Then go to a fast food place, not a restaurant.

Yes? in Singapore they have Michelin stars.

In my experience going to a QR code restaurant with friends means everyone spends their time fiddling with their phones instead of discussing with one another the food that they are actually at the restaurant to eat. The pictures are useless, since in China the vast majority of them are stock photos that don't depict the reality of what you get. It is much easier to choose from a menu board which just says "dry fried green beans", "red cooked eggplant", "celery and dry tofu" etc than get the (much more common on QR code menus) "house special secret recipe greens" plus a random blurry photo that doesn't even make clear what green it is.

I don't expect a restaurant owner to entertain me, but I do expect them to be able to tell me what is in a dish, suggest a suitable equivalent if the restaurant doesn't have exactly what I'm looking for, tell me what's good or fresh that day or bring me something with more or less spicy depending on my preference. Any of these very short and simple interactions about exactly the product they are selling are much easier to have in person than trying to express every possible branch of a back-and-forth conversation in a tiny text box on your phone - and that's assuming there even is a text box.

I've walked out of several restaurants where they had real humans "serving" who either were completely ignorant about the food they had on offer or too lazy to bother engaging with a potential customer. "Just check the app." (Which doesn't have the answers.) What's the point, then? If all you care about is talking to your friends and not getting restaurant service, then just order online from a delivery service and enjoy your meal with friends in the park, in a square, in your office kitchen, in a hotel room, at home, wherever.

And please don't think I'm asking for American style "service" where you practically have servers begging you for tips every 2 seconds. There is a comfortable middle ground, and pretty much every small restaurant and da pai dang in China does it perfectly fine without a QR code menu.

> And please don't think I'm asking for American style "service" where you practically have servers begging you for tips every 2 seconds

It’s not like this at all. Servers don’t talk about tips or beg for them. You just tip at the end of the meal, whatever amount you want.

No but they do introduce themselves by name, ask you how your meal is going and check in every now and again. That’s not a bad thing, but it is different, and seems in my mind related to tipping culture.

Yes, waiters wait on you.

I hate having waiters keep pestering me every 5 minutes while I'm having a conversation with my friends but I wonder if it's as much due to the tip culture as due to the fact that it's considered impolite to wave a waiter over when you need them.

At high end restaurants with better trained wait staff- they are looking for visual cues on when to approach your table. Empty glasses, napkin on plate, menu down on table when you're ready to order, one customary check on the food shortly after it arrives, not so early that you haven't tried it though. But this is learned behavior on the part of the customer as well.

I hate that it's impolite to wave waiters over as well though. That would make the whole process a lot easier.

>I hate that it's impolite to wave waiters over as well though.

Depends where you are. In a lot of restaurants in Singapore, not only do you have to wave at waiters, you have to go to extremes to get their attention.

Generally they check in only once a meal and in the better restaurants, they are better about when to approach your table. There is a way that the tipping system helps - my boss tips massive amounts every time we have lunch (once a week or so). Like close to 15-25%. Especially in Indian restaurants (we are both Indians in the US). But in return, he hates waiting and expects top service. At least since I joined his team, we have gone to one new restaurant that opened up where he got pissed at the service and made them hurry up and serve our table better, then tipped them 22% or something cos he was like the food isn't bad so I'm coming back here and I want good service.

I, on the other hand, am content with waiting for the food if it takes too long and don't need any special service and would prefer to leave the (societally required) minimum tip of 10%.

15% is the socially required minimum tip in the USA. The signal sent by 10% is “I want to insult you by implying that I know tipping is required, but I’m going to make the tip so small you will know I didn’t like you”.

Tipping is a terrible system I would prefer we dispensed with, but abusing the very poorly paid people enmeshed in the system is unkind, if you can afford to eat in US restaurants.

May be true elsewhere but not in New York. I can play off the uninitiated immigrant card. The system is bad but that doesn't mean I comply with it. I know one of the consequences of my action is a poorly paid wait staff. But it is the right game theoretic move at scale. If everyone did it, we could shame restaurants into charging higher food prices and paying their staff more money in a fixed amount.

All this is beside the point that I don't eat outside in general. I prefer take out so I tip only rarely.

American restaurant servers definitely have a habit of interrupting your meal, compared to France at least

And they run you down the street when you forgot to tip. This was such a bad experience when I went to NYC.

Guests fiddling with their phones is not QR-dependent from what I experienced.

Also, waiters can be helpful, and friendly even when there's no paper menus. In my current city most restaurants are QR-enabled, and they serve food as nicely (or not) as paper-based. Absolutely the same experience except how you looking into menu. I just stopped noticing the difference.

EDIT: Maybe important note that I'm neither in US, nor an EU country.

I have to say, you are not the typical customer of a Chinese restaurant. A good restaurant is busy, the chef will not change the recipe for your taste bud, you go there for exactly what they are famous for :)

There’s plenty of people going to the restaurant alone and I bet the human experience is a big part of their motivation. They may not be as noisy and visible as groups of cheering young folks but you’ll notice them for sure if you take time to scan around with your eyes and not your phone (pun intended, not disdain over techies). Think of old widows, singles, workers away from family/friends, peoples with difficulties to have social interactions.

> and I bet the human experience is a big part of their motivation.

Restaurant business is one of the rare where "free market" is really fully functional, and market will quickly self-regulate and award the good ideas, and punish the bad ones.

If your guess was right then the restaurants without it would loose the customers, and niche restaurants with the "human experience" would start popping out attracting those unsatisfied customers. Since this is not happening in China (yet?), then perhaps it's about the difference in the culture and your bet is wrong?

This is very culture dependent. In Spain almost no one eats alone in a restaurant or bar.

America is weird because you can actually make a lot of money waiting tables.

But in the Netherlands nobody tips so it is not exactly a very desirable job. Restaurants have to literally close because they can't find staff. Automation is the only possible future for the industry whether people want it or not.

> America is weird because you can actually make a lot of money waiting tables.

Most do not.

Yeah, it's relative. Bartenders can make decent money in America, but I'm guessing it's a modest salary in most of the EU.

I just moved to the Netherlands and have no qualms with the service in most restaurants. At least in my region (Brabant/Limburg) everyone is very nice. If I had to complain about anything, it would be sitting for 20 minutes after the party is finished eating, waiting for someone to clear the table. The service has been excellent and I enjoy paying the price on the receipt with zero surprises!

I was in Amsterdam a few years ago and said a few words in Dutch to the waiter, who was really amused by it. He asked where we were from and ended up sitting down and chatting with us for like half and hour, and drew us a map of his favorite spots nearby. We also met a few really chatty bartenders, including a guy how ducked behind the bar and came back up holding kittens. I’m not sure why we had such good experiences, but it was great.

Restaurants are hardly the only industry in the Netherlands having trouble finding staff at the moment. There are quite literally less trains because the train operators can't find enough staff.

Last time I was in Amsterdam I couldn’t even speak Dutch to the waiters. Pretty ridiculous. I don’t think that happens in U.K. or US unable to speak English to the waiter of a chain restaurant

Thanks for this comment. I love experiences like this and this makes me want to go to Amsterdam even more at some point. I've experienced this in random small towns in the US, but they are few and far between.

It's not true that nobody tips in NL, but it's not mandatory; I still tip if the quality of the experience merits it. That goes beyond the responsiveness of the waiting staff, but also the ambience. If I'm eating in a glorified mess hall, which most restaurants devolve to if they optimize for number of seats, I don't tip. To me, a real restaurant also takes care of acoustics and privacy: you shouldn't have to raise your voice to be heard over the noise of the tables around you (or worse, the muzak).

It's also why the whole concept of QR-code menus is antithetical to my idea of a good restaurant: if you're dining out, you're doing it to enjoy the company you're in. Having everyone at the table space out into their private phone world is not my idea of a nice evening.

Most of the time a service charge is included anyways