QR code menus headline readers' biggest food and restaurant gripes

It’s Wednesday, which means that it’s time to take inventory of everything we hate in another edition of The Gripe Report.

Last week, in an edition some are calling "historic," "monumental," and "meh, it was something good to read on the can," I talked about some of my biggest food gripes.

Stuff like restaurants that insist on planks of wood being better than good old-fashioned plates (they’re not), foods with outlandish flavors meant to make you go, "Whoa, that’s weird," and how brunch just isn't what it used to be.

So, I figured it was time to toss the keys to readers who wrote in with their opinions on some of these topics and more.

Let’s start with the ruining of what is a great concept on paper — brunch — with some takes from Brunch-hater Jim:

I’m 56.  My dad died 17 years ago.  He hated brunch until the day he died, and he passed it to me.  His feeling was that you couldn’t get a project started in the morning if you had to go to brunch.  And by the time you got home, there wasn’t enough time to get one done (not to mention the issue if you’d had a few cocktails).

And you’re right, it’s impossible to get reservations. I made the mistake of waiting until the Tuesday night before Mother’s Day this year.  Nothing available other than a high-top in the bar section of one place, and that was shot down by the mother in question.

Finally found a place with a nice patio, albeit one not known for breakfast food. But their website bragged about Mother’s Day brunch.  So, I made a reservation only to get there and find out that they had two items on the menu. Steak and eggs or eggs Benedict.  Good thing my wife likes eggs Benedict.

Brunch sucks.

…

I never really thought about brunch as the most inconveniently timed meal there is.

It really does take up your morning and a chunk, if not all of your afternoon. It’s a commitment.

As Jim mentioned, getting brunch reservations is always a nightmare, but don’t get me started on Mother’s Day brunch.

That’s a tradition for my family as well, and it almost always sneaks up on me. Then I’m left scrambling trying to find a place. Sure, there are lots of places, but all of the best ones fill up in a hurry.

Also, if you’re a restaurant that only has two items on the menu, you shouldn’t be allowed to call it brunch. I don’t know what you call it, but brunch is supposed to be the who’s who of menus where eggs Benedict stands shoulder to shoulder with burgers and fish tacos.

It’s a thing of beauty, and I think that joint with two menu items just fundamentally misunderstands the spirit of brunch.

They just understood that the name is a portmanteau of brunch and lunch.

It was a big week for Jims, because Jim T. (no word on his feelings on brunch) wrote in about his disdain for restaurants that seem to have a singular goal of making everything QR code-centric:

I get that we're in the digital age now - heck, I built from scratch one of the first daily newspaper websites in the country in another life, and converted another daily from film and wax paste-up to digital production.

I'm on board.

But asking for an actual menu at a restaurant doesn't seem like it's asking for too much. Kinda strikes me as part of your base-level overhead.

A buddy and I went to a sit-down brewhouse chain in SoCal a few years back, and the hostess greeted us and took us to a table. She turned to leave, and my buddy asked if we could get menus. She looked at us like we were idiots (not entirely unfair, in my case), and pointed to the QR code on the label in the middle of the table.

POPULAR PIZZA CHAINS FACE BACKLASH OVER SURGING MENU PRICES

At the time, I had a cell phone that barely qualified as smart - it didn't do QR codes. (On the other hand, it did just fine at making phone calls and getting emails and was paid for). I explained this to her - and in response got a loud sigh. She went and got two paper menus for us.

When we were done and getting ready to leave, my buddy asked the waitress if we could get our tab to close out.

She again pointed to the QR code - we were expected to pay via an app, I guess.

GUY FIERI NEVER EATS THESE 6 FOODS — WOULD YOU?

She, too, sighed, and then brought us a receipt and took our cards.

Didn't get a tip, either.

…

I’m 30 years old, which means I kind of came up with QR codes, and even I want those things to get bent.

The first time I used one to look at a menu, I felt like George Jetson, but as soon as the novelty wore off, I was like, "Give me a physical menu, please."

The menu is part of the experience of going out to eat. It’s like holding a big gastronomic map and using it to plot your course.

"We’ll start off with the mozzarella sticks and then maybe take a detour into the onion ring country before we get back on track to the French dip district, then, finally, I think we’ll call it a day in bread pudding burrough…"

I don’t like paying by QR either, mainly because it’s never been super clear at places that go this route that this is how it’s done.

My wife and I recently went to a restaurant that we’ve been to many times that pulled the rug out from under us and switched to QR pay.

The server came to our table, and I was like, "We’ll just take the check," and she just nodded.

After a moment of confused silence, she pointed at this chunk of clear acrylic with what looked like a business card trapped in it like a mosquito trapped in amber.

Turns out that’s how you pay, but it was also how you look at the menu.

It was complete madness, and that’s for me, someone who is fairly tech savvy.

I can’t imagine not being tech savvy and being faced with this dilemma.

I’d probably just run out of the restaurant without paying and screaming like Rainman.

Last week, I talked about my issues with buying avocados. It’s not that I don’t know how to pick a good ‘cado; it’s just that the universe is conspiring against me to make it way harder than it needs to be.

Fortunately, Mike, AKA the Avocado Whisperer, has a foolproof plan to ensure top-top avocados.

Your avocado buying lesson begins now:

NUTRITION EXPERTS REVEAL 5 OF THE HEALTHIEST NUT OPTIONS FOR YOUR DIET

First, find a store (for me it's Sprouts here in Las Vegas) where produce is a priority, and the person placing the avocados from the box to the bin doesn't hate their job and slam the avocados into the bin as I've seen many times.

Second, walk up to the bin and survey all of the avocados. Never choose from the front, as typical avocado buyers squeeze 5 or 6 before choosing. Each squeeze becomes a black bruise in a day. Look around the back of the bin or even under other avocados for the one that hasn't been touched and has just enough green that it will be ripe the next day. If you need an avocado for the same day, no green and brown is the way to go. For the next 3 days, get one that is mostly green. No avocado lasts longer than three days.

Third, treat your chosen avocados like eggs. Do not allow them to hit anything in your basket, and load them on the checkout last. Or even better, use self-checkout to avoid the evil, uncaring cashier or bag person.

And last, store them only on top of the refrigerator where they will comfortably ripen slowly, unmolested.

I rarely get a bad avocado using this method.

…

This.

This is the greatest crash course in avocado selection, care, and maintenance I have ever read.

Mike should sell this as an E-book, because it just saved all of us probably $20 a year in rancid avocados.

He also pointed out something I’ve noticed too, and that is the disrespect a lot of cashiers show for produce.

They’ll treat eggs like they’re, well, Faberge eggs, but not produce.

I swear, I’ve had checkout people ring up a bag of Honeycrisp apples, then practically Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sky hook them onto that metal staging area where they bag everything up.

ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON'T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!

Thanks for that.

Few fruits are robust enough to handle that. Maybe some melons. Cantaloupe, yes; honeydew, no; watermelon, maybe; and casaba, who the hell knows?

I’m an adult man who still has no idea what those actually are.

It’s up there with cumquats and rhubarb on my list of produce I’ve heard about my entire life but could not identify in a police lineup.

…

That’s it for this week’s Gripe Report.

If you want your gripe to be featured in a future edition like these fellas — no, heroes — then be sure to send it to matthew.reigle@outkick.com.