Messing With the Dressing

A friend named Alfonso and I have regularly visited a favorite restaurant for over fifteen years. I especially liked their Thousand Island salad dressing to accompany their fresh, fluffy, crisp green salads. Their dressing was so good, in fact, that I talked Alfonso into ordering it on a regular basis, even though he customarily ate salad with nothing on top. But about two and a half years ago, the Thousand Island salad dressing started to taste funny. The first time it happened, I was positive someone had added white pepper and slightly fermented jalapeño pepper juice that had been strained through a sieve that had recently contained sour milk. The color was also sort of a tan color instead of the normal half-peach tint. At least the salad was still fresh and crunchy, so I told the waiter when he passed by again, who said, “Oh.” Since I had already eaten most of the salad, I declared, “Well, that must have been a fluke. We still love this restaurant!”

But the next time Alfonso and I visited the café, the Thousand Island salad dressing was still off-taste. In fact, this time it was even spicier than an accidental addition of white pepper would account for. So I complained to our waiter again, who said, “Well, we had a Latin American cook for a few months, and she thought she could improve on the recipes, so that is probably why it is spicy.” I protested, “But Thousand Island dressing isn’t supposed to be spicy!” The waiter offered to bring me ranch dressing or another kind of dressing instead. I sighed and gave in.

Hope springs eternal, though, so I repeatedly ordered the Thousand Island dressing but found I had to keep complaining that it was never as good as the original dressing. It even had dark specks like cayenne pepper one time. My friend, Alfonso, who is Mexican-American, didn’t notice the difference, since he has to be eating a Habanero pepper or some similar pepper to notice if something is spicy or not. We didn't go to the restaurant every day of every week, so MAYBE the Thousand Island dressing tasted better on other days. But it didn't taste right when we went on the weekends. No matter if I complained to a waiter, manager, or cashier, nothing seemed to change!  Sometimes it tasted like it was just dipping sauce, not even resembling Thousand Island dressing. This continued for TWO entire years.

So I came up with a plan to let the current cook know what the salad dressing was SUPPOSED to taste like. I went to another franchise location a few miles away of this same restaurant and ordered extra Thousand Island dressing in a plastic cup to go, and I took the authentic salad dressing back to the offending restaurant and presented it to the manager. Lo and behold, it worked! That is, it worked for the next visit. Their delicious Thousand Island dressing tasted very nearly the way it used to do. But then the slightly fermented, spicy, off-color non-Thousand Island dressing was served yet again on a subsequent trip! I told my friend, “I am done complaining. The food here is so good, but the cooks here must not taste the Thousand Island dressing after they make it. Or maybe that other cook’s recipes ended up replacing the original ones.”

This time when I complained to the waiter, he said, “Oh, we actually get our salad dressing shipped to us from the restaurant headquarters in California.”  I sputtered, “But the other franchise location has the right recipe and the best taste! This is so frustrating.” Anyway, there is no way I am ever going to haul a sample of the correct Thousand Island dressing all the way to California to complain!  Nor will I mail it there, either. Now I feel better.