A bottle of red...

For those of you that know me, you know it's not that unusual for me to get free meals for one reason or another. Sometimes it's bad service. Sometimes it's a bad kitchen. Sometimes it's a combination of the two. Tonight the problem was the kitchen.

The restaurant? Maggiano's in Santana Row.

Three friends and I ordered our dinner after appetizers had already arrived. I ordered the filet while they had pasta dishes. Their dishes came out before mine which wasn't a big deal. A person can only carry so many plates at one time, so I waited and they started eating. And then I waited some more. And then some more. And then our waiter (whose name was Ish by the way) came and told me he was checking on my steak. And then there was some more waiting while my friends continued to eat their pasta. Ish returned after almost 10 more minutes and let me know that the kitchen had overcooked the steak but didn't tell him, so he'd asked for another one to be cooked asap. So I waited some more. And then, yes, some more. When he came back and told me it would be another few minutes and asked if that was okay, I told him it was fine but to just go ahead and package it to go. I had no interest in eating it at that point. My friends were finished, and while they would have gladly waited for me to eat, I was over it. I was, in a word, done.

A few minutes later Rick Menard appeared. He was the manager on duty and sat my bag of food down in front of me while apologizing for the whole scenario. He let me know that he'd be taking care of the dinner and then handed me a nice bottle of wine that he told me to enjoy with my dinner. Our server certainly knew I wasn't happy, and he did exactly the right thing by letting the manager know. The manager did exactly the right thing by comping my meal and giving me the bonus bottle of wine. Of course, I don't drink wine so I gave the bottle to one of my friends, but it was a very nice gesture, and it definitely means I might try Maggiano's again.

So thank you Rick Menard. You rock.

Oh, and I ate the filet after I got home...complete joy. One of the best filets I've ever eaten. And I've eaten a lot.