I’ve worked on-and-off at restaurants on Long Island, New York since 2008 or 9, from crappy corporate chains to, most recently and for the longest amount of time, a higher-end Italian place where I was mostly behind the bar. This year in Taiwan I worked for a short stint at a lounge bar in the Shangri-La hotel, which started me thinking about some of the general differences between Taiwanese and American bartending and restaurant service culture. I quit working there because it was too hard for me to juggle school with working until 2+ in the morning at a place where after-shift drinks seemed to be the norm. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts and observations.
1: One-by-one
In the states when we had orders shooting out of the till faster than we could make them, we had to triage, getting quick drinks out quickly, mixing like-drinks together to save time, etc. If we got five tickets at once, two being a glass of wine, one being a couple of beers, the other two being more time-consuming cocktails, we would do the beers and wine first, even if they were ordered after the cocktails. They don’t take long — you can knock them out quickly. Americans don’t expect to wait long for things that don’t take a long time — I’m not going to not pour a beer for someone that takes fifteen seconds because a group of six ordered four Martinis and two Mojitos just before him.
In my experience, though, they do this in Taiwan. This is one of the more common service trends that you can see throughout Taiwan, not only in bars and restaurants but anywhere turns are to be taken: they serve people in order.
At the hotel I wasn’t making drinks, I was taking care of the tables. So I was basically a server that would have become a bartender later if I stuck around. The bar was a lounge, so there weren’t seats at the bar itself — tables were lined against the wall-length window, looking out onto Taipei 101 and the rest of the “skyline” (in quotes because Taipei has no skyline, see below).
So one time I took an order for a few specialty cocktails, ones that required precise measurements and twirly-whirly garnishes, then took a simple order for a glass of wine and a scotch on the rocks. The bartender was slow as !@#$ (but that’s another topic), taking ten minutes to make these three cocktails before getting to the scotch and wine.
The customers weren’t Taiwanese and didn’t understand the system of doing things in order, so were pretty annoyed when I brought out their should-have-taken-one-minute order fifteen minutes later, and shout-asked “always so slowly!?” I could only give them a knowing shrug and agree, “I know, that’s how they do it.” (re-reading this I realize that’s not the best service attitude to have, but I thought it was just as ridiculous as that guy did. In retrospect, I could have jumped behind the bar and done it myself, but it was my first month and I was nervous).
Customers in the lounge could order food from the kitchen, but since everything is made in order of appearance, bar food would sometimes come out long after the customer finished their drinks for the night, or worse would have to be canceled because the customer was ready to leave before it was done (I’ve also had to do this at other restaurants and bars in Taiwan). Since this was a bar at an international hotel, the customers were often not Taiwanese and weren’t familiar with the waiting forever concept, so I occasionally went into the kitchen and asked the cooks if they could be a little quicker with this or that ticket, because the bar guests wanted their food with their drinks, but I felt I was often intruding on the cooks’ flow.
So if you walk into a fancy cocktail bar in Taiwan — or even a not-so-fancy one — don’t be surprised if your drink takes fifteen+ minutes to come to you. It’s just how they do things.
2: Yo, Service!!
Your server generally has a “section” — at a fancy-pants restaurant, one server might only be taking care of three or four tables, giving those tables their utmost attention: opening wine, answering questions, keeping an eye on drink levels, timing courses, etc. There’s also the general stereotypical American server that doesn’t leave you alone and doesn’t shut their yap, but that person is actually just bad at their job. It’s a balance — a server should pay attention to your needs just enough without being overly present. Your beer is just about empty — a good server will quickly ask if you would like something more, then ghost away. You keep talking to your friend, you look down again and there’s your beer! Magical!
You’re eating butter with your bread. But — no! You still have a piece of bread, but your butter is all gone. A good server will notice this and bring you more butter before you have to ask. They’ll come by, sprinkle some b-chips onto your plate and wisp away with a knowing nod, maybe some jazz hands and a faint whisper, “you’re welcommeee~”. In the blink of an eye, like a dream…
Why? Why must we do this dance? Well, why do we go to restaurants in the first place? Especially a nice restaurant — we’re not just going to spend 40 dollars on a steak because we want to eat a steak. I mean the steak might be really damn good (grass-fed, massaged daily, listened to Bach), but I wouldn’t pay $40 to eat it on a fold-out table in my dirty living room. That’s what Taco Bell is for. We go to a restaurant for the atmosphere and for the ease of it all, for one night. We don’t have to cook; we don’t have to clean — we’re like little babies with mommy and daddy making our dinner, or a king being waited upon by his lowly servants. (Just kidding— servers are people, too…).
You snap your fingers (just kidding again — don’t snap your fingers at the waiter) and are presented with another scotch on the rocks, just like that. Ice on the side, some more truffle aioli. There are obviously people who abuse this by asking for things they would never actually need, and don’t actually want (don’t ask for a side of mayo and then not use it. Seriously), but that’s not the point. The perfect restaurant is comfortable, homey but also slightly luxurious. The perfect server is someone who doesn’t make you constantly aware you’re being watched, or that you’re a customer and they’re part of a business. That’s why so many Americans get cranky when something is messed up — whether the food is wrong or it comes out too late or something is missing. It’s like a play and the fourth wall shouldn’t be broken.
In Taiwan, this is not the case at all. A typical Taiwanese restaurant is just about eating food. You eat, you leave. If it’s family-style, you eat and you chat with family or friends, then you leave. There is no such thing as service, for the most part. There are people that bring you the food, but that’s about it. It’s a lot easier, it’s a lot different.
If there’s a mistake, it’s usually a shrug and “well, you can still eat it, right?” Yesterday I ordered chicken-leg bian dang (meat/veggies/rice meal), for example, and was given pork instead. I looked at it, looked back and mentioned to the server “hey, I actually ordered chicken.” Then we both looked at each other, there was a short pause, and I said “yeah I’ll just eat this. It’s fine.” They don’t try to fix it, there isn’t a big hullabaloo. At a different place last week I ordered a meal “for here” and was given it in a to-go box. I told them I ordered it for here, and they just kind of shrugged and said “well you can just eat it out of the to-go box, right? We already put it all in there.”
I’m also comparing apples to oranges right now because I’m mainly talking about your basic Taiwanese restaurant, not fine-dining. Honestly, “restaurant” isn’t even the right word for them, and when I’ve talked with friends about how to translate these places It’s hard to find the right word. “Food place” seems the most appropriate. You walk in and usually order the food yourself by checking a box next to what you want. Generally, you get up and give the slip of paper to someone up front (often the person making the food, if it’s a really small place). The food is brought out piece-meal; whenever something is done it comes out, regardless of who ordered it, and when you’re done you usually get up and walk to the front to pay. Sometimes everyone has a fanny pack with money in it, so you can just hand money to anybody. Shit’s casual! Taiwanese people are generally casual (getting off-topic…)
But seriously, Taiwanese people are pretty casual. They’re also Taiwanese, and Taiwanese food culture seems to be rooted more in sharing food together with family or friends, and very focused on the food itself. When it comes to service, it just doesn’t go further than someone making a ton of food and then dropping it off at the table. Everyone helps each other — filling each other’s drinks, ladling soup or rice into each other’s bowls. Taiwanese also mainly eat out, instead of cooking at home — specifically for lunch, because people are out and about. Families may cook at night, but mainly people eat out. Breakfast as well. So places are generally cheaper and less fussy, and for the most part you know what you’re getting when you order.
So getting back to the whole Americans do not want to have to wave down their server thing(it’s considered rude, it breaks the fourth wall etc.), in Taiwan it’s expected that if you want the server, you wave them over. Since most things in Taiwanese restaurants are DIY (you order your own food, get your own drinks, grab your own side dishes) the restaurant employees are not usually needed by the customers in between the act of dropping off the food and clearing off dirty plates. I’ll say that Taiwan doesn’t usually even have servers, it has cooks and runner/bussers (runners being the people that drop your food off for you).
Back to the hotel — With the Taiwanese/Chinese customers it was really weird for me to get into the groove of hanging back and waiting to be called upon. In the States I was so used to being preemptive; in Taiwan I had to learn to wait for the customer to wave me over. If I walked over to a table beforehand, I was often met by awkward looks— ‘we didn’t call you over yet, why are you here?’ Like that.
3. The Social Aspect
American bartenders also have the job of being social. It’s not really about making drinks — at a nice-ass cocktail bar, of course the drinks are important, but as a bartender those drinks are also expected to be a point of conversation with the customers, and you’re expected to be able to chat about whatever the customer wants to chat about (sports, Trump, the environment) and often be able to listen to the customer when they want to complain or vent or boast about something. You’re expected to know the area you work in, to an extent, and all-in-all be a pretty solid individual.
Of course, you’re supposed to know when to leave a customer alone, when a couple wants to chat amongst themselves, and how to politely slip away from, or at least pretend like you’re listening to a customer who just won't shut up or might have a few screws loose. By default, I’m not the chattiest guy in the world, and It took me quite a while to understand how to interact socially while being a bartender. Sometimes I wanted to just “do my job”— making the drinks, cleaning and organizing the bar while dealing with the actual customers just enough to get them what they need. But I slowly realized that interacting with customers and being friendly is part of the job, and if I’m actively being antisocial, even standoffish, I’m failing in that respect. It doesn’t matter how great my Moscow Mule tastes or how strikingly handsome I am if I seem antisocial, or worse, condescending.
In Taiwan in general there isn’t this tradition of western-style bars to begin with. The whole concept of bars, and people sitting at the bar with the bartender in front of them making their drinks, is all fairly new and so pretty different from “the west” (I put that in quotes and try not to use that term, “the west”, as it’s pretty fickle and too general. It’s one of those terms you have to modify with a “you know what I mean”. But in this case, I’ll use it.) One of the main differences I’ve seen is that Taiwan is really taking to the whole “mixology” concept — cocktails as art (aka Instagram fodder). A lot of cocktail bars will make a really pretty cocktail, and some of them here really go above and beyond, concocting Booker and Dax-type potions. Bartenders here at the nice places often dress up in all blacks, sometimes with a vest and bow-tie. The whole traditional dapper bartender look — and they’re often very handsome. It’s sort of about the show of it all here — the cocktail looks great, the bartender is a shuai ge (a cool, handsome boy), but the bars are often lacking that social aspect.
4. So What’s a Taiwanese Bar, Then?
It’s a concept that some foreigners struggle with — they want to go to a bar or a pub, but… they’re all so expensive, they’re all western-style! Where can someone go to drink with the locals? Where are the Taiwanese bars? But then they realize that their concept of a bar is a fundamentally western concept, and they have to drop that entirely. The bar as they know it doesn’t exist in Taiwan as a natural occurrence.
Taiwanese drinking establishments are for the most part restaurants that also have beer, call re chao (lit. Hot-Fry). That, or people drink at pool halls or lounges, which lack a bar but have couches/tables where you get bottles or drinks and share with friends (but these are also more recent additions). Or, since you can drink anywhere in Taiwan, you simply grab some beers or a bottle of whiskey (or gaoliang) and drink outside of your house with a deck of cards, or by the riverside (popular with students).
Anyway, that’s it for now. Just some random thoughts on service and bar culture and how it differs between Taiwanese and American culture. If you’ve read this far and you’re not me, then thank you! Hope you enjoyed at least some of it.
