What to say when a waiter comes to your table but you're not ready to order?

My command of French is very minimal although I study it every day. When we were in Paris last year, I noticed that when we were seated in a restaurant, the waiter came by rather quickly and we weren't quite ready to order. In my kindergarten French I would say, throughout the trip 'en moment.' I thought I was saying 'give us a minute to decide.' But the action of the waiters on every occasion told me I was saying something completely different. They simply never came back. And when I would grab their attention they had a surprised look on their faces. I wonder if you can enlighten me on this? What was I saying? And what should one say when asking for a few minutes to look over the menu and decide?

My apologies for bringing to your attention such a low level linguistic question. I hope I'm not out of line in this case?

regards,

Will

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Permalink Reply by lauris on May 4, 2011 at 9:30am

If you are not ready, you can just say it "Nous ne sommes pas encore prêt à commander " (we are not ready yet to order)

You can also put a notion of time : "Nous avons besoin de quelques minutes" (we just need few minutes).

But always remember : parisian waiters are not known to be nice ;)

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Permalink Reply by Ed la mouette on May 6, 2011 at 9:22pm

Just say Nous n'avons pas encore choisi, merci (We haven't decided yet, thanks).

En moment has no meaning. Did you want to say un moment, s'il vous plait ? (Just a minute, please)

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Permalink Reply by Will Volny on May 6, 2011 at 9:52pm

Thank you both for your help! Yes, I meant 'un moment' rather than 'en moment'. My apologies.

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Permalink Reply by Sandrine on May 11, 2011 at 12:23pm

First, I think this waiter was stupid ;) There is a reason if you're sitting there in their restaurant..

Then english language is an international language they should know the bases of this language at least if they're working in Paris - 1st touristic place.

In any case if you'd come to the restaurant where I'm working, I'd be glad to take your order ;b Tourists are the best clients!