The Japanese are world-famous for their service. But, in Japan, good service does not mean that the customer is always right. It means offering the prescribed service very quickly, efficiently, and well. "Off the menu" requests, however, create near havoc. Only newly arrived foreigners and Japanese who have lived abroad for too long don't know enough to stick to the menu.
My colleague Tracey first went to Japan as a model in the late 1980s. At some point during her stay, she went to Almond in Roppongi, and ordered an "iced coffee" from the menu. A while later, the waitress brought her back what Americans and Japanese understand as iced coffee -- cold coffee over ice. According to Tracey -- although I have never verified this with my Aussie friends -- in her native Queensland, iced coffee is hot black coffee with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it, and this confection, she explained to the waitress, was what she wanted.
"It's not on the menu," she was informed.
"But, I see you have coffee on the menu, and you also have vanilla ice cream on the menu," Tracey noted, "so please bring me coffee with vanilla ice cream in it and charge me for both."
"I can't do that. It's not on the menu."
"Okay," Tracey continued. "I'd like a cup of hot coffee and a dish of vanilla ice cream, please."
"No."
"Why not?" Tracey asked. "They're on the menu."
"Because I know what you're going to do with them."
An exasperated Tracey asked to see the manager. She explained her desire for an Australian iced coffee, the injustice of being forbidden from ordering coffee and ice cream from the menu, and the fact that how she choose to consume them was no one's business but her own.
Finally, in a face-saving measure for all concerned, a compromise was reached. Tracey was permitted to order coffee and vanilla ice cream, but she was to make sure that no other customer saw her combine them, and she was to promise never to order coffee and ice cream at Almond again.
Lest you think that this was an isolated incident, in the early 1990s, Miyamoto Misao, an American-trained Japanese psychologist known for his books making fun of the bureaucrats in Japan's Department of Health, where he had worked, told a similar story about his attempt to order a glass of white wine at a famous hotel bar. The bartender told him that white wine was only available by the bottle. However, the observant Mr. Miyamoto spied an open bottle of white wine behind the bar and asked if he could have a glass from it. No, the bartender told him, that bottle was only for making the cocktail Kir (white wine and creme de cassis). Well, Miyamoto replied, I'd like a Kir, hold the creme de cassis. Impossible, he was told: if you get one, everyone else will want one. Once again, the manager was called to broker a compromise. Miyamoto was permitted to buy a glass of white wine this time, but instructed never to expect that kind of service again.
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there is such a thing as a coffee float... but that has ice too
ReplyDeleteI won't even vouch for whether iced coffee in Australia really has ice cream in it or not, but I always thought this story was hilarious and said a lot about Japan. We've all had the "not on the menu" experience there.
ReplyDeleteWait, I heard exactly the same story about someone trying to order a rootbeer float at a McDonalds in Colorado. They had rootbeer, they had ice cream, but the kid wouldn't sell them to my friend (a fellow counselor at Journey's End) because "I know you're going to make a rootbeer float, and we don't sell rootbeer floats." So, urban legend, or just the same bizarre behavior repeated by automatons in both Japan and America?
ReplyDeleteWho knows? Maybe my friend made up the whole story.
ReplyDeleteI am Japanese raised in America married to a Japan-born/raised Japanese chef. While he understands that flexibility and customization are important ingredients to achieving high scores on customer service in Western Cultures, he also seems to think that those customers that request variations to be made on what is already on the menu 'have no idea how to eat the right way.' He has also referred to those special requests as self-centered and ignorant minds. In the beginning of our relationship, being Americanized myself, I used to take offense to his remarks in my defense. However, I have come to learn and understand that he takes great pride in his culinary art forms which is a result of years of hard work, having gone through countless trials and failures before finally creating a 'masterpiece' that he can proudly serve to his customers. Receiving customers' positive feedback and seeing their happy faces are his greatest compliments and proudest rewards, he says. Only those creations that have passed rigorous tests get to be crowned on the menu-- therefore, being asked to make changes to these masterpieces or to be challenged on something that Chef knows the best is taken as ultimate insult and the most destructive form of criticism. It is also true that because Japan is a homogenous country despite emerging diversity, and being a conformist society, following the rules is more easily enforced and expected.
ReplyDeleteIt really is understandable -- and a totally different situation -- when a true chef wants his food to be eaten the way he meant it to be. That is not limited to Japan. French chefs are famous for throwing people out of restaurants for requesting ketchup, for example.
ReplyDeleteBut, the idea that you are not allowed to order a glass of white wine from an open bottle or to have ice cream and coffee from the menu because of what you might do with them are examples that seem to be uniquely Japanese. . . .
I have heard that in Rome, waiters often refuse to bring cappuccino after dinner, because it is supposed to be drunk in the morning. But in Venice, it was okay, I guess there are too many tourists from around the world. So I guess this is not something that happens only in Japan.
ReplyDelete