Modern restaurant/dining trends that annoy you

[ThistleAmore]

I'm supposed to be packing for a work trip, so obviously procrastinating wildly, and got to thinking about stuff that annoys me in modern cooking (and yes, I realise this is the very definition of a #firstworldproblem).

The lack of plates is an obvious one, but I also find this weird trend for not bothering to cut up vegetables irritating, too: call me old-fashioned, but I think whole carrots are for horses, and prefer them to at least have been introduced to a knife before they find their way onto my plate.

What gives you indigestion (physically or spiritually)?

Open plan grills and kitchens so you get wafted with smike every time they cook a steak or something.

Always feel like im going to come away smelling of food.

Things that come with chips. Only the chips is basicly a potato squared off and quartered and aranged in some wanky pattern like jenga.

Benches instead of chairs so one person moves everyone gets bounced along.

TheVonTrappFamilySwingers the kitchen of my favourite(Thai) restaurant of the moment is behind the counter of where we eat. It isn't noisy or clattery though, and the food is divine. This place isn't guilty of any of the things people have described on here.

In fact we don't eat at any poncy places that do this because a) We don't have anywhere like this and b) We couldn't afford it anyway.

*smoke

leaving posh versions of pork pies and sausage rolls on a wooden board on the bar uncovered. I don’t care if it is handcrafted wild boar, they’ve got fruit flies crawling all over them you twats.

Yes yes to 7 for prices. And descriptions of just the ingredients rather than how it's actually been cooked.

I get totally enraged by 'Mac and Cheese' instead of macaroni cheese as well. DH groans when he sees it on a menu as he knows I'll start ranting.

Sitting you at a table with strangers if you are dining on your own

Pea shoots
Communal tables
Small plates served on a small table. If you want me to order '2 to 3 plates each guys, and they'll come out just as they're ready' then give me enough motherfudging room to hold them!
Places where you can't book. Fuck that shit. I live in Scotland, I'm not queuing up outside.

I don't think I've ever been somewhere that takes your coat

There's one near me that lists the posh be then some stupid comment e.g
Coq Au Vin
Just chicken in wine innit

I must confess I quite like 'saucy' things served in ramekins, because I - a grown adult woman - don't like my food touching (I know, I know), but 'chip Jenga' gives me THE RAGE.

Thrice fried anything

Agree with deconstructed anything and food not on plates.

Jenga potato 'chips'.

Places that keep the same menu but change things. There is a local pub that does a dish of chicken squewers with salad and a mix of hot peppers and onions.

Sometimes it comes with the dressing in a pot, sometimes it's been added to the onions and peppers, but it's a salad dressing and I want to put it on my salad.

Waiters calling you 'guys', stupid menu boards on the wall which are placed above a table so when you try to read it, the people at the table think you are staring at them, waiter not discreetly remembering/writing who ordered what so they yell 'the risotto?' as they appear at the table, self conscious teens serving food looking embarrassed, water not being topped up....oh dear, so many!

Deconstructed anything, but most particularly, . . .

Deconstructed Eton mess.

I shit you not.

No, just NO!

"Gourmet" pub food...the term really annoys me.

I once ordered a side of Brüssel sprouts in a US restaurant, and was asked if I wanted them "shaved" - I asked if they were particularly hairy to begin with....turns out it meant sort of grated and pan fried, not that they were some generic mutation of a sprout and a gooseberry.

Crushed potatoes - errr that's just lumpy mash you lazy dingbats - put some elbow in with the potato masher!!!

Also, anything in 'a' sauce. Can't they just say salmon in parsley sauce? Am I allowed to moan about other diners too? People holding a knife like a pencil and people keeping coats and hats on whilst eating. Aaarrgghh!

And as a vegetarian, stop putting so many bloody sweet foods together as a main course. Butternut squash. Fine. Sweet potato. Fine. Apricots (well I don't generally like cooked fruit, but). Fine.

Sweet potato and butternut squash tagging with apricots. NOT FINE.

Soils, foams and smears. Ugh.

If I'm going somewhere decent they better take my coat, I'm not paying good prices to feel like I'm back in double maths with my coat on the back of the chair.

Food piled into a Close Encounters mound with your steak or tuna or whatever teetering like a flat-topped rock on the summit.

Green slime, or any other kind of unidentifiable goop dribbled artistically on the plate.

@FreddyFasbear - that made me howl.

Agree with PP about proces listed as 3.5
It looks stupid, wanky and wrong. As does 'slaw

Plates from starters being cleared away before everyone in the party has finished eating theirs. Definitely something that's creeping in more and more.

Tables being 'turned': needing them back at a particular time and not leaving you enough time to eat, chat and digest.

Oh, yes. SOILS. Wtf are these crumbs on my... oh.

It's more of a cafe one, but I can't stand the way lattes, cappuccinos and americanos are served in cups with handles because they are hot liquids and yet flat whites always appear in a school canteen glass tumbler.

In America (and I'm sure elsewhere) you immediately get a jug of water on your table. You practically have to beg for one in England. I'd like that to change!.

It's not actually restaurants but I hate it when you're waiting for your drinks order and the bar staff are shaking their bottles like Tom Cruise in Cocktail when it's 6 deep at the bar .

Put it on a plate.