The 5 Most Annoying Things Restaurant Customers Do
Jesse Ashlock, DETAILS
Since opening a humble noodle bar in Manhattan's East Village nearly seven years ago, David Chang has rapidly become one of America's most talked-about chefs, building a mini-empire of Momofuku restaurants in New York City, each of which combines Asian and American influences to create a new kind of cuisine that's both adventurous and accessible.
We sat down with him to find out what makes a world-class chef tick. Here's his top 5 most annoying customer habits:
5. Saying they're right when they're wrong. Like when they ask for a steak to be medium-rare and it's medium-rare and they say it's not medium-rare.
4. Special food requests.*
3. Fake allergies.
2. Being drunk. It's just so annoying.
1. Bloggers who don't know anything. The top one is to say you're a blogger, right off the bat. That always gets a good laugh from the chefs.
*DETAILS: It's surprising that you didn't say vegetarians. (Chang is known for his pork buns)
David Chang: That's the special requests. Don't even get me started. I'm not against all vegetarians. But if you're a vegetarian for ethical reasons, you may be causing more harm. I use this example: I was at a wedding, and at the reception everyone was eating local lobster and clams, but a couple of my friends were like, "No, we want the vegetarian option." And it's vegetables from every corner of the planet. Really? They don't want to pollute the earth, they don't want to support factory farming, but factory commodity farming is awful. And not only that, it's almost slave labor. That poor person who harvested your asparagus from Peru might have died because you wanted asparagus in August. Which doesn't happen. If you're going to be a vegetarian, limit yourself to food from a place you can go to in two hours and just eat that. Do it, or shut up.
Read more about the volatile chef, his expanding empire, anger management, and why "farm-to-table" is BS in our extended Q&A.
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