How To Order Things in England
I thought I’d lighten the mood with another culture shock post…
Drinks
Drinks don’t always come with ice and garnish, so to avoid all confusion make sure you ask for them. Example: “May I have a gin and tonic with ice and a slice, please?”
Beer
Most people drink pints of beer as opposed to splitting pitchers. A lot of places don’t have pitchers. Also, you can order half-pints, which are super cute.
Eggs
If you’re getting fried eggs, they come how they come. “Over easy” is not a well-known term, but most full English breakfasts come that way.
Red Meat
You have to pick one: medium, rare or well done. If you say “medium well,” people will look at you like you’re a bit crazy.
Shopping
England has adopted some things green (although the recycling system still kind of sucks). If you want a plastic shopping bag, be prepared to ask. Or bring your own canvas bag!
Coffee
If you just want a ‘normal’ black coffee, the term is “black Americano”.
Movie tickets
Make sure you arrive early to purchase movie tickets, because your tickets will have assigned seats and the best ones always fill up quickly! Also there is “Premium Seating” in some theatres, which costs more but you get a bigger seat with more leg room.
Postage Stamps
First class stamps – arrives in 1 day within UK, £0.39
Second class stamps – arrive in 3 days within UK, £0.30
Eat in / Take away
Most Canadians are familiar with the saying “For here or to go?” which translates to “Eat in or take away?” in the UK. Often times food & drinks cost more if you are eating in, since many shops are small and there is limited seating.
Sandwiches
brown sauce = BBQ sauce
mustard = Dijon mustard
yellow mustard = American-style mustard
salad cream = mayonnaise (or something similar)
tomato ketchup = normal ketchup (they just say it differently)
brown bread = whole wheat bread (this is obvious)
salad = lettuce, cucumber, tomato (usually)
Great post! Salad cream is a bit different from Mayo, so if you want mayo, ask for mayo! The other thing that took a while to get used to, was the tipping. For drinks, you don’t usually. For meals, the standard rate amongst the Brits I hang out with is 10% (which would get you the cheapskate’s title in Canada!)
Great post – Cool for someone born and bred in the UK to read how it all seems to someone raised elsewhere…
I have to pick you up on another sauce though (like the last comment) Brown Sauce is different to BBQ. Generally much less sweet and often referred to as ‘Daddies’. BBQ sauce is just BBQ sauce.
Getting hungry now.
A proper pub should still be able to serve you not just half-pints but third-pints too, say for ale-sampling.
Brown sauce can sometimes get you HP sauce, which I’m not 100% sure is the same thing as BBQ sauce, Wiki suggests otherwise!
I only just became familiarised with the concept of ‘medium-well’ whilst in the States, I felt so uncomfortable saying it like that I ended up just ordering medium every time. I ate a lot of live creatures this holiday.
Most cinema’s don’t have designated seating, it’s usually only if they’re the premier seats that you’re given a seat number!
I agree with tacit digital … very interesting for someone from the UK to hear a foreigner describe things I’ve never even thought about!
The only thing I would pick up on is that it’s only really Odeon cinema’s that book specific seats (and the “premium seating” thing is also an Odeon thing so I guess that’s the company that runs your local place. I’m not a fan of them – Cineworld and Vue cinema’s tend to be a lot better (bigger screens/more comfortable seats).
I like that what you think of as ‘normal’ coffee is what we call Americano – kinda makes sense I guess … I wonder what I would have to ask for if I wanted what I consider a normal coffee in America/Canada?
Also interested by your comment on recycling … I agree we’ve got some things right but it’s quite a new thing for most councils so would be interested to know what the, presumably, more experienced Canadians have implemented?
In Canada I order coffee like this: “Can I have a medium double double please?” which means a medium Americano with 2 creams and 2 sugars.
Maybe I’ll do a post about recycling…
Actually a lot of that stuff isn’t 100% accurate.
Drinks: Actually the vast majority of pubs do in fact serve ice and a slice as standard. This is a recent change, however. A few backward little pubs out in the sticks will still serve you a warm beer and if you’re really unluccky you’ll find one that doesn’t even keep Ice behind the bar!
Red meat: All the places I’ve been will accept “medium well” as a valid degree of cooking, Even though I don’t (If it’s not bloody it’s not worth eating)
Coffee: Again, the vast majority of places I’ve been accept the term “black coffee” although you are correct about having to specify black by default. White is the defacto standard here.
Movie Tickets are only seat-assigned if the cinema expects a full house. If they are expecting few viewers then general admission is usually the standard. I’ve only ever had assigned seats a handful of times.
Brown Sauce is not BBQ sauce. Seriously, taste the two, one after the other.
Mustard usually refers to English mustard (the type that can blow your head right off.) If you want dijon mustard you usually have to say “French mustard” and very few places actually have American ‘yellow’ mustard.
Again, salad creme and mayo are two very different things. I beleive the base to salad creme is mayonnaise but the falvours added afterward make it different (and revolting )
I was thinking last night that you’ve not done one of these “the way things are in England” posts about driving. You recently got your license right?
I visited some friends in Ottawa a few years ago and had a hell of a job explaining how a roundabout worked.
hey – this was such a cute post, since I’m from England and don’t really pay attention to most things.
There a couple of things I felt compelled to comment on though:
brown sauce isn’t bbq sauce but now you mentioned it, i have no idea wha it is lol.
The biggest different here to abroad is tipping. Generally the service charge is included in the price, so you don’t generally tip everything, though alot of folks tip about 10% anyway in restaurants and stuff. No need to do this in pubs though.
I want to come visit Canada now lol.
Brilliant post!.. so many interesting notes.
I would also like to categorically state that Brown sauce (eg HP or Daddies) is NOT BBQ sauce – it is far superior, and the first and only choice on any fry-up of mine.
Tipping I would say is only kinda expected, but I would say 10% if the staff put in some effort, otherwise less, if any. Be warned tho North Americans – service is generally rubbish over here compared to the USA! Our staff get paid a reasonable (well, minimum) wage – they don’t rely on tips to survive, hence the reduced level of service.
Also beware than going into a pub and getting a decent pint of real ale, it should not be cold. its supposed to be a little below room temperature. Don’t take it back or the bar staff may get offended.
Red meat – my wife often asks for steaks “blue” which is rarer than rare. She almost always has to have them sent back to be done again “just wave it in front of the heat and put it on the plate” is the common instruction. They normally get it right 2nd time round.
We’re kinda like a half way house to Europe – we don’t really litigate so can take chances a bit more
Chocolate – we don’t live in a very hot climate so we don’t need to put large amounts of oil into it, and hence our chocolate tastes significantly better than American chocolate.
We also dont sugar our bread!
I miss my time in Texas tho – the food was truely awesome, even after eating out 1-2 times a day for 6 weeks!!!
Great post – remember the beer is warm too!
Great post. I should do the same in reverse for the US (sadly never been to Canada).
In case you didn’t realise… eat-in prices are most often higher because of dreaded VAT. Some things are exempt… like milk shake!?! Bit more odd British-ness for you.