special pricing...

I feel I have collected enough data points to "re"observe this among the set of putative RVA upper crust dining establishments -

Please, please, chefs and maîtres d, why don't (you instruct) your wait staff (to) tell the dining patrons what the price(s) of the specials are?

I am delighted to hear that tonight you have decided to prepare the seared unicorn with magic truffle reduction and gold dust, but I think it would be nice to know that it costs $xxx... if there are just so many specials that the wait staff feel like they're reciting an epic, it can't be that hard to print a little daily menu insert describing and announcing price of said specials.
While this may or may not affect ones choices (I understand that not everyone reads a menu from right to left or perhaps cares), this is a piece of information, I wonder if anyone would actually object to knowing...

Is it perhaps that the well-heeled Richmond cognoscenti are offended by this "lowly display" of prices? If anything, it may be a bit difficult to ask what the price is. I am curious why this is the norm around (from our observations, none did)...

This is not a new question and has been extensively pondered about...

wine puzzle

A little brain teaser to celebrate the VA Wine Expo (reminder: the latest 2011 VA Winery Guide map is out).

All those pourings made me remember this classic (way back from the 16th century) puzzle (part of the so-called decanting puzzles)
Imagine we have three jugs of 8, 5 and 3 liters. The biggest jug is entirely filled with wine, and the other two are empty. We want to divide the wine into 2 equal parts. The jugs are not calibrated, so that all we can do is pour wine from one jug to another until the first jug is entirely empty or the second jug is completely full. We also assume that the decantings are done accurately and that no wine is spilled. HOW ?

Interesting side note: A two jug variant of this decanting puzzle was used in Die Hard: With a Vengeance. John McClane and Zeus Carver (Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson) have to solve the puzzle with two jugs and water from a fountain to prevent a bomb from exploding - 4 gallons of water using only 5-gallon and 3-gallon jugs.

Hint: In symbolic terms if our starting point is 8 0 0 (8 liter full, 5 liter empty, 3 liter empty), we need to get to 4 4 0. Multiple solutions exist.