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Reservations at restaurants
In the West, you generally have to make a reservation in advance when going to a restaurant. When making a reservation, there are a few things that you need to pay special attention to. First, you must specify the number of people and the time. Secondly, Indicate whether you want a smoking area or a seat with a good view. If it's a birthday or other special occasion, you can tell us the purpose and budget of the party. Arriving at the scheduled time is basic courtesy. No matter how expensive your casual clothes are, you cannot wear them casually. It is common sense for Europeans and Americans to dress appropriately when going to restaurants. When going to high-end restaurants, men should dress neatly; women should wear suits and heeled shoes. If formal attire is specified, men must wear a tie. When entering the restaurant, men should open the door first and invite women to enter. Ladies should be asked to go in front. Women should be given priority when seated and when meals are served. Especially for group activities, don’t forget to let the ladies go in front.
*Be particular about seating
The most appropriate way to sit is from the left side. When the chair is pulled away, stand up straight at a distance that is almost touching the table. The leader will push the chair in, and you can sit down when your legs touch the chair behind you. When dining, your upper arms and back should be as close as possible to the back of the chair, and your abdomen should be about a fist away from the table. It is best to avoid sitting postures with your feet crossed*.
*The knowledge of ordering wine
In high-end restaurants, there will be bartenders who are proficient in wine tasting and will bring the wine list. For those who don’t know much about wine, it is best to tell them the dishes you have chosen, your budget, and your favorite wine flavors, and the main bartender can help you choose. If the main course is meat, it should be paired with red wine, and with fish, white. Before serving, try a glass of lighter wine such as champagne, sherry or gills.
*The order of serving
The formal order of serving a full set of Western food is: ① Appetizer and soup ② Fish ③ Fruit ④ Meat ⑤ Cheese ⑥ Dessert and coffee ⑦ Fruit, and Pre-dinner wine and table wine. There is no need to order everything. It would be rude to order too much and not be able to finish it all. Restaurants of a moderate standard welcome customers who only order appetizers. Appetizer, main course (choose one of fish or meat) and dessert are the most appropriate combinations. When ordering, you don’t start with the appetizers. Instead, you choose the main dish you want to eat the most, and then pair it with the soup that suits the main dish.
*How to use napkins
After ordering, open the napkin before the appetizer is served, fold it inward by one-third, and let the two-thirds lie flat On the legs, cover the portion of your legs above the knees. It is best not to tuck the napkin into the neckline.
*Pairing of drinking and food. Pairing of drinking and food
What kind of food should be eaten when drinking? It seems that a pattern has been formed. However, with the continuous emergence of new foods and new alcoholic beverages in modern society, these rules seem outdated and increasingly inappropriate. If another friend tells you that you must eat fish to drink white wine, you can just say that this is the 21st century and those 19th century rules are outdated. When it comes to how to pair alcohol with food, you should first understand that life depends on personal preferences, so there is no doubt that drinking and food should be paired according to personal taste. You can order wine and food according to your own taste, even if it is not allowed by the rules, or if your friends at the same table firmly object, there is no need to be shy or embarrassed. There are many things in life that seem inappropriate to go together, but they still look so harmonious. But what should you do when you still can’t make up your mind about what wine to serve with dinner? Should we resort to those rules and combinations? Over the years, I have gained experience that can help you solve your problems. These so-called "principles" don't tell you what to eat when drinking, they just explain how food and alcohol affect and interact with each other. The important thing to pair with food when drinking alcohol is based on taste. Food and wine can be divided into four tastes, which also defines the range of wine and food pairings, namely: sour, sweet, bitter and salty.
Acidity: You may have heard that wine should not be paired with salad because the acid in the salad greatly destroys the aroma of the wine. However, if salad and acidic wine are used together, the acid contained in the wine will be broken down by the lactic acid of the salad. This is of course an excellent match. Therefore, you can choose to eat acidic wine with acidic food. Acidic wines work well with salty foods and taste great.
Sweetness: When dining, you can also choose desserts according to your personal taste. Generally speaking, sweet foods will dilute the taste of liqueur. If you choose a California Chardonnay and serve it with a small piece of grilled swordfish, the wine will be sweet. However, if you add salad to the fish, the fruitiness in the wine will be muted. Therefore, when eating desserts, desserts with too much sugar will cover up the taste of wine and lose the original flavor. You should choose wine that is slightly sweeter. This way the wine can maintain its original taste.
Bitterness: Still using the "personal preference" principle. The bitterness of bitters is reduced when consumed with bitter foods. So if you want to reduce or remove the bitterness, you can pair bitters with bitter foods.
Salty: There are generally no salty wines, but there are many wines that can reduce the salty taste of salty foods. In many countries and regions around the world, lemon juice or alcohol is used when eating seafood such as fish. The main reason is that acid can reduce the saltiness of fish, making it more delicious when eaten.
*How to use knives and forks
The eating habits of British and American people are different.
When eating meat, the British hold the fork in their left hand with the fork tip down, pierce the meat and put it into their mouth. If it is burnt vegetables, they use a table knife to put the vegetables on the fork and put it into their mouth. Americans use the same method. Cut the meat in the following way, then put down the knife with your right hand, switch to a table fork, with the fork pointed upward, insert it under the meat, scoop up the meat without the knife, and put it into your mouth. Eat the burnt vegetables in the same way. When eating, using the back of a spoon to scoop up food is not against table etiquette, but it does look unsightly. When eating dishes such as rice, you can naturally turn the spoon to the front and scoop it up, because the concave part of the spoon is designed for this use. At this time, you can also use a knife to assist in the dining action. When scooping up the food on the plate, use a knife to prevent the food from scattering outside the plate, so that the food on the plate can be scooped up neatly. If there are dishes topped with sauce, you can also use a knife to scrape out the sauce, and then use a spoon or sauce spoon to put the food and ingredients into your mouth. It is wrong to hold it with a spoon and then pour the sauce on it with a spoon before eating, because when the food is brought to the mouth, the sauce will drip everywhere and make a mess. When scooping up food with a spoon, hold the spoon with your left hand, place the food on the belly in front of the spoon, and bring it into your mouth. On a casual occasion when you are dining with friends, if you do not need to use a knife, you can use your right hand to eat with a knife. Rice should be scooped up with the front and the belly instead of the back of the spoon, so that it is easier to eat and more elegant and natural. When the fine food on the plate gathers, you can use a knife to block it, and then scoop it up with a spoon. You can also use a spoon instead of a knife. Use the spoon to gather the food on the spoon, and then use the spoon to put the food into the mouth. The sauce spoon is used in the same way as a regular spoon. You should use the spoon to push the food onto the sauce spoon and eat it instead of using the spoon to hold the food and then use the spoon to pour the sauce on it, because the latter is against etiquette.
Types of knives and knives
Knives, knives and other silverware are called cut-lery. Knives and knifes are divided into meat, fish, appetizers, and desserts. In addition to appetizers, soups, coffee, and tea, spoons also have spoons for seasonings. The seasoning spoon is the spoon used when adding seasonings. It is mostly used for desserts or fish dishes. The tableware used today is constantly changing according to the changes in cuisine. In the set menu of formal Western cuisine, knives of different shapes are often used according to the characteristics of different dishes, and not all are displayed at the beginning. Speaking of a complete set, it is easy to think of a table full of silverware, but nowadays most of the dishes are ordered with 2-3 individual dishes. Therefore, formal dining decorations filled with silverware on the dining table may only be seen at wedding banquets. Recently, the use of a set of knives and guns has become less and less. More and more people eat only 2-3 appetizers, and the knives do not change accordingly. Most of them eat the appetizers served with a set of knives. . There are also an increasing number of restaurants where the knife and spoon (or spoon) are placed on the knife * and placed on the right side of the dinner plate. The shape of the knife used for meat dishes is generally the same no matter which restaurant you go to, but the shape of the knife used for fish dishes often differs from restaurant to restaurant. Especially recently, there is a tendency for fish cooking knives to have the same width as meat cooking knives, and it is also common to find knives wider than this. There are also some knives that are wider and have a luxurious edge on the blade. Decorated fish cooking knife. In addition, some restaurants use seasoning spoons instead of knives for fish dishes. The knife* is like a Chinese chopstick holder. Sometimes the knife and knife (or spoon) are placed in a group of two on the knife * stand; sometimes the knife, knife, and spoon are placed in a group of three on the knife * rack; sometimes the knife and knife (or spoon) are placed in a group ) Place two in a group on it so that the blade of the knife and the front of the knife do not touch the tablecloth.
*How to place the knife and knife?
The middle of the meal is shaped like a figure of eight. If you take a short break during the meal, you can place the knife* on the plate, with the knife head and the tip facing each other. In the shape of "one" or "eight", with the knife facing you, it means you should continue eating. If you are talking, you can hold the knife* without putting it down. However, if you need to make gestures, you should put down the knife*. Never wave the knife* in the air with your hand. It should be noted that at no time should one end of the knife be placed on the plate and the other end on the table. In addition to cutting food into your mouth, knives and guns also have another very important function. The way the knife is placed conveys the message of "dining in progress" or "ending meal". The waiter uses this method to determine the dining situation of the guests, and whether to clear away the tableware to prepare for the next service, etc., so I hope Jirun can remember the correct way to place the tableware. Pay special attention to the fact that the blade side must face you. There are two ways to place the knife at the end of the meal: after the meal, you can put the bottom of the knife upward, the blade side of the knife inward and the knife together, and place it parallel to the dinner plate. The next placement methods are divided into British style and French style. No matter which method is used, the French style is the most commonly used. Try to put the handle into the dinner plate. This will prevent it from falling due to contact and will make it easier for the waiter to clean it up. When attending a wedding banquet, no matter how the tableware is placed in the "dining" position, all dishes should be put away as soon as the main guests finish eating. Therefore, during banquets, remember to focus on the main guests.
At a banquet, a pair of knives is used for each dish. The knives placed in front of you are used from the outside inward, because the order in which the knives are placed is exactly the order in which each dish is served. The knives* are gone and the serving of food is over. When talking or resting, the knife should be placed flat on both sides of the plate in a figure-eight shape. On the contrary, if the knife * handle is placed side by side on the plate with the handle facing you, it means that the dish has been used, and the waiter will remove the plate. If it is an appetizer or dessert that can be eaten directly with a knife, there is no need to deliberately use a knife. For family dinners or casual gatherings with friends, softer dishes such as salads and omelette rice can also be eaten using just the egg. However, using a knife at a formal banquet can give people a more elegant and neat feeling. In addition, in Europe and other places, you can often see people eating with a spoon in their right hand and bread in their left hand. No matter how neat and elegant the meal is, dining like this can only be done at home or in a popular restaurant, and it will never work in a high-end restaurant. Just leave the unused knife on the table and the waiter will automatically take it away. Although placing the knife and knife together on the dinner plate is a signal that the meal is over, there is no need to put the clean knife specifically into the soiled dinner plate. Just leave unused tableware in its original place. It would seem strange to insist on following the rules of form. It is most correct to adapt to circumstances and deal with things according to the situation at that time. Even if you drop it, you won't be embarrassed, but if you bend down to pick it up, it will be embarrassing. So when something falls, it’s best to ask the waiter to pick it up for you. The waiter is always paying attention to the guest's situation, so he will bring new tableware quickly. If the waiter does not notice, you can slightly raise your hand towards the waiter and try not to attract other people's attention. The waiter's job is to make your guests' meal more enjoyable, so make requests of them whenever you can.
Thank you! !