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On the NY Times small business blog, Bruce Buschel shares 50 things restaurant servers and staff should never do.

1. Do not let anyone enter the restaurant without a warm greeting.

2. Do not make a singleton feel bad. Do not say, “Are you waiting for someone?” Ask for a reservation. Ask if he or she would like to sit at the bar.

3. Never refuse to seat three guests because a fourth has not yet arrived.

4. If a table is not ready within a reasonable length of time, offer a free drink and/or amuse-bouche. The guests may be tired and hungry and thirsty, and they did everything right.

More establishments should heed the advice of #4.  The list is handy for not just restaurant servers and owners, but also customers.  It’s a nice road map for determining if a place goes above and beyond.  There are too many restaurants in your city to eat at a place that doesn’t provide excellent service.  The next 50 will follow next week.

Restaurants often rely on horribly cliched copywriting to sell you their food.  All of the suggestions offered should be scribbled on a post-it somewhere next to the place menus and slogons are composed.  Among the offenses:

“Kobe burger”

If it grazed in Idaho, it’s not Kobe. It’s only Kobe if it comes from the Kobe region in Japan.

–”Shrimp Scampi”; “Eggplant alla melanzane”; “With au jus”

Respectively interpreted as “shrimp shrimp”; “eggplant in the style of eggplant”; and “with with juice.”

I understand the need to do this for chain restaurants, where they’re driven as much by marketing as they are by the (lack of) quality of their food, but for all other restaurants this type of bad writing happens more often than one would think.

World Famous.  That’s the one phrase that drives me absolutely bonkers.

Anthony Bourdain, chef and author of Kitchen Confidential, jots down some notes on the 13 restaurants you should eat at before dying. Some expected and not so expected choices on his list.

Bourdain acknowledges that as “any seasoned traveler can tell you, the ‘best’ meals on the planet are the result of an ephemeral confluence of circumstances,” and makes convincing arguments for each of his picks, which also include Kansas City, Kan.’s Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue, Tokyo’s Sukiyabashi Jiro and London’s St. John.

Others making the list include: ElBulli, The French Laundry and Per Se (both owned by Thomas Keller), Salumi (Mario Batali’s parent’s sandwich shop in Seattle), Russ & Daughters, Katz’s Deli, St. John’s in London, Sin Huat Eating House in Singapore, Le Bernardin in NYC, Etxebarri in Axpe, Spain, and finally, Hot Doug’s in Chicago.

Times Online ranks the world’s top 100 restaurants.  No surprise that Ferran Adria’s El Bulli in Spain came out on top.  If you want to get an idea of why El Bulli, you should go to your local bookstore and check out A Day at El Bulli. 

With four restaurants in the top 10 (and a plethora of others in the top 100), should we begin to consider Spain the world’s culinary destination? 

Per Se (NYC) and Alinea (Chicago) are the only two American entries in the top 10. Other American restaurants that made the cut include: The French Laundry (Napa), Le Bernardin (NYC), Jean Georges (NYC), Masa (NYC), Momofuku Ssam Bar (NYC), Daniel (NYC), Chez Panisse (Berkeley), Babbo (NYC), Manresa (Santa Cruz), and Del Posto (NYC).

Basically lots of NYC restaurants.  Obvsiously solidify its reputation as America’s high-end food capital.  I do think it’s unfortunate that so many restaurants from New York are on there.  C’mon America, it’s time to step up your food game. 

My only complaint with the article is why just a list?

Breakfast may be the most difficult meal of the day to achieve perfection with.  So when you find a great breakfast place, you best hold on to it, support it, eat there all the time.  I’ve got a few in Portland that I like, but what I really miss are the greasy spoon diners in Boston.  The ones that open at 3 a.m. for the late night drunks and stay open for the early birds, etc.

There is nothing more satisfying than a well-made breakfast.  Esquire rounds up a list of 59 must try breakfast places in America. Lots of places in California, the South and Illinois and the midwest.

I’ve been to a few on this list and can vouch that these must be good restaurants.  Kudos for picking: The Roadside Cafe in Mass. and The Friendly Toast in Portsmouth, N.H., The Hominy Grill in Charleston, S.C., and Aretha Frankensteins in Chattanooga, Tenn.

There should have been one or two places from Portland, Ore.  Me?  I like Jeanie’s or Jam on Hawthorne.  Pine State Biscuits is great, but I’ve never had their breakfast.  I always go straight to the fried chicken.  No joke.

Also they lose points with me for including Bob Evans, Holiday Inn Express buffet breakfast and The Waffle House.  The Waffle House will erode your stomach lining it is so disgusting.

Still, the art of cooking breakfast, especially when it rises above the fold should be celebrated.  Who’s got a favorite breakfast place in their neck of the woods and what’s the dish that keeps you coming back?