Recently I have received some fun pieces of mail, more than your average spam of  grocery store flyers. Since I like to share all things beyond the dough, I had to share:

Macarons & Makeup! French Macarons are extremely trendy right now! They certainly delicious enough to deserve that title, and I hope they stick around in a permanent way! …All pastry chefs that I have met this year, have raved about them.  The little tasty light morsels, that melt in your mouth, can be seen in infinite colours and flavour pairs. I’ve seen them on hit TV series such as Gossip Girl served at a cocktail party dessert display, and they are frequently in wedding magazines as a new favour – with French flavour! Recently I received a Clinique makeup promo flyer, and usually it falls in the pile with the rest of my spam…. but this piece caught my attention more than usual.

Where have you seen macarons lately??

Macarons and makeup - by Clinique

Italian Kitchen’s Extraordinary Customer Service! Not too long ago I dinned at Italian Kitchen downtown on Alberni Street. The food was great – I love their Bruschetta –  the wine list was wonderful and the service was delivered with a smile. It was actually a short dining experience, followed by some window shopping, but not so short that I didn’t feel well taken care of.  When the bill arrived with customer service cards, I decided to fill one out.  Usually this leads to your name being added to a mailing list, you might get a birthday month promotion generically addressed to the “residents” of your mailing address.  I still felt like my server, Alistair, deserved positive feedback. So often customer service is only used to share complaints, but I like to give credit where credit is due.

A week later I received this in the mail. At first, I assumed it was a simple “welcome to our mailing list” card.

A simple note of thanks...goes a long way!

But I misjudged, I smiled when I opened the mail, to read a hand written thank you note personalized from my server! My earlier instincts of great customer service were spot on: Italian Kitchen knows how to treat their guests.

For this, I will return Italian Kitchen, thank you and keep it up! So the next time you dine out, take the time to give some feedback in your fast paced routine – a hand written note means a lot and really it can only serve the customer better in the end..

A hand written note of thanks.