We all know it happens. You’re in a restaurant, you’re about to take your next bite of pasta and you find a hair. Many just push it aside, account for human error and move on. But, that’s if you find only one intruding hair.
What happens when there are multiple strands of hair in your hummus, your baba and your wrap? My first response was physical, upon each discovery in the various dishes at Mamouns’ of friends and family I began to gag. Enough said.
When the ‘chef’ or as he will be known from now on, the ‘chief,’ walked by our table, long greasy locks running down his back, we identified the source and it was not pretty. Needless to say he was not wearing a hair net, but, so we thought, was nice enough to go outside to smoke his cigarette.
Moments later he returned, still smoking and went behind the counter. My friend waited until the other Saturday night customers, a group of three, left before bringing up the hair issue.
She approached the counter armed with the wrap. We watched his anger increase with her every word and before we knew it she was behind the counter and he was yelling, “I don’t see any hair.”
Upon her return to the table, my friend told us of seeing him pull the hair out of the sandwich when he thought she wasn’t looking. As he denied it, holding the sandwich up to the light, she noticed a second follicle peaking out of the fold of the wrap. About to point this one out, she stopped because she watched the ash falling from his cigarette into her food and knew it was a lost cause.
He yelled at her, discounted the check for the sandwich (we were too afraid to bring up the rest) and claimed that she was lying. For the remainder of the meal he shot looks of evil death at our table.
If he had apologized and taken responsibility for the problem I would never have written this. But the fact that he intimated us—some of his only customers that evening—was unacceptable.
The customer is always right and longhaired chefs/chiefs should wear hairnets.
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