Why, hello there. It’s been an awful long time hasn’t it? I’ve been a bit broke, and subsiting off of homemade quesidillas made with pre-shredded “Mexican Mix” cheese and jarred jalepenos. Embarassing, right? So, I promise, restaurant reviews will commence upon reciept of my next paycheck. Regular updates, too.
But today I’ve come here to write about the one thing that seems to continually pop up on menus, I suspect to drive those of us who 1. know food, 2. know French, or 3. know both completely insane. I am talking about “au jus.”
Let’s take a quick French lesson here. “Jus” means “juice,” as in that delicious juice that runs from roast beef when properly cooked and thinly sliced. “Au” means is a preposition that can mean anything from “to” to “with” to “from” to, well, anything depending on the noun it is paired with. “Au jus,” then, means “with juice.”
Therefore, when you see the following on a menu, you should start screaming at the closest manager to learn some fucking grammar already:
French Dip — Lean roast beef with melted Swiss cheese served with au jus sauce
ARGH! YOU CANNOT SERVE SOMETHING “WITH AU JUS”!!!! THAT IS LIKE WRITING ON YOUR MENU “SERVED WITH WITH JUICE”! IF YOU DID THAT IN ENGLISH, PEOPLE WOULD NEVER STOP MAKING FUN OF YOU!
I don’t think this is so hard, restaurant managers of the world. If customers have questions, give your servers a 2 minute lecture on French grammer and let them explain. Customers, while finicky, are not idiots and do not need to be treated as such. If they don’t understand the concept of “au jus” after 4 minute of a server explaining it to them, then they are too dumb to drive a car to a restaurant, and will probably end up dying of stupidity anyway and so why care?
Fix your menus, people. I love things “au jus,” but I’m about to have a siezure over such improper language.
–Sara
