PEEVES in DINING ››
Wobbly uneven table legs restaurants.
This is just irritating especially when its more of an upscale restaurant — you can't exactly stick some sugar packets under the leg like you would at a diner.
— rachel from chicago | Dining | 2.4.2010 | Comments (3)
Little paper tags on tea bags that fall in your tea.
You pour scalding hot water over the tea bag, and that fiddly little tag falls in, either causing you to dig it out with a spoon or your fingers, or ignore it and endure the chemical ink from the tag, tainting your beverage.
— Personaldecay from BC Canada | Dining | 12.31.2009 | Comments (6)
Doing the dishes immediately after eating.
Let's hang out and digest instead.
— Biffy from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 7.30.2009 | Comments (3)
drunk eating at 3am.
nothing worse than coming home wasted and deciding it's an amazing idea to eat a can of refried beans, a head of lettuce, and some ginger snaps.
— alison from st paul | Dining | 12.10.2008 | Comments (1)
Pouring more milk than cereal.
Then you just gotta pour more cereal to even it out, or drink it all. Which is kind of gross.
— Molly from New York, NY | Dining | 12.2.2008 | Comments (0)
People who eat with their fork upside down.
I usually see this done by food critics on cooking competition shows on TV. They all hold the fork upside down, stab the food then jab it into their mouths. I'm just waiting to see how they eat rice.
— laurie from Austin, Tx | Dining | 12.18.2008 | Comments (6)
People eating off of my plate.
ESPECIALLY when you say you're not hungry and don't order your own food.
When I get my food, I plan out exactly how I'm going to eat it. When you take food off my plate it screws up my flow. Also: I'm hungry, dammit! Get your dirty paws off my food. I'll buy you your own plate of food if you're that desperate!
— Gweedle from DC | Dining | 8.14.2009 | Comments (2)
When a server in a restaurant picks up the folder with your bill and cash in it and asks, "Do you need change?"
Why not just say, "I'm too lazy to walk over to the register and walk back." or, "Did you cheapos leave me a tip or what?"
— Picky Eater from New Orleans, Louisiana | Dining | 12.28.2008 | Comments (3)
People who assume that instead of us each ordering a dessert (or a side-dish), we should split one between us.
Hell, I want my own dessert, and I don't want to have to decide on something we both like. And I definitely don't want to share! My dessert, not yours!
— Sharon from Tel Aviv, Israel | Dining | 2.5.2009 | Comments (3)
— mike from somerville, ma | Dining | 11.11.2008 | Comments (3)
Eggshell crumbs stuck to my hard-boiled eggs
So hard to get off! Also, when you peel an egg and a layer of the egg white comes off with it. Then you have to make the decision whether to try and save that layer or just let it go.
— Tiana from Philadelphia | Dining | 10.24.2008 | Comments (2)
Share-a-tab birthday meals with 8+ people
I miss the days when the birthday person was the host and the invitees were the guests.
Reasons why huge birthday dinners suck: 1) Dividing the bill equally sucks b/c my dinner salad was way cheaper than your veal w/ appetizer of escargot. 2) Not dividing the bill sucks because haggling over who ordered what, trying to divide the cost of the birthday person's meal by 11, deciphering the waiter's handwriting, deducting the costs of wine from the bill of those who didn't drink is tacky and time consuming and embarassing to do in front of the celebree. 3) Both suck because in big groups there are inevitably a few people who leave early and forget to calculate the costs of wine, tax and tip into their share.
THE SOLUTIONS: No more big birthday dinner UNLESS one person is treating OR big birthday dinners with pre fixe options and pre-set prices.
— Hairnette Funicello from malibu | Dining | 10.20.2008 | Comments (13)
Improper tortilla-to-filling ratio at restaurants.
They usually only give you half what you need, so you must order another stack.
— Biffy from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 7.19.2009 | Comments (0)
Banana smell flavoring all other items in my lunch bag.
— Biffy from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 9.7.2008 | Comments (0)
Buying the diet version of a food product by a mistake.
Diet Snapple, for instance, tastes like aspirin water. Yet, the labels are only slightly different, and neither looks like an aspirin label.
— Biffy from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 10.22.2008 | Comments (10)
Going out to eat with a large group and everyone only has credit cards.
— Karolena from Brooklyn | Dining | 2.6.2009 | Comments (2)
When dinner is served in a restaurant in a plastic basket, with paper under the food.
Usually this type of serving style is used for terrible french fries (clearly frozen and put in a deep fat fryer) and some heavily battered and fried meat.
— Garbanzo from Canada | Dining | 4.7.2009 | Comments (3)
Being stuck as the treasurer when a big group eats out
This is a thankless job. Most common scenario: friend's birthday. Friend chooses restaurant. Everybody gorges on food and drink. The check comes. Treasurer must calculate how much each person (except birthday person) owes, collect money, deal with birthday person who makes halfhearted attempt to pay, count money consecutive times to see if we really are THAT short, figure out who underpaid/overpaid (Tip: look at who is making least amount of eye contact), deal with the asshole who wants to put 1/32nd of the bill on his credit card, and prevent birthday person from knowing full amount of bill.
— Hairnette Funicello from Malibu | Dining | 10.26.2009 | Comments (3)
Waiter: "How is everything?"
Me: "Everything's fine except that you can't understand what I'm saying because you waited for the exact moment that I just stuffed food in my mouth, thanks!"
— Fernando Gwo from Queens, NY | Dining | 4.5.2009 | Comments (2)
Cash Only
Not just for cheap places, either, for an actual restaurant where the meal is going to be kind of expensive. What am I, a made man? I'm supposed to carry wads of cash in my pocket?
— Stu from | Dining | 4.8.2009 | Comments (3)
Brunch: all aspects aside from nutritional intake or necessary friend meeting.
Brunch, I hate you so much. Why?
• People just love having brunch!
• If you work full-time, you're taking one of the scant, two days you have "free," and extending a perfectly normal meal that could take a few minutes, or no time at all, into one that last hours, thereby technically wasting your life.
• Brunch is an unnecessary extension of the previous night's social activities. Worse, brunch-talk often consists of the rehashing and analysis of the previous night's activities which are generally about how much alcohol was consumed, and who said what to whom. Does brunch, itself, then need a Linner to cover its own happenings? What about a Bruinner or a Brulinner followed by a Brulinner Midnight Snack?
• Often brunch activities take place while participants are hungover and groggy, inhibiting meaningful conversation and promoting discussion of how good or bad the food is, which is probably a peeve on this site already.
• Because brunch takes so long to happen, one will go hungry until the food is finally served, often at noon.
• "Brunch" sounds like a bad back condition, or a vomiting noise.
• Everyone looks bad in the morning.
• Brunch, or breakfast food in general, has the highest ratio of cost between home preparation and menu price. If you make a damn good omelet with toast at home, it will cost about a dollar twenty-five and take ten minutes to prepare, the same thing will cost you hours and $22 at your favorite restaurant. OH -- but Biffy, no, you've missed something -- it comes with a free bloody mary or mimosa!
• Brunch often comes with fancily-named, watered-down drinks, which, unless you are planning on having a long hardcore, drunken day, will leave you feeling like you have allergies or a cold coming on an hour later.
This being said, brunch's only benefit is when a friend, or friends, are in town, and you can't see them at another time -- then, it's perfect because you want to stretch something out of nothing and spend money as an expression of celebration.
— Biffy from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 11.3.2008 | Comments (0)
"Food Coma"
I can't fully explain why I hate when people say this so much. It usually occurs after everyone at the table has just consumed a meal larger than is necessary and there is a break in conversation. It's a boring oft-repeated filler that points out how gluttonous and wrong the situation is. Also, it is reminiscent of stoner-talk.
— Biffy from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 11.27.2008 | Comments (0)
Being handed my ice cream cone before I pay for it.
It's really hard to rifle through my wallet when I'm holding a cone. So many tipped-over ice cream cone accidents could be prevented if cashiers would let me pay for it before they hand it to me.
— Hairnette funicello from Malibu | Dining | 6.17.2009 | Comments (7)
Having to eat facing a mirror.
Most common at pizza and other cheap places that have stools and a counter against the wall, facing a mirror. I guess the mirror is supposed to make the place feel bigger, but in fact it makes it feel smaller because you have to crane your neck as you eat because who in god's name wants to watch themselves eat?
— Stu from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 2.2.2009 | Comments (0)
People getting their slice of pizza to go.
Where are you going, hotshot? Are you going to eat it on the street while you talk on the phone? Are you taking it back to your desk? Are you taking it back to your apartment to serve to your beautiful fiancee on a special silver pizza plate??
— Stuart from | Dining | 2.27.2009 | Comments (4)
Waiters who ask "are you still working on that?"
I eat out to have a good time, not to work. What am I doing construction here? Can't I eat in peace?
— Mike from Saddle River, NJ | Dining | 11.6.2009 | Comments (2)
When ethnic restaurants have numbers on their menus, but when you refer to a number, the employee still asks you to describe the order.
This is very consistent with Chinese restaurants.
— Biffy from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 9.8.2009 | Comments (2)
People who clap when something breaks.
— Liliane from France | Dining | 11.28.2009 | Comments (9)
Fast food drink cups that overflow even with cover on.
Sometimes the drink inside overflows, but the countergirl puts the cover on anyway, spilling the coke out of the rims. When you poke the straw in, the drink oozes out of the straw hole. Eeek.
— may from world | Dining | 6.24.2009 | Comments (5)
— Sandor from Brooklyn | Dining | 2.7.2010 | Comments (1)
Grittiness of teeth from lemonade.
— carrie g from aberdeen | Dining | 7.10.2009 | Comments (0)
— Andy from Long Beach, Ca | Dining | 6.6.2009 | Comments (3)
— Jill from Los Angeles, California | Dining | 8.8.2009 | Comments (5)
The amplification of chewing noises during a lull.
This can apply to loud breathing, throat clearing, loud swallowing, etc., but the biggest one that gets me is chewing. I'm fine when there's talking, or music, or lots of background noise. But when it gets quiet, the sound of someone else chewing gets amplified, and it makes my blood boil -- the lip smacking, the jaw-sound of molars chomping together, the tearing sound of the food, the reverberating swallow -- I want to yell at the chewer but I can't, because I know their noises aren't extraordinary -- they're natural, nothing to do with open mouthes or anything -- it's just the silence amplifying them. Which is why this is EVEN more than a peeve -- because I have to contain it or reveal myself to be an irrational spaz!
— Snatch from SF, CA | Dining | 11.7.2008 | Comments (2)
Cheap spoons that bend in ice cream.
Also cheap forks with one tine bent.
— Stuart from | Dining | 7.27.2009 | Comments (1)
Unevenly arranged sandwich fillings.
I was just at a Subway today, and the Caribbean lime chicken didn't make it to the edges of the bread. Because of this, the tomato and cucumber slipped into the vast chicken-less crevasse. I had to take multiple bites in one go to avoid a mouthful of just tomato and bread.
The worst is when this happens with a burrito. I don't want to eat a dry rice-filled tortilla.
— dana from brooklyn | Dining | 8.1.2009 | Comments (2)
People who think everything is a vegetable except for red meat.
Seriously, do intelligent people REALLY think that vegetarians eat chicken? Seafood? Really? Is it a mental block? Passive-aggression? What?!?
— Jessica from Brooklyn | Dining | 7.7.2009 | Comments (8)
— Jesse Ball from To the Moon | Dining | 8.12.2009 | Comments (1)
When someone tries to hand you something while your hands are occupied.
The dollar bill is aimed straight at you, your hands are full, you look back and forth at the person trying to complete this transaction at the worst possible time, nothing happens, you dramatically place down the object you're holding, take the object being thrust towards you, place it on the table, and pick up the objects you were previously clutching.
— Biffy from Brooklyn, NY | Dining | 9.30.2008 | Comments (4)
Asking me a question when I'm chewing something, then waiting for the answer.
— Biffy from Bethlehem, Connecticut | Dining | 10.22.2008 | Comments (3)
