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The Purple Pig, Chicago
Glutton for Punishment could be an alternative name for The Purple Pig in Chicago. A front-of-house service nightmare defines the review of my dining experience on March 6, 2010.
My review may seem shocking to many. If I say something is too salty, it’s a personal preference. When I complain about pasta being overcooked, I’m leveling a judgment based upon my experience cooking in Italy. But I don’t have an opinion about napkins or silverware dropped on the floor. I want a clean napkin and clean silverware. No discussion. No opinion. If a menu item is not available, I want to know about it up front, not after I order it. If an item will be available in 30 minutes because the kitchen is behind, I accept it and wait, or order an alternative.
Our journey of punishment begins when I proceed to the lavatory to wash my hands before lunch. When I left my seat, my cloth napkin dropped on the floor. My lunch guest informed me when I returned from the washroom, that as I walked away, my server walked over to pick up the napkin immediately from the floor and proceeded to return it onto my dish. What?! A soiled napkin placed on my dish, are you kidding? This goes beyond incompetent. The Napkin Incident is the first infraction in a series of blunders, screw-ups, and failings that plagued our mid-day lunch.
The basics: Bread and Wine. Other communal tables had bread, however our communal table did not, so we asked for some. The bread we asked for never showed up after two requests. A bottled sparkling water might also be nice with lunch. Don’t hold your breath. Water will arrive at the table, but only after two requests following the initial order. We ordered two appetizers to start, along with a half bottle of Rose’. Rose’ is perfect with a light lunch. Our first dish arrives at the table, a rapini and ricotta cold appetizer. Then our second, a baccala brandade with charred bread. It had been roughly 10 minutes since we ordered the wine and it had not arrived. We asked a second server if they could track down our wine. Our second server returned with a report that the bartender was in the basement looking for our wine. Fair enough, we’ll wait. Then our original server arrives several minutes later with no wine and no wine list. She claims there is no more of the Rose' in the cellar. Ok, sold out of wine is legitimate, but a wine with a by the glass, quartino, half-bottle, and full bottle option completely sold out? And no one knew it? Obviously a wine is popular or being pushed when it has four pour options. Yet, no one in the restaurant realized it was out of inventory? The fact that the only Rose’ with all these pour options was sold out in a small plate restaurant and not communicated by the bar to the service staff is neglectful. The fact that our server didn’t bring the wine list back is just plan poor attention to basic service standards.
All the restaurant seating is contained into a single room including the bar. The staff should be pretty tight by now. I have ordered wines that are sold out at other restaurants, I realize it happens and I am reasonable. I managed a wine inventory of 85 selections, including several odd-lots, at a restaurant. Communication with your service staff is critical as well as computerized inventory management and daily spot checks. If the wine with this many pour options is truly sold out, it shows that incompetence is systemic not only on the front line, but in management and ordering; which will become glowingly evident as we attempt to order more food.
We decided on a couple more dishes, a roasted bone marrow with herbs (I really wanted to compare it to Bix), deviled egg (also at Bix), and pork blade steak with njuda and honey. All three requests, all three were not available at 2:25pm. Our server informed us they were completely sold out of these items and we would have to order something else. I asked if they were prepping more for dinner service and I was informed that they were simply out of supply and that this thing happens here because of the popularity of the items and the popularity of the restaurant. This is beyond laughable! Again, the reasonable side of me says, perhaps if we were told when we were first seated that certain items were not available, I might be more reasonable. No, we were left to guess at random what might be available. Outrageously shoddy service and completely unacceptable.
It was time to regroup. What would we order next? Or should we cut our losses? Maybe a pair of dice should have been given to us so that our meal could be chosen at random. Or a stack of Food Tarot Cards? Or better yet, maybe I should have allowed our server to order for us; not likely. We decided on the pork liver pate with a cold appetizer of shaved Brussels sprout salad. Normally, I would give a complete review of the dishes that I sampled. Of the menu items I was able to order, the food quality was fair. I would normally add descriptors and other flowery language to describe our meal. The Purple Pig deserves no such treatment! Frankly, considering how sloppily the front-of-house service was, I would begin to question the kitchen standards as well.
As we were finishing our last bites of pate and sprout salad, an order of bone marrow hits the table next to us. No, I’m not joking. I immediately called our server over and asked when the bone marrow became available. She said about 15 minutes ago; the kitchen just roasted up another batch. I then asked if the deviled eggs were available too and she said yes, the kitchen was working on another round right now. I asked the server to clarify what she meant earlier when she said the marrow and eggs were completely sold out and wouldn’t be available today. She said if we had just waited a little while longer that these items would have been available and that they had underestimated lunch demand. I was infuriated with this response. Now there is a problem with the kitchen communicating to the service staff. I settled the bill on the spot and exited.
I am shocked at the high level of incompetence, neglect of basic restaurant service, and lack of communication at The Purple Pig.
The Cured Ham
Reader Comments (2)
I've never understood reviews like this one.
Clearly, the service was bad, bordering on criminally incompetent. I would be as stunned as the next person if I knew that a waiter at a restaurant of this pedigree had placed a napkin that had landed on the floor back on a plate.
That being said, the service is only a part of an overall restaurant experience. It's a shame that this pompous writer took the bad service of one/two of the waitstaff and used that to write a scathing review for the entire restaurant. There are far too many assupmtions in the review pertaining to the poor service being a business-wide problem. My personal experience (service-wise) was great and I've read enough positive reviews (about the service) to know that it's silly to imply that this is a problem of the entire restaurant and not just one server.
It's a bit self-involved to have crappy service, and use that as a rationale to not even review the food (because the restaurant didn't "deserve" it) and to extrapolate that crappy service to think that the kitchen must be garbage as well.
When I read a restaurant review, I certainly want to know if the service was bad, good, forgettable, outstanding, etc... But I don't need a line-by-line account of every single thing that went wrong, and ultimately, I want to hear about the food.
This review was a waste of space and only enticed me to keep reading because I was so thoroughly stunned at what a self-absorbed take of the entire experience it was. Sort of like a car wreck from which you cannot look away. Perhaps a change in blog name is in order--rather than "the Cured Ham", we could go with "The Salty Peacock". Now that would be "seriously hammy".