PrintTap that Glass
New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni wrote a blog post that nicely complements the Old Gray Lady's editorial yesterday on choosing tap over bottled water when dining out. Bruni, who knows a thing or two about eating out, has noticed a slight softening in the bottled-water hard sell but still finds that too often diners are asked "sparkling or flat?"—as if there's no option to order tap.
But I think restaurants shouldn’t try to pressure diners into ordering bottled water by pretending another option doesn’t exist and by trying to make diners feel abashed about having to bring up that less expensive — indeed, free! — option themselves. I definitely think that’s part of restaurants’ strategy, though I trust, or at least hope, it doesn’t work on most diners. It shouldn’t.
And it shouldn’t in part because there’s nothing wrong with tap. That’s the point of the editorial, which you can keep on hand, should you ever need your faith in your decision to bypass bottled water bolstered. By asking for tap, you’re not denying yourself a vastly higher grade of product and wading into an inferior pool. You’re doing something sensible and saving yourself a lot of money.
As the editorial points out, drinking eight glasses of bottled water a day would cost about $1,400 annually while the same amount of tap water would cost 49¢.
Related: Tap Water Is All the Rage, The New House Specialty: Tap Water
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5 Comments:
You've touched such a nerve with this subject. We had lunch out at an overpriced West Hollywood haunt a few months ago and the waiter said "sparkling water or just plain". Thinking I avoided the excessive charge for water, I replied, "Plain please." A few minutes later, a large bottle of 'unsparkling' water was being poured at our table and 12 bucks added to the bill. In retrospect, I wish I had said something at the time, but I felt that I was tricked into getting this water.
Bria at 11:54AM on 08/02/07
This is the best post title ever.
amateurgourmet at 11:57AM on 08/02/07
amateurgourmet........true true tue
Kim Nyland at 2:34PM on 08/02/07
Remember the drought of a few years back when some restaurants in New York stopped serving tap water and pushed the bottled stuff as a more enviornmentally friendly alternative? Ah, life before "food miles" and "carbon footprints."
During those dry days a bartender at a reputable seafood restaurant --ironically, with Water in its name--filled my martini glass with ice water to cool it off then dumped the contents down the drain. The same place wouldn't serve New York tap by the glass. Oh the inhumanity!
Fat and Happy Food Slut at 5:17PM on 08/02/07
I'm going to out Megu: The waiter asked us, "Sparkling or flat?" I thought flat meant tap. He brought us flat in a bottle with one of those hinged stoppers so we were fully convinced that it is just the restaurant's way of presenting tap. Fully convinced, until I saw the Megu brand spring water label on the bottle.
I thought I was just being ignorant and felt too embarrassed to point out the misunderstanding. (Of course, we had already been waiting for half an hour to be seated for our reservation, and a couple who arrived five minutes after us for a reservation at the same time had been seated 10 minutes before we were. I already had the feeling that the restaurant was out to get us.)
lily314 at 10:39AM on 08/03/07