Restaurants that actually cook dishes from fresh ingredients
Discussion
Went into the airside branch of a famous chain pub at Gatwick last month and decided to order a full english.
It was around £9 so a bit of a treat over the £2 McDonalds option next door and was expecting something half decent. Plus it is always nice to have a pint before jumping on a plane and had a bit of time to kill.
Order - walk to seat - take off coat - 1 minute and then it arrives.
Was horrid. Proper bright pink bacon and reheated scrambled eggs.
My local cafe will do a fresh one with better quality ingredients for half the price
Some lessons are learnt the hard way
It was around £9 so a bit of a treat over the £2 McDonalds option next door and was expecting something half decent. Plus it is always nice to have a pint before jumping on a plane and had a bit of time to kill.
Order - walk to seat - take off coat - 1 minute and then it arrives.
Was horrid. Proper bright pink bacon and reheated scrambled eggs.
My local cafe will do a fresh one with better quality ingredients for half the price
Some lessons are learnt the hard way
No particular reason, just want to try to stick to places where the food has been prepared and cooked rather than just shipped in and reheated.
I realise that price is probably quite a fair indicator, at what price level would you expect a chef to be cooking the food rather than just a grunt shoving it in the oven?
I realise that price is probably quite a fair indicator, at what price level would you expect a chef to be cooking the food rather than just a grunt shoving it in the oven?
Guvna said:
Went into the airside branch of a famous chain pub at Gatwick last month and decided to order a full english.
It was around £9 so a bit of a treat over the £2 McDonalds option next door and was expecting something half decent. Plus it is always nice to have a pint before jumping on a plane and had a bit of time to kill.
Order - walk to seat - take off coat - 1 minute and then it arrives.
Was horrid. Proper bright pink bacon and reheated scrambled eggs.
My local cafe will do a fresh one with better quality ingredients for half the price
Some lessons are learnt the hard way
I think 'airside' and 'chain pub' are the key words. No way you're going to get anything decent with either or both of those words present!It was around £9 so a bit of a treat over the £2 McDonalds option next door and was expecting something half decent. Plus it is always nice to have a pint before jumping on a plane and had a bit of time to kill.
Order - walk to seat - take off coat - 1 minute and then it arrives.
Was horrid. Proper bright pink bacon and reheated scrambled eggs.
My local cafe will do a fresh one with better quality ingredients for half the price
Some lessons are learnt the hard way
hyperblue said:
Guvna said:
Went into the airside branch of a famous chain pub at Gatwick last month and decided to order a full english.
Top tip... in airports, restaurants get the food out as quickly as possible on purpose 
They should be forced to put a disclaimer on, particularly at that price
Guvna said:
hyperblue said:
Guvna said:
Went into the airside branch of a famous chain pub at Gatwick last month and decided to order a full english.
Top tip... in airports, restaurants get the food out as quickly as possible on purpose They should be forced to put a disclaimer on, particularly at that price
Mrs Cuchillo said:
No particular reason, just want to try to stick to places where the food has been prepared and cooked rather than just shipped in and reheated.
I realise that price is probably quite a fair indicator, at what price level would you expect a chef to be cooking the food rather than just a grunt shoving it in the oven?
That's a really difficult one. There are some fabulous restaurants around which aren't at all what you'd call expensive. There are also some very expensive restaurants which have an off-site food prep kitchen and reheat a lot of what you end up with on your plate.I realise that price is probably quite a fair indicator, at what price level would you expect a chef to be cooking the food rather than just a grunt shoving it in the oven?
TBH I would care less about pre-cooked food made from top class ingredients being reheated than I would if served up with badly-prepared, cheap rubbish cooked to order.
The sous-vide method is now very widely used in top class restaurants and there are some wonderful dishes you wouldn't be able to taste unless the restaurant cooked them this way.
However, certain media like to stir things up by reporting the likes of The Fat Duck and Ramsay serving up "boil-in-the-bag" food to their customers like it's comparable with Findus cod in parsley sauce. This makes people think that all hot food should be prepared from scratch and if not, the restaurant is 'cheating' in some way, which is complete nonsense.
It doesn't answer your question but maybe that will give you another angle on the subject?
calibrax said:
Guvna said:
hyperblue said:
Guvna said:
Went into the airside branch of a famous chain pub at Gatwick last month and decided to order a full english.
Top tip... in airports, restaurants get the food out as quickly as possible on purpose They should be forced to put a disclaimer on, particularly at that price
This time I went to Weatherspoons
Had not eaten there for years but remember enjoying one of their Burgers before.Shall not be eating in there again
FasterFreddy said:
Mrs Cuchillo said:
No particular reason, just want to try to stick to places where the food has been prepared and cooked rather than just shipped in and reheated.
I realise that price is probably quite a fair indicator, at what price level would you expect a chef to be cooking the food rather than just a grunt shoving it in the oven?
That's a really difficult one. There are some fabulous restaurants around which aren't at all what you'd call expensive. There are also some very expensive restaurants which have an off-site food prep kitchen and reheat a lot of what you end up with on your plate.I realise that price is probably quite a fair indicator, at what price level would you expect a chef to be cooking the food rather than just a grunt shoving it in the oven?
TBH I would care less about pre-cooked food made from top class ingredients being reheated than I would if served up with badly-prepared, cheap rubbish cooked to order.
The sous-vide method is now very widely used in top class restaurants and there are some wonderful dishes you wouldn't be able to taste unless the restaurant cooked them this way.
However, certain media like to stir things up by reporting the likes of The Fat Duck and Ramsay serving up "boil-in-the-bag" food to their customers like it's comparable with Findus cod in parsley sauce. This makes people think that all hot food should be prepared from scratch and if not, the restaurant is 'cheating' in some way, which is complete nonsense.
It doesn't answer your question but maybe that will give you another angle on the subject?
Cafe Rouge used to be fairly good many moons ago, but then I suppose there weren't many 'bistros' to compare it with.
The problem with a lot of these up-market chains is they've probably been sold on to investors or bigger chains 2 or 3 times by now and are still trading on the original name rather than the quality of the product.
How many people know, for example, that Antonio Carluccio is not involved one bit in the chain which bears his name? He sold out a few years ago and has publicly stated he now wished he hadn't given them his name because the quality of the restaurants has gone downhill so much.
You can only really go by the experience you have and vote with your feet if you don't like it. Unfortunately, that may mean you have to endure some very poor food every now and then.
The problem with a lot of these up-market chains is they've probably been sold on to investors or bigger chains 2 or 3 times by now and are still trading on the original name rather than the quality of the product.
How many people know, for example, that Antonio Carluccio is not involved one bit in the chain which bears his name? He sold out a few years ago and has publicly stated he now wished he hadn't given them his name because the quality of the restaurants has gone downhill so much.
You can only really go by the experience you have and vote with your feet if you don't like it. Unfortunately, that may mean you have to endure some very poor food every now and then.
hyperblue said:
Guvna said:
Went into the airside branch of a famous chain pub at Gatwick last month and decided to order a full english.
Top tip... in airports, restaurants get the food out as quickly as possible on purpose With the airport, they know that people don't want to waiting around too much as they may not have long till the flight/ want to do shopping etc, so they will have food on the go which is ready to plate up. I wouldn't write off Spoons brekkies on the basis of this. I've found pretty much all food airside is underwhelming.
The site canteen in Hong Kong, they would fry loads of eggs first thing on a morning then leave to one side. Come 10:30 mid morning break they would heat up the noodles then slap the pre fried eggs on the noodles the steam from the noodles would reheat the eggs.
I never bothered to try them.
I never bothered to try them.
Si 330 said:
The site canteen in Hong Kong, they would fry loads of eggs first thing on a morning then leave to one side. Come 10:30 mid morning break they would heat up the noodles then slap the pre fried eggs on the noodles the steam from the noodles would reheat the eggs.
I never bothered to try them.
It is very common in restaurants to poach eggs until they are just set and then plunge into cold water and keep them there until just before they are ready to serve, at which point 30 seconds in simmering water heats them through.I never bothered to try them.
Nothing wrong with that or any re-heating as long as a high enough temperature is reached just before the food is served.
FasterFreddy said:
Si 330 said:
The site canteen in Hong Kong, they would fry loads of eggs first thing on a morning then leave to one side. Come 10:30 mid morning break they would heat up the noodles then slap the pre fried eggs on the noodles the steam from the noodles would reheat the eggs.
I never bothered to try them.
It is very common in restaurants to poach eggs until they are just set and then plunge into cold water and keep them there until just before they are ready to serve, at which point 30 seconds in simmering water heats them through.I never bothered to try them.
Nothing wrong with that or any re-heating as long as a high enough temperature is reached just before the food is served.
It depends what you mean by pre-prepared.
I've been in a Michelin star kitchen and most of the cooking is done prior to service begining. The dish is basically assembled when you order it and only limited items cooked fresh at that moment. It would be impossible to do otherwise.
However, I suspect you mean the more generic chilli come portion controlled and is nuked type places. In which case, most chain places should be avoided. Also be suspicious of anywhere that has a really extensive menu. My general rule is more than about 6 main courses = nuked.
Wetherspoons, I actually think is good value for money. It's not going to worry Heston but for £4 what do you expect? Cafe Rouge is almost always carp. I have no idea how they get away with charging what they do for such disappointing food.
I've been in a Michelin star kitchen and most of the cooking is done prior to service begining. The dish is basically assembled when you order it and only limited items cooked fresh at that moment. It would be impossible to do otherwise.
However, I suspect you mean the more generic chilli come portion controlled and is nuked type places. In which case, most chain places should be avoided. Also be suspicious of anywhere that has a really extensive menu. My general rule is more than about 6 main courses = nuked.
Wetherspoons, I actually think is good value for money. It's not going to worry Heston but for £4 what do you expect? Cafe Rouge is almost always carp. I have no idea how they get away with charging what they do for such disappointing food.
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