One of the things I always appreciate about dining out is the way the table is cleared at the end of the meal. When empty plates disappear without you even realising, you’re in good hands. When they’re stacked and scraped in front of you, you’re probably not.

It’s a joy to watch a hospitality professional do the job well – one who can hold two plates with the fingers of one hand, balance a third securely on the forearm and take a fourth in the other hand, without even a clink.

The technique changes depending on the level of dining, and its particular heritage and culture.

At the traditional Singaporean diner, Temasek, in Parramatta, the process is similar to an ace team of mechanics swooping on a grand-prix car when it pulls into the pit. Three staff members bearing a huge stainless-steel bowl will descend on a large table covered with masses of dishes, piling the small dishes inside and slotting the large ones around the edge. The whole thing is wiped clean and reset in less than a minute.

At Melbourne’s Ondo, the inventive Korean food comes in the form of bansang sets – individual trays holding small banchan side dishes, soup, rice and, let’s say, a brilliant tteok galbi pork patty showered with grated macadamia. Clearing the table cleverly is as easy as picking up the tray.

One of the last bastions of table-clearing excellence is the main dining room of a luxury cruise ship, where white-jacketed waiters load tonnes of china and
silverware onto huge trays, hoist them onto their shoulders and head for the kitchen, ducking and weaving in a brutal form of ballet.

We don’t always make it easy for waitstaff, however, especially if we don’t close our knives and forks when we’ve finished eating.

Or we “help” by handing our plates across the table to them. Or chat to them at length when they’ve just picked up six heavy plates, their arms growing visibly longer with every passing minute.

But the time I appreciate them the most is when the table is a minefield of wine glasses, dirty cutlery, oily salad bowls, turmeric-stained spills and crumpled napkins. And suddenly those waiters are nowhere to be seen because – dammit – I’m at home.

theemptyplate@goodweekend.com.au