here in america, conservatives are really good at painting a picture of waitstaff being perky middle class college kids making an extra buck, or teens from wealthy homes wanting some spending money. There is an implication that they don't really need the money that badly. That is not the reality of who makes up most serving jobs in america. Minimum wage workers are likely to be in poverty, they’re likely to be women and specifically they’re likely to be women of color. Americans of color are significantly more likely to be working at minimum wage than white americans. There is a pretty sizeable number of minimum wage workers who are over 50, and a not insignificant amount of them who are mothers who support their families. There are also those teens who just want extra cash, and they deserve good compensation for their hard work too, don’t get me wrong, but they are only a portion of who makes up the minimum wage workforce.

If you’re like “But that’s such a shitty system, you’re saying it’s pitting poor people against each other for basic human comforts!” yup. I 100% agree. I am a vocal proponent of raising the minimum wage for that reason. I also advocate for a Universal Basic Income, because I understand that when it comes to small mom & pop restaurants the owners aren’t always making a ton of money either and it seems like truly no one is winning in this system. It is set up to oppress and to demean and to grind us all down. There are lots of orgs in America that are fighting to improve the system, or to radically change the system. There are also restaurants that have tried to do things differently- there’s a wine bar in my city that says specifically on their menu that their wine is more expensive because they pay their workers a true livable wage so there is no tipping there. Instead as a customer I pay a higher upfront cost that covers the true expense of running the bar- including server wages. I love that, I wish more places would do things like that. In the meantime, when I’m choosing where to eat I factor in a tip of 20% when calculating my estimated bill, because paying for service is part of the cost.

Refusing to tip fully in america is not doing anything to change the system. It does not make restaurant owners rethink their pay structure, it does not put pressure on our government to fix minimum wage, it does not make a political statement. It just means your server is going home wondering if they can afford their own meal that night.

Thank you for asking for clarity, I hope this helps. Please feel free to ask more if you have any remaining confusion or are curious about other aspects of american culture. If I can answer and the questions are respectful, I am happy to reply!

[rosesofenvy]

Over The Years: Kendra

Burn It Down: Chapter 2

Collab with @xinrouska

[panncakes]

but also mhokday is such prime bookshop!au bait so where's the fics huh???

[francisforever2014]

do i still have hope that s2 of the bear was just set up for an anti-gentrification back-to-their-roots realization that the characters will have in s3 after pouring so much into a stupid fancy restaurant and then being like shitttt i’m still not fulfilled AND i’m just back in the world i despised but this time i’m its creator AND the neighborhood isn’t with me anymore. maybe. but not really

[medicinemane]

Saw a poll asking which fast food I'd give up for a week for a million dollars, and it's like I'd give up fucking food for a week for that price, there's literally nothing that wouldn't be on the chopping block when it's giving it up for a week

Not to mention I already barely have fast food once a month, and that's only if you count the costco pizza or burgers from the general store (which are more like backyard bbq style... like... the not great but not bad kind from a grill, you know?)

So... money please, I already won, pay me

[feral-and-or-horny]

I realized today I have exactly two reactions to food:

This is such a fucking hassle, I want to take a nutritional pill and not worry about it

Food is the closest I am capable of getting to a spiritual experience because it is both a science and an art form. Nothing can compare to the feeling of eating good food, and the first bite of a well crafted dish is the single greatest human experience