Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 373, Ordering Food for Delivery.
This is English as a Second Language podcast number 373.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development.
I think you may enjoy.
This episode is about ordering food from a restaurant to be delivered to your house.
It's a conversation between a woman who's calling and ordering the food and the restaurant employee.
Let's get started, Hello.
Torino's Restaurant.
Hello.
I'd like to place a delivery order.
Can I have your address and the major cross streets, please?
It's 1212 Main Street, and the nearest cross streets are Speedway and Highland.
Okay.
It looks like you're in our delivery area.
What would you like to order?
I'd like an order of spaghetti.
Does that come with any sides?
You have a choice of soup or salad.
I'll have the salad.
Is that all?
We have a $15 minimum for delivery orders.
In that case I'll also take an appetizer sampler plate.
Okay, that's one order of spaghetti and an appetizer sampler plate.
You're still three dollars short.
Would you like a drink or some dessert?
I'll take an iced tea.
All right, but you're still a dollar short.
What can I get for a dollar?
There's nothing on the menu for a dollar, ma'am.
And you won't deliver my $14 order?
That's our policy, ma'am.
All right, you win.
Give me an order of bread.
How long will that take?
You should get your food in about an hour.
An hour?
Yes, ma'am.
You've ordered a lot of food and it takes time for us to prepare it.
The telephone call begins with the restaurant employee, the clerk, saying hello, Torino's restaurant.
Nancy says, hello, I'd like to place a delivery order.
A delivery order is when a restaurant brings the food to your house or to where you work.
Usually you call them on the phone.
Now I guess you could perhaps email them your order, though I think most people still call on the phone.
The verb to place here means in this case to tell the restaurant what you want to eat, what food you want to order.
And that's what Nancy does.
The order clerk says, can I have your address and the major cross streets, please?
Major here means most important or large.
The two large cross streets would be the two streets that are large, that have a lot of traffic on them.
That would be close to where you live.
The restaurant is trying to figure out where the person lives.
Most restaurants will only deliver food if you live within a.
They're not going to deliver your food, so you have to live close and that's why the clerk asks for the address and the major cross streets.
Nancy says it's 1212 Main Street, and the nearest cross streets are Speedway and Highland.
The clerk says, okay, it looks like you're in our delivery area.
The delivery area would be the area around the restaurant where they deliver food, as I was mentioning earlier.
The clerk says, what would you like to order?
Nancy says, I'd like an order of spaghetti.
An order of means usually one plate or one dish full of food.
If you're eating breakfast at a restaurant and you say I want an order of toast and an order of bacon, that means I want usually two pieces of toast and some bacon.
Nancy orders some spaghetti.
She says, I'd like an order of spaghetti.
And then she asks, does that come with any sides?
A side, when we are talking about a restaurant are food items that you get in addition to the main dish.
So let's say you're ordering a steak.
Your sides might include mashed potatoes and corn or some other vegetable.
So there are things that come with a the main dish, the main food that you're eating.
The word side has lots of meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
Since Nancy is ordering spaghetti, I should mention that the two most popular kinds of restaurants in the United States that have delivery food are Italian and Chinese.
So if you come to the United States, you can almost always find Italian and Chinese restaurants.
In some parts, you can also usually find Indian restaurants.
Getting back to our story, the order clerk answers Nancy's question by saying you have a choice of soup or salad.
A choice of means you can pick between one or two things.
In this case, Nancy says, I'll have the salad.
The order clerk says, is that all?
We have a $15 minimum for delivery orders.
Most restaurants will only deliver your food for free if you order a certain amount.
So if you don't order enough, they won't deliver it.
That's what the clerk means by the $15 minimum, the smallest or lowest possible amount of something.
Nancy then says In that case is a very common phrase used To indicate that you are changing your plans.
Now you're going to do something else because the situation has changed.
Nancy didn't realize she had to buy $15 worth of food.
Now that she knows, she changes her plans.
And that's why she says, in that case, I'll take an appetizer sampler plate.
To sample something means to try or to test something before you buy it.
A sampler plate in a restaurant however, is a food dish that contains small amounts of many different kinds of food.
It's a way for you to be able to taste different kinds of food in the restaurant without ordering an entire meal of that food.
The clerk says, okay, that's one order of spaghetti and an appetizer sampler plate.
Then he says, you're still $3 short.
To be short means not to have enough of something, usually money.
So you say, I'm short $3.
You mean, I need three more dollars to buy this thing.
In this case, Nancy is short $3, so the clerk asks, would you like a drink or some dessert?
Nancy says, I'll take an iced tea.
I'll take or I'll have, I'll order an iced tea.
The clerk says, all right, but you're still a dollar short.
She still needs one more dollar worth of food.
Nancy says, what can I get for a dollar?
The clerk says, there's nothing on the menu for a dollar, ma'am.
Ma'am is short for madam.
It's a polite term of respect used for women when we're talking to a woman.
It's sort of an old-fashioned word that you would use with a woman who is older than you.
Nancy says, and you won't deliver my $14 order?
She's saying, can't I get delivery even though I'm a dollar short?
And the clerk says basically, no, that's our policy, ma'am.
A policy is a rule in this case.
Nancy says all right, you win, meaning they were having this disagreement, and she's saying that you win the argument.
She says, give me an order of bread.
Then she asks, how long will that take?
Which is an informal way of asking someone, how much time will it be before a certain thing is done?
In this case, how long will it be until I get my food delivered?
And the clerk says, you should get your food in about an hour.
Normally restaurants deliver food within 20 or 30 minutes to your house, so an hour is a very long time.
Nancy says, an hour?
She can't believe it.
The clerk says, yes, you ordered a lot of food, and it takes time for us to prepare it.
Of course, she only ordered all of the food because she had to get to the $15 minimum.
Now let's listen to the dialogue again, this time at a normal speed.
Hello, Torino's Restaurant.
Hello, I'd like to place a delivery order.
Can I have your address and the major cross streets, please?
It's 1212 Main Street, and the nearest cross streets are Speedway and Highland.
Okay, it looks like you're in our delivery area.
What would you like to order?
I'd like an order of spaghetti.
Does that come with any sides?
You have a choice of soup or salad.
I'll have a salad.
Is that all?
We have a $15 minimum for delivery orders.
In that case, I'll also take an appetizer sampler plate.
Okay, that's one order of spaghetti and an appetizer sampler plate.
You're still $3 short.
Would you like a drink or some dessert?
I'll take an iced tea.
All right, but you're still a dollar short.
What can I get for a dollar?
There's nothing on the menu for a dollar, ma'am.
And you won't deliver my $14 order?
That's our policy, ma'am.
All right, you win.
Give me an order of bread.
How long will that take?
You should get your food in about an hour.
An hour?
Yes, ma'am.
You've ordered a lot of food, and it takes time for us to prepare it.
Special thanks to Karen Chair, who helped us read the dialogue today.
And, of course, we'd like to thank Dr. Lucy Say, who wrote the script.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2008.
