Of chives and risotto

My research for the next kitchen to intern in has brought me to a restaurant downtown. I had noticed the window several times before but it was always closed, so I set a date with my girlfriend to check it out for lunch. The owner is a Swiss lady and the kitchen seemed small but promising. When we got there we were greeted by the server and seated in the spacious, luminous room. I immediately liked the vibe of the place. I ordered ribs and my girlfriend a risotto with figatelli, a Corsican sausage. We were served rapidly and as soon as I got my plate I winced. There was pork (not ribs, by belly), sweet potatoes and leeks. Though it did not look like what I expected, that was fine. What stood out for me were the chives sprinkled over the plate: they were chopped irregularly, meaning to say some were longer than others. After spending hours over the last few months perfecting my chive and shallot-chopping, I had a moment of indignation, for lack of a better word (it was not revulsion, nor bitterness), followed by a resignation that my view of food served in restaurants (as opposed to homes) was forever altered. Those tiny green bits were like so many mini-Proustian madeleines for me, bringing back hours of concentrated effort in various kitchens spread across Marseille.
The rest of my food was fine, I finished it all, but would never serve such a plate in my own restaurant, no matter how modest the place. As for my girlfriend’s order… What was placed before her was a dish of rice (not Arborio) mixed with a bunch of vegetables and rawish sausage. Simply put, it was not good. Now she and I have had several discussions regarding risotto in the past, starting with my dismay at the French habit of adding cream to it (unlike the Italian way where the starch from the rice combined with the stock and wine is what produces the unctuousness). So when the server asked us how our food was, I refrained from saying that my chives were chopped irregularly, but my friend ventured to say that her food was good (lie) but that it was not a risotto. The server immediately headed to the open kitchen to tell the chef, a skinny woman with a huge head of frizzy hair, at which point we heard some loud voices saying that the food was how it was meant to be or something to that effect. It appeared that the chef was miffed by our feedback and screamed at our waiter who from then on ignored us completely. Welcome to the food industry in France, where the chef is always right…