Dining Out Should you send it back?

Let's say you sit down for a meal at a top-rated restaurant, and everything is absolutely fantastic throughout the entire meal, except that your steak entrée is served medium to medium well — with almost no pink flesh in the center of the steak — rather than medium-rare as you had ordered it.

Should you say anything?

And let's say a few moments later the maître d' checks to make sure everything is fine. Do you mention that they slightly overcooked your order?

I'm willing to guess that most people smile and simply report to the maître d' that everything is just fine — even though you admit to yourself that you're slightly disappointed.

If you point out the mistake, not only do you end up causing trouble for the waitstaff and wasting a perfectly good piece of meat, but you'll likely end up delaying your own meal and disrupt the flow of everyone else's meal at the table.

On the other hand, you aren't doing the restaurant any favors because the maître d' can't give the crucial feedback to the chefs in the kitchen that are hopefully striving for culinary perfection.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this conundrum and how they usually deal with it when out with close friends and family.

It's understandable that different chefs will have some slightly different interpretations of doneness. But, I have never come across a restaurant that defined "medium rare" meat as being almost devoid of any pink flesh. If that were acceptable to any establishment, there wouldn't be any way to distinguish medium-rare from medium, and subsequently medium from medium-well — or well-done for that matter.

In other words, medium-rare has to have a good amount of pink in it or the rest of the doneness options won't make any sense. (Though, I have been to restaurants that, due to a local law, cannot serve meat cooked to an internal temperature below 150º, and therefore are unable to accommodate any "rare" orders. Surprisingly, the servers will still ask you how you want your meat cooked even though there really isn't a choice.)

If you read my initial comment, I wasn't debating the difference between bloody meat and pink meat. The order was slightly overcooked, period — it wasn't a matter of semantics, and I'm sure the Maître d' wasn't going to tell me that I didn't know what medium rare was if I had spoken up. After all, the customer is always right.

Good chefs know very well what temperatures and textures make an order medium-rare — or they wouldn't have a job. However, the reality is that mistakes happen. Sometimes a cut of meat will continue to cook a little more if left under the heat lamps, or placed onto a piping hot plate right out of the warmer.

Mistakes happen all the time.

The point is, what do you do about it when a mistake happens? Do you nod to the Maître d' and tell him everything is perfect? Or do you tell him that it wasn't exactly what you expected so that he can improve his restaurant's service? My experience is that most people don't say anything out of politeness to the rest of the table and to not offend the hard work of the staff, even though most people would wish to say something in an entirely different setting. It seems in practice that the accepted etiquette is to simply praise a meal to the Maître d' when the errors are forgivable. After all, who wants to dole out a criticism on a special occasion when everyone else is enjoying themselves. I can certainly understand that sentiment. But, I'm very much curious if others feel the same way or disagree.