I’ve seen this in real life.
We were having a company dinner at a REALLY fancy place. They were advertisers in our paper. So, the chef had prepared a nice six course meal for the group.
Some colleagues are definitely more McD’s guests rather than fancy restaurants.
Three courses in, here comes a steak and gourmet fries to garnish. Colleague goes hog wild, dumps a bunch of fries on his plate and waves over the waitress. “Hey, do you have a bottle of ketchup? For on the steak?” The look she gave him was one of utter shock. “I, uh, wow, uhm… I’ll check”.
She eventually came back with a bottle, but I was sure the chef would have chased my colleague around with a kitchen knife if he’d heard of the request. That dude was intense.
Steak and fries is a restaurant staple, even if you go really expensive. This place serves 200 euro plus Wagyu cuts, for reference. And it was sublime.
The fries were ‘gourmet’ fries. Basically, you get like a ramekin of fries, which are mostly meant as garnish. It’s not like a full plate of fries.
My colleague liked them so much he did ask for extra fries, which got a mild frown from the waitress.
It’s different if you’re choosing to go somewhere fancy and pay for something expensive and then negate the fanciness, but for a free work meal I’m going to give your colleague the benefit of the doubt and assume they know what they like. Don’t gatekeep food, who gives a shit what other people like?
Oh don’t get me wrong, it was wildly entertaining. I’m more of a cheap pizza guy anyway. Our other work dinners were at a local steak restaurant which was much more everyone’s vibe.
Still, it was hilarious to see someone order ketchup with a 200 euro wagyu cut, prior to having tasted the thing. (Pure perfection, best steak ever)
€200 for a single steak, paid for by the company? Man, that is a whole order of magnitude fancier than I was expecting!