English Boost Level Up Your Skills | English Podcast Conversation | Episode 04

[Music] hello English Learners welcome back to another great podcast here at English pod my name is Marco and I'm Erica and today we're going to be talking about one of our favorite topics as always food food we're going to be at a restaurant and you know one of the most difficult or embarrassing things to deal with at a restaurant is um what to say when you don't like the food or when it's bad quality food right so maybe we have to complain about the food or maybe even the service right that's right and in this

lesson we're going to be learning some some really wonderful um words and phrases that you can use when you need to complain about the food or the service in a restaurant okay so before we listen to what happens in this restaurant with this food let's take a look very quickly at vocabulary preview vocabulary preview okay we're only going to do one word today uh and this you'll hear in the dialogue um an establishment establishment this kind of establishment okay so when I say an establishment that's a noun what is an establishment it's basically a fancy

word for a business or a restaurant in this case in this case it's a restaurant but in general you can say it's a business M so you have a very fine establishment that's right so an establishment a type of business a place of business really very good all right so now it's time for us to listen to our dialogue we're going to find out what's going on here apparently there is a very angry customer and we're going to find out why excuse me waiter yes sir what can I do for you I've been sitting here

for the past 20 minutes and no one has offered me a glass of water brought any bread to the table and our appetizer haven't been served yet you know in this kind of establishment I'd expect much better service I'm sorry sir I'll check on your order right away relax honey the place is busy tonight and I've heard the food is amazing anyway here you are sir the fog W for the lady and a mushroom soup for you waiter I heard a cream of mushroom soup with asparagus the soup is obviously too runny and it's over

seasoned it's completely inedible okay I I do apologize for that can I bring you another soup or would you like to order something else take this back as well it's rubbery and completely overcooked and look at the portion size how can you charge $25 for a sliver of duck liver right away sir honey come on the f c was fine why are you making such a big deal are you trying to get our meal CED again what do you mean we are paying for this and I'm shelling out my hard-earned bucks I expect value for

money here you are sir I hope it is all right now the chef has prepared it especially for you yes fine honey are you all right [Laughter] well I guess that's one lesson hey if you're in a restaurant uh don't be too rude to the waiter you never know what's going to happen the waiter and the cook right yeah you don't want to offend that those uh that kitchen Staff All right so uh we'll talk about that a little bit later on but uh now I think we had some really interesting vocabulary of how to

describe food that is not well prepared and we can take a look at that now in language takeaway language takeaway all right so the guy in this in this dialogue he ordered a mushroom soup and he complained that the mushroom soup was too runny okay the soup is too runny runny so he wanted a cream of mushroom so it should be a little bit thicker yep but in this case it was runny so when something is runny it's too liquid too liquid and I think we can Rel it to a runny nose right exactly okay

so when liquid is coming out of your nose a runny nose in this case the soup is runny all right and another thing that he was complaining about the food was over seasoned over seasoned the food is over seasoned okay so if the food is over seasoned it's too salty so it's another way of saying it's too salty yeah it's kind of a fancy um a cooking term now can I say if there's too much pepper in the food can I say it's over seasoned well well um technically no when when a cook says something

is over seasoned he's talking salt only only salt okay so the cream of mushroom is very runny it's overseason and he said it's completely inedible inedible it's inedible inedible now this word edible you can eat it you can eat it so we had this prefix inedible you cannot eat it this is not possible Y and it doesn't mean that physically you can't eat it it just means it's pretty disgusting okay this food is inedible mhm and then he started to complain about the other dish and he said that it's rubbery rubbery the the fagra was

rubbery all right so I think we noticed the word rubber mhm so obviously if if a food is rubbery it tastes or it it it's too chewy it's like chewing on the bottom of your shoe right okay so it's it's too hard to chew or to swallow exactly all right apparently the food was rubbery because it's completely overcooked overcooked all right we have overcooked so when something is overcooked I mean it's it's easy to understand that it's cooked too much MH but it doesn't mean that it's burnt right no so maybe you've ordered your steak

to be rare but it comes to you well done so it's not burnt but it's cooked too much so also I guess we can say like chicken sometimes if you overcook chicken it comes out too dry yep all right so to overcook something mhm and and finally he was complaining about the size of the dish and he said um this is a sliver of duck liver okay a sliver a sliver all right now this word sliver is like a slice right a very small tiny little slice okay so we can say okay I just want

a sliver of bacon for breakfast all right why don't we hear a few more examples of how we can use sliver example one no John's on a diet he'll just have a sliver of cake and no ice cream example two I'm really full but it looks so delicious can you just cut me a sliver example three you call this sliver of beef on my plate of meal there's almost nothing here and those are all the words we had for language takeaway now you have so we've given you different adjectives of describing food that is not

well prepared so now let's move on to some other phrases that the customer used to complain in fluency Builder fluency Builder Okay so before we get to the customer complaining language I want to look at a phrase that the waiter used to apologize he said I do apologize I do apologize I do apologize now why is this phrase so uh interesting well I mean it's pretty easy to understand the meaning but I want to look at why he added this uh verb do mhm well he added the verb do uh to this phrase to make

it um seem a little bit stronger to give a little more power to his apology right so if you have an affirmative phrase like I apologize it it's good but if you want to give it a little bit more emphasis you can say I do apologize why don't we give an example um so I might say this Marco I didn't know we had a party tonight and I might say what I did tell you about it last week right so you're just giving a little bit more power to the statement that you told me mhm

so this do did does becomes an auxiliary to make it more powerful to give it more emphasis yeah exactly so a neat little phrase uh something you can use if you want to make your apologies sound maybe a little bit stronger all right now moving on to the next next phrase he was complaining about the food and it was terrible and he said I'm shelling out my hard-earned bucks okay let's let's break this one down into two sections we'll start with shelling out all right so to Shell out so when you shell out you pay

for something all right but this gives you the Sensation that you are that you don't really want to pay you're a bit unhappy about it right so you want to Shell out your money mhm why don't we listen to some examples to show us how we can use this phrase to Shell out example one great it's my girlfriend's birthday this month so I'm going to have to Shell out for a present example two I really want those shoes but I can't really afford to Shell out $400 example three I can't believe it Ella shelled out

the 800 bucks for the tickets I thought I would have to pay all right so now that we understand shell out let's move on to the second part of that sentence my hard-earned bucks hard-earned bucks my hard earned bucks okay so bucks are dollars right dollars only dollars right yeah not not pounds not Euros um but his hard-earned bucks is money he had to work really hard for mhm so I can also say my hard-earned money mhm right or my hard-earned cash exactly very good so you worked hard to get it all right so three

three great phrases that can be used when you're complaining in a restaurant and why don't we hear them one last time in context by listening to the dialogue excuse me waiter yes sir what can I do for you I've been sitting here for the past 20 minutes and no one has offered me a glass of water brought any bread to the table and our appetizer haven't been served yet you know in this kind of establishment I'd expect much better service I'm sorry sir I'll check on your order right away relax honey the place is busy

tonight and I've heard the food is amazing anyway here you are sir the fog W for the lady and a mushroom soup for you waiter I heard a cream of mushroom soup with asparagus the soup is obviously too runny and it's over seasoned it's completely inedible okay I I do apologize for that can I bring you another soup or would you like to order something else take this F back as well it's rubbery and completely overcooked and look at the portion size how how can you charge $25 for a sliver of duck liver right away

sir honey come on the fall C was fine why are you making such a big deal are you trying to get our meal comped again what do you mean we are paying for this and I'm shelling out my hard-earned bucks I expect value for money here you are sir I hope it is all right now the chef has prepared it especially for you yes fine honey are you all [Laughter] right so complaining in a restaurant and actually sending food back is not uncommon in the US yeah of course uh if the food's bad of course

you're going to send it back mhm but maybe in other cultures I think people would be a little bit more Rel reluctant to do something like this yeah but hey you know what's an interesting thing about the way Americans eat in restaurants is sometimes at the end of the meal if they haven't finished everything they might ask for a doggy bag a doggy bag yeah yeah so what is that a doggy bag well usually if you order a big meal or you know half your steak is left over on your plate uh you would ask

for a doggy bag and they would bring you a little box or a bag and you would take it to supposedly give it to your dog right so it's sort of like like you tell the waiter oh you know the steak was so good I couldn't finish it can I take some home to my dog right so you would just ask where can I have a doggy bag right but you it's it's sort of like code for I'm going to eat this tomorrow for lunch exactly because people wouldn't really give it to their dogs I

mean you know that steak wrapped up in a fancy sort of foil Swan is going to be a pretty delicious the next day right yeah it's actually very common in the US but in other countries people will leave entire plates of food on the table impolite to ask the waiter to pack up the food for you exactly so a little bit of cultural differences but we want to know what you think and how things are done maybe in your country with complaining or sending food back or even this whole doggy bag situation that's right why

don't you visit our website englishpod do.com and tell us about it all right we'll be there to answer any questions or comments but we got to go now so until then goodbye bye [Music] the English pod audio review listen to the meaning then say the vocabulary word a bad second taste a bad aftertaste a strong unpleasant taste that is opposite of Sweet Bitter a strong unpl doesn't smell rank a rotten taste or smell rancid not appealing not attractive or tasty unappealing little dish people have before meal appetizer place of bus business like a restaurant or

hotel establishment work done by someone to serve customers service the list containing your choices of dishes order a food made from the livers of geese forra more liquid than expected runny too salty over seasoned cannot be eaten inedible difficult to chew rubbery be cooked overtime overcooked the amount of food that is served to a person portion size a small thin piece sliver get very upset about something small make a big deal be given to customers for free comp to spend money shell out money you work hard for hard earned let's try that faster work done

by someone to serve customers service place of business like a restaurant or hotel establishment more liquid than expected runny the amount of food that is served to a person portion size a strong unpleasant smell rank difficult to chew rubbery too salty over seasoned not appealing not attractive or tasty unappealing be given to customers for free comp get very upset about something small make a big deal a strong unpleasant taste that is opposite of sweet bitter a bad second taste a bad aftertaste a food made from the livers of geese forra the list containing your choices

of dishes order be cooked overtime overcooked cannot be eaten inedible to spend money shell out money you work hard for hard earned a rotten taste or smell rancid a small thin piece sliver little dish people have before meal appetizer now say the word and hear it in a sentence inedible this fish tastes terrible it's completely inedible inedible if you leave meat out of the refrigerator for too long it will be inedible inedible are you sure you can eat that aren't the flower decorations on cakes inedible rubbery this steak is so rubbery I can barely chew

it rubbery if the meat is so rubbery why don't you send it back rubbery the fog ra is so rubbery I bet it would bounce on the floor if I dropped it Sliver no John's on a diet he'll just have a sliver of cake and no ice cream sliver I'm really full but it looks so delicious can you just cut me a sliver sliver you call this sliver of beef on my plate a meal there's almost nothing here hard earned doesn't it feel good when you use your hard-earned bucks to buy something you've always wanted

hard earned I refuse to spend my hard-earned bucks on someone who won't appreciate it hard earned Richard is such a great guy every year he would donate his hard earned bucks to a different charity I can't believe I got a parking ticket yesterday now I'm going to have to Shell out 75 bucks it's me and my girlfriend's 5-year anniversary on Saturday so I'm going to Shell out for a nice dinner and a pair of nice earrings Tommy loved to party last night he shelled out $300 buying people drinks [Music]