Food Pet Peeves
Discussion
NordicCrankShaft said:
Speed 3 said:
Restaurants/pubs that can only do roast on a Sunday despite a full menu on every other day.
Brioche buns on a burger.
Unnecessarily over-sized portions.
Steak knives - if its decent meat properly cooked you don't need a special saw.
Skin on in a battered fish.
To be fair as a former chef to do a decent roast fresh everyday running alongside the normal menu is quite a big ask especially when the freshness of the ingredients is quite important in something like a roast even on a Sunday it used to be a ball ache.cBrioche buns on a burger.
Unnecessarily over-sized portions.
Steak knives - if its decent meat properly cooked you don't need a special saw.
Skin on in a battered fish.
bluelightbabe said:
...Ice in drinks ... Why would I want to pay full price for half the volume of what the glass holds because it's full of ice? ...
In most other civilised (and some uncivilised ones) countries you either get served the drink in a bottle or get free refills so the volume of ice is irrelevant. 
One recent one for me, as planning our wedding. I was surprised that the chosen venue charges extra for guests to chose their dish for the day, and as standard it is a set menu. I can't recall having a set menu at any wedding I've attended, and surely some wouldn't enjoy their food if it were? It's only an extra £200 when the budget for the day is £10,000, so not a major deal. Just I found it odd!
Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
One recent one for me, as planning our wedding. I was surprised that the chosen venue charges extra for guests to chose their dish for the day, and as standard it is a set menu. I can't recall having a set menu at any wedding I've attended, and surely some wouldn't enjoy their food if it were? It's only an extra £200 when the budget for the day is £10,000, so not a major deal. Just I found it odd!
I'm amazed they offer anything but a set menu? Normally two starters, three mains and two desserts max. Anything beyond that for a large number all eating at the same time is a lot of work.21TonyK said:
Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
One recent one for me, as planning our wedding. I was surprised that the chosen venue charges extra for guests to chose their dish for the day, and as standard it is a set menu. I can't recall having a set menu at any wedding I've attended, and surely some wouldn't enjoy their food if it were? It's only an extra £200 when the budget for the day is £10,000, so not a major deal. Just I found it odd!
I'm amazed they offer anything but a set menu? Normally two starters, three mains and two desserts max. Anything beyond that for a large number all eating at the same time is a lot of work.Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
21TonyK said:
Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
One recent one for me, as planning our wedding. I was surprised that the chosen venue charges extra for guests to chose their dish for the day, and as standard it is a set menu. I can't recall having a set menu at any wedding I've attended, and surely some wouldn't enjoy their food if it were? It's only an extra £200 when the budget for the day is £10,000, so not a major deal. Just I found it odd!
I'm amazed they offer anything but a set menu? Normally two starters, three mains and two desserts max. Anything beyond that for a large number all eating at the same time is a lot of work.On topic:
Cold plates (no excuse!)
Unpolished glassware and cutlery
Not relevant to me anymore but kids meals served at the same time as adults. Put them out a few minutes before so the kids can get organised and start eating and parents can half relax and enjoy their meal as well. Or at least get front of house to offer it as an option when orders are taken.
No chilled tap water automatically.
Cold plates (no excuse!)
Unpolished glassware and cutlery
Not relevant to me anymore but kids meals served at the same time as adults. Put them out a few minutes before so the kids can get organised and start eating and parents can half relax and enjoy their meal as well. Or at least get front of house to offer it as an option when orders are taken.
No chilled tap water automatically.
21TonyK said:
Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
21TonyK said:
Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
One recent one for me, as planning our wedding. I was surprised that the chosen venue charges extra for guests to chose their dish for the day, and as standard it is a set menu. I can't recall having a set menu at any wedding I've attended, and surely some wouldn't enjoy their food if it were? It's only an extra £200 when the budget for the day is £10,000, so not a major deal. Just I found it odd!
I'm amazed they offer anything but a set menu? Normally two starters, three mains and two desserts max. Anything beyond that for a large number all eating at the same time is a lot of work.We're delighted with the venue though, so it's not a big deal to us, just one I found odd!
Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
The venue with a few optional extras is about £3500, which is ceremony, meal, reception, buffet and bridal-suite. For 40ish people. To Allow guests to chose their dish is about £200, a fiver per person more.
We're delighted with the venue though, so it's not a big deal to us, just one I found odd!
40 people. That's not such a big ask but it depends on the venue I guess. I used to do a 3-3-3 for 100+ with me and 3 others in the kitchen. Only time we reduced that was 200+We're delighted with the venue though, so it's not a big deal to us, just one I found odd!
I hate hot stuff served on cold plates so it cools almost immediately.
Anyway [Rant Mode On]
Imagine I, or you, get a nice bit of fillet steak from Tesco, brush with olive oil, then grill it properly. Boil some new Lincolnshire potatoes, then fry a few of them as well. Some broccoli, not over boiled, with the drop of fat and gravy from the steak poured over it. Warm plate, salt and pepper, and a bit of real butter on the boiled spuds and there you are. Sounds nice, is nice.
There are two major desires in our lives, sex and food, they go together because sex is difficult if you have just died from hunger. This is why food is so important to us, but we have gone too far. There's more cooking on television than war documentaries (Just!). The arty-crafty in cooking has become too high. The cuisine, too haute.
You can get something like our steak as described above, though a smaller portion, for about eighty pounds from one of the 'In', fashionable, 'spend your Brexit bonus here', restaurants. Or for double the money. It just depends how many chefs have practised their arts upon it.
What might happen in the preparation of your steak dinner in a hypothetical restaurant of this type I will attempt to describe. About three chefs will be involved with the meat, all more or less temperamental. One will rub it with more unguents than the mummifiers of King Tut. He has his specialities, this chef with the hands made bony from basting. He gets to work. Flakes of Tanberric Grass, from Trincomalee, will slide off the steak at the cost of about ten pounds a blade. The Tanberric alone had its vogue but became old hat about three days ago and ceased to titillate the taste buds, so a subtle mixture had to be made. Raw mustard seed, viola root, octuple virgin olive oil, (from Kos only), bruised root ginger which has been steeped in a good Riesling, peppers roasted by burning coconut husk, and of course the Tanberric. And you've been eating your steak just as it is, shame on you.
The secret of success in haute cuisine is this monstrous fiddling about with esoteric ingredients and the arranging it all like a Jean Miro painting. Quite honestly, the meal you and I prepared earlier is attractive enough aesthetically. We would not suggest it is all liquidised and eaten as khaki mud with a spoon, but the steak can nestle by the potatoes and the broccoli can steam gently at its side. Two bits of parsley on it and a treble clef of gravy don't do much for it.
Back to tonight's special meal at our restaurant, where I hope you have booked up six months earlier and knew someone of influence to vouch for your impeccable taste. If your referee is doubtful you may still get in, but will be at the table which is banged by the toilet door.
The magicians are at work in the kitchen. The second meat chef has jostled the embalmer and trimmed your steak, small enough to begin with, into the shape of a trapezoid. The tasty bit of fat has gone. This chef actually cooks it. He moves his hands with unnecessary wide sweeps as he cuts it down, after this the unguent man tries to balance a little more of his expensive mixture on it, they fight it under the grill between them.
When cooked, meat chef three steps forward. He has been hovering with a sneer on his face as the transformation into food for the gods can only take place under his hands. With a scalpel he slices imitation fish scales on top of the fillet, into each slit he lays a thin drawn strand of real liquorice. Criss crossed thus, it is put on a plate so that the ends of the liquorice threads anchor it down like Gulliver by the Lilliputians.
The plate is passed on and tiny pieces of vegetable are put on the plate. One limp spinach leaf is put beside the steak, woe betide that man if a liquorice strand is broken. A single small cauliflower floret has been pierced with carrot slivers, like a baby hedgehog with ginger bristles. There is a single baked potato, caramelised and cut into four, the quarters are separated by exactly half an inch. There are only two colours of gravy tonight, One green gravy line runs through the potato from east to west. The black gravy line from north to south. The potato is now like the flag on Sabena Airlines. The gravy chef and the vegetable chef now fight. Gravy wants to make more lines like the radiating spokes of a bicycle wheel, possibly placing a larger white plate under the one in use and continuing the lines over that. Fortunately 'vegetables' is physically stronger and the steak goes to the the customer in its simple form.
The starter was pate, beaten into a wooden conical mould. It is served in the mould which makes it a bit more expensive at thirty six pounds. It has to be removed and eaten with thin obelisks of Ibo burnt grain bread. To balance the bread on the plate a piece of celery is cut and stuck together with edible shellac in the form of the expedition raft 'Kon-Tiki'.
Pared Strudel is for afters, sorry the sweet course, but we have lost interest. All we want to do is hypothetically fee these alchemists to the tune of about two hundred pounds and go home. We can then have the proper steak and an Eccles Cake.
[Rant Mode Off]
Anyway [Rant Mode On]
Imagine I, or you, get a nice bit of fillet steak from Tesco, brush with olive oil, then grill it properly. Boil some new Lincolnshire potatoes, then fry a few of them as well. Some broccoli, not over boiled, with the drop of fat and gravy from the steak poured over it. Warm plate, salt and pepper, and a bit of real butter on the boiled spuds and there you are. Sounds nice, is nice.
There are two major desires in our lives, sex and food, they go together because sex is difficult if you have just died from hunger. This is why food is so important to us, but we have gone too far. There's more cooking on television than war documentaries (Just!). The arty-crafty in cooking has become too high. The cuisine, too haute.
You can get something like our steak as described above, though a smaller portion, for about eighty pounds from one of the 'In', fashionable, 'spend your Brexit bonus here', restaurants. Or for double the money. It just depends how many chefs have practised their arts upon it.
What might happen in the preparation of your steak dinner in a hypothetical restaurant of this type I will attempt to describe. About three chefs will be involved with the meat, all more or less temperamental. One will rub it with more unguents than the mummifiers of King Tut. He has his specialities, this chef with the hands made bony from basting. He gets to work. Flakes of Tanberric Grass, from Trincomalee, will slide off the steak at the cost of about ten pounds a blade. The Tanberric alone had its vogue but became old hat about three days ago and ceased to titillate the taste buds, so a subtle mixture had to be made. Raw mustard seed, viola root, octuple virgin olive oil, (from Kos only), bruised root ginger which has been steeped in a good Riesling, peppers roasted by burning coconut husk, and of course the Tanberric. And you've been eating your steak just as it is, shame on you.
The secret of success in haute cuisine is this monstrous fiddling about with esoteric ingredients and the arranging it all like a Jean Miro painting. Quite honestly, the meal you and I prepared earlier is attractive enough aesthetically. We would not suggest it is all liquidised and eaten as khaki mud with a spoon, but the steak can nestle by the potatoes and the broccoli can steam gently at its side. Two bits of parsley on it and a treble clef of gravy don't do much for it.
Back to tonight's special meal at our restaurant, where I hope you have booked up six months earlier and knew someone of influence to vouch for your impeccable taste. If your referee is doubtful you may still get in, but will be at the table which is banged by the toilet door.
The magicians are at work in the kitchen. The second meat chef has jostled the embalmer and trimmed your steak, small enough to begin with, into the shape of a trapezoid. The tasty bit of fat has gone. This chef actually cooks it. He moves his hands with unnecessary wide sweeps as he cuts it down, after this the unguent man tries to balance a little more of his expensive mixture on it, they fight it under the grill between them.
When cooked, meat chef three steps forward. He has been hovering with a sneer on his face as the transformation into food for the gods can only take place under his hands. With a scalpel he slices imitation fish scales on top of the fillet, into each slit he lays a thin drawn strand of real liquorice. Criss crossed thus, it is put on a plate so that the ends of the liquorice threads anchor it down like Gulliver by the Lilliputians.
The plate is passed on and tiny pieces of vegetable are put on the plate. One limp spinach leaf is put beside the steak, woe betide that man if a liquorice strand is broken. A single small cauliflower floret has been pierced with carrot slivers, like a baby hedgehog with ginger bristles. There is a single baked potato, caramelised and cut into four, the quarters are separated by exactly half an inch. There are only two colours of gravy tonight, One green gravy line runs through the potato from east to west. The black gravy line from north to south. The potato is now like the flag on Sabena Airlines. The gravy chef and the vegetable chef now fight. Gravy wants to make more lines like the radiating spokes of a bicycle wheel, possibly placing a larger white plate under the one in use and continuing the lines over that. Fortunately 'vegetables' is physically stronger and the steak goes to the the customer in its simple form.
The starter was pate, beaten into a wooden conical mould. It is served in the mould which makes it a bit more expensive at thirty six pounds. It has to be removed and eaten with thin obelisks of Ibo burnt grain bread. To balance the bread on the plate a piece of celery is cut and stuck together with edible shellac in the form of the expedition raft 'Kon-Tiki'.
Pared Strudel is for afters, sorry the sweet course, but we have lost interest. All we want to do is hypothetically fee these alchemists to the tune of about two hundred pounds and go home. We can then have the proper steak and an Eccles Cake.
[Rant Mode Off]
Trabi601 said:
FlyingMeeces said:
Vegetarian 'options' that amount to a single thing which does not stand on its own gastronomically speaking. I mean come on.
I have little sympathy for vegetarians. They should count themselves lucky there is an option, rather than being invited to eat elsewhere.
Predictable.
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