Now I want my share

Last weekend I had a fantastic lunch at Grazing at Gundaroo. The surroundings, the service, and the food were all lovely. They even have a very impressive vegetarian menu. Highly recommended. The only small blight on our experience was 'the wine line'.

Yes, they use wine glasses with a line printed on them to indicate the proper serving size. It wouldn't bother me to see this in a pub or not-too-fancy bar. I'm not sure I have actually come across this before, not being much of a wine drinker, but one of my companions had. However this was really quite a nice restaurant, and we thought the line on the wine glass failed to match the tone of the place.

It was suggested that the line is not merely a cheap gesture on the proprieter's part (avoiding being too generous with the wine) but also aids the winer-diner in determining with some certainty how many standard drinks they have consumed.

In a much odder turn of events, the previous night I ate with a friend at a Turkish restaurant. Neither of us finished our meal so we asked if we could take them away. Given that this is a place that serves pide (Turkish pizza) and does a lot of takeaway, this was a pretty usual request. It seemed strange that the waiter did not immediately take the plates away in order to package the food. Instead he went over to the counter, grabbed two empty boxes, and dumped them on our table. "There you go!" And off he went.

We just stared at each other for a while before awkardly putting the food into the boxes ourselves.

On relating this story later, some people mentioned that many places now make you sign for your doggie bag, to remove any possible liability for later food poisoning if you don't cool and heat the leftovers appropriately. Some won't allow doggie bags at all. I can't quite see how making us put the food in the boxes would help get them off the hook, but maybe it was some bizarre interpretation.....