More cocktail sauce, why didn’t you?

/ June 12, 2015
Quite a claim to hold high.

Quite a claim to hold high.

The phone-placed order to the folks at Kream ‘N’ Kone was quite specific.

I’m practically a drill seargant about these things. Polite but firm. I want my order to be right after my dear wife Karen and I drive to a place, pick up our food, return, unwrap, and face the plates.

Besides, we’ve been looking forward to this meal from this cool food stand in Cape Cod for a year. Yes, this is on the Traditions List in our annual pre-tourist-rush June stay at the Happy Cottage.

So I asked for: Two fried shrimp plates, with onion rings and cole slaw. Cocktail sauce only. Cocktail sauce. Don’t bother with the tartar.

Thank you, sir, ten minutes.

Lovely little place, fast, efficient.

Modern but traditional.
No confusion inside
They know fried.
Size them up.
That’s a lot.

I reiterated to the woman at the counter about our love of cocktail sauce. She smiled.

Insulation for the trip.

Insulation for the trip.

We returned the few miles to the Happy Cottage, and the boxed meals were still hot.

Thinking inside the box.

Thinking inside the box.

The shrimp were plentiful. Juicy and tasty, breading just right. The onion rings were sweet on the inside and crispy on the out. The cole slaw was a tad sweet and a bit tart all at once. Wonderful, better than the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que back home in Syracuse, and a portion twice as large as they provide to boot.

But, oh, the dipping sauce issue.

We each had one cocktail sauce, a small hand-packed container at that, next to an extremely large pre-portioned Ken’s tartar sauce.

They had not listened to my special request.

Bummer.

Even though I dipped more sparingly than I prefer, I ran out of cocktail sauce two-thirds of the way through my dozen-plus shrimp. How disappointing.

Too much and too little.

Too much and too little.

(Thanks to my friend Christy at Dancing Echoes for suggesting this poll when I brought up cocktail vs. tartar in my Chatham post earlier this week.)

And, just to prove that a good time was had in the backyard by Karen, Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and I regardless I offer:

Backyard dinner.

Backyard dinner.

Would you have gone back to the restaurant for more cocktail sauce and to issue a complaint? What else might you have ordered at the Kream ‘N’ Cone in the first place? What’s your favorite backyard dinner from a takeout joint, and why?

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56 thoughts on “More cocktail sauce, why didn’t you?”

  1. Pingback: Where Is The Brick House? | Brickhouse Chick - Letting It All Hang Out

  2. That is disappointing. Sadly, because I often have such special requests, I’ve learned to check the bag/box before I leave just to make sure they actually heard my special request. TOO many times, I’ve gotten all the way home only to have to turn back around and get something fixed while everything/everyone else’s food gets cold.

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  4. So frustrating when you did EVERYTHING YOU COULD TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY. I would take both myself, but this is America, and you should have been given what you requested.

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  5. That’s the one thing I don’t like about carry out — as others have said, once I’ve arrived home with the hot food, I’m not going back so I’m stuck with the mistake. Some places seem to be routinely good. One place here I learned to just sit down in there with my sack and examine everything before leaving because about 95% of the time they got something wrong… Often something major. At home, we keep those favorite sauces stocked so when that part of an order is screwed up we can just pull out the jar of cocktail sauce or whatever and eat happy. Tough if you’re vacationing though.

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  6. I don’t want tartar sauce on ANYTHING!!!!! Definitely not on shrimp. The entire world should know you always, I mean ALWAYS, have cocktail sauce with shrimp. I wouldn’t have gone back for more sauce, but then I wouldn’t have ordered 12 shrimp either. Six is my limit. Even when my mouth wants more, my tummy says “no”, and I’ve learned the hard way to listen to tummy. Definitely call the restaurant and tell them about it bro Mark. Tell them your order was very specific, but they messed it up and they have now lost a customer. They don’t like bad reviews like this one, so maybe send a copy of this post to the restaurant. Bad publicity like this will affect their business, and you might get a comp meal out of it. Or at least a bottle of cocktail sauce for the next time you have shrimp.

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  7. Insufficient cocktail sauce is a tragedy, but so is cold fried shrimp–what a dilemma. Next year, pack a bottle of cocktail sauce for the fridge as backup, just in case.

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  8. I’m the kind of person everyone hates to be behind, because I check the bags and containers at the drive-thru or before I leave the counter, and even before I tip the pizza guy. True story. I take my food seriously, and obviously people running restaurants should take food seriously!
    Obviously cocktail sauce for fried shrimp. Tartar is for flake fish.

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  9. i’m a lemon and cocktail sauce woman, when in fried shrimp land. my suggestion; buy a jar of cocktail sauce to keep at the cottage, with so much seafood surrounding you and so many seafood meals. sure to be enough to satisfy both of you that way. disappointing when you specify something for an order and your request is not honored, though –

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  10. I’m not a tartar sauce fan at all. If I had had fried shrimp, I would have wanted cocktail sauce. I would not go back because the food would get cold, as others have said.
    I don’t get takeout food very often–sometimes Chinese food or sandwiches. We eat inside at home because our yard is too buggy, but we’d eat outside if at a restaurant or visiting somewhere. 🙂

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  11. Oh MBM….the pain of this! I can feel it. Absolutely need the cocktail sauce, and PLENTY of it. No, no no to the tartar sauce. You should not have had to dip sparingly and then forgo ALL dipping for the last third. I can absolutely empathize with you. 😦

    I would not have gone back for more cocktail sauce unless it was next door. Because then the meal would not be hot, not as good, and that would have then created a litany of sadnesses.

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  13. Oh yeah, I often find this problem at fast food restaurants. I always check the order at the window now…once bitten twice shy!! When this happened, I didn’t go back but I called management and the next time I went I got a freebie. That’s probably how I would have handled it. Ugh! Annoying!

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  14. I prefer the red sauce, too – according to your poll, the majority of people prefer the red sauce. It’s time the restaurants figured that out, don’t you think?

    I guess if I was in the middle of the meal and ran out of red sauce, I would just go look for some ketchup. Definitely, I wouldn’t drive back to the restaurant.

    BTW, I don’t get what the name “Kream ‘N Kone” has to do with seafood. Do they also serve ice cream? Or donuts?

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  16. I think forgiveness in the oversight could be given mate, but a gentle suggestion that in future they pay attention specifically to phone orders, and point out the serving of sauce should be in proportion to the meal served.

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  17. Ummm, great seafood. Ahhhh, my mouth is watering. I might have ordered fried fish instead of shrimp – MIGHT – all seafood is good. I’m not very trusting Mark and always check my order before leaving the establishment – even at drive through windows. They so seldom get it right that I have given up on trusting. For take out, I love seafood but it is rare and expensive here in Ottawa. Most times I will get a club sandwich with fries. That said, we have a local Montreal smoked meat joint called Nate’s and if I am in their area I love, love love their smoked meat sandwiches piled high with fresh sliced smoked meat.

    Very tasty post Mark O_o Thanks!

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  18. You said fried shrimp, but your poll is for broiled shrimp, so I am in a quandary how to answer the poll. ^_^. For me, for cold shrimp a la shrimp cocktail, I like cocktail sauce, and that little plastic container would not be enough. For fried shrimp, I like them au natural. It’s the one thing I don’t dip because I don’t get it often and it is so damned good.

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  19. I wouldn’t have gone back, your shrimp would have gotten cold. Just mark it up to being a red sauce kind of guy living in a tartar sauce world. Those rings look pretty good.

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