After reading this, diners might want to take a little bit more care when taking advice from a restaurant’s waiting staff when you ask them for a wine recommendation – as an American found out, much to his cost at the Bobby Flay Steak at the Bogata Hotel Casino and Spa in New Jersey.

This particular gentleman was tasked by the businessman hosting the dinner with selecting the wine for him and his business colleagues, and not knowing much about wine, quite understandably asked the waitress for a recommendation of a decent wine as he did not have wine experience.

She pointed to a bottle on the menu and said it was “thirty-seven-fifty” and, after a brief discussion among themselves, they agreed on the wine.

When the bottle of 2011 Screaming Eagle arrived, it was tasted and said by the group to be “OK, it was good – it wasn’t great, it was fine”.

It was good – it wasn’t great, it was fine

However, when dinner was over, the bill was handed to the host who gazed in astonishment at the total bill which was $4,700.61, including tax. The bottle of wine, Screaming Eagle, Oakville 2011 – costing $3,750 – not the $37.50 expected.

Consequently, the waitress was called over and told there was ‘a problem’. The gentleman who ordered the wine explained that he never would have ordered such an expensive wine, and repeated that, when he asked about the price, the waitress said “thirty-seven fifty”, not “three thousand, seven hundred and fifty”.

The waitress disagreed, and a manager was called over. “I said the waitress told me it cost ‘thirty-seven fifty’, not ‘three thousand, seven-hundred and fifty dollars’,” he said.

The manager offered to give separate bills, so the dinner bill, which was not being disputed, could be paid.

Next, they were told the best price the restaurant could offer was $2,200.

He said he could not afford that, but to be able to leave, he and two other diners agreed to split the $2,200 bill between them.

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