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)?

I managed to book lunch at one of the wankiest restaurants I've ever come across recently. Got there and found it was down an incredibly tight spiral staircase in an old bank vault. Which is fine, except it was so dim inside that the waiter (who sported the finest handlebar moustache I've seen outside of Clerkenwell) used a fucking TORCH to take me to the table. I should have left at that point, but I was marooned as the sole diner in a sea of darkness waiting for DH to arrive. We ended up using our phones as torches to read the menu and nicked candles off the other tables so that we could eat our food. On the plus side, they did mix a very good cocktail...

Oh and stupidly tall burgers I cannot physically fit in my mouth, even when squashed. Thus requiring me to eat with a knife and fork, and completely denying me all the pleasure that comes with having ordered a burger in the first place!

takeachance I have never walked past that dishoom in kings x when there wasn't a queue!

Brilliant! Thank you RonniePasas

Mash that doesn't taste of potato, but just of butter and/or cheese and the consistency of slime gives me the rage.

I hate it when the waiter/ress takes you to your table then immediately asks for your drink order. This then means trying to find the drinks list on the menu and having to make a quick decision all while they are stood there staring at you. I like to study the drinks menu to see what they have and the price.

The times I've asked them to give us a minute they disappear off for ages..

Most of the things above especially wanting my food in plates.

A more individual one. I have a disability so need someone to cut up things like meat. I ask when ordering. I get that it's busy and they sometimes forget but what's worse is if I remind they take it back and it takes ages to come back. If it happens now I just get the person with me to cut it. Pizza (including high end) places are the worst - no scoring the pizza is not cutting into bite size pieces!

Foam. Gross. Who the fuck ever thought that was a good idea?

Deconstructed food. Again, what is s great about a deconstructed pizza - bite sized pieces of pizza dough with tomato sauce in an accompanying ramekin and various other bits of ingredients dotted around the fucking slate. It's so so pointless.

With your pre dinner drinks having to pay £3 for a tiny bowl of olives and or nuts. Abroad you get a bowl of olives, crisps or nuts even if you have just popped in for a drink. It makes sense - you nibble, get thirsty, order another drink and then stay for dinner. It's so tight to ask people who are already paying well over cost (which is normal) for a few drinks to pay £3 for 4 olives (probably from a tin)

@SweetLathyrus I love brioche! I hardly ever eat bread so when I do, I want it to be the most indulgent treat possible 😁

@DaffoDeffo go at 5pm on a weekday seems to be the only answer! I was meeeting a friend for dinner and we both work nearby. I hadn’t been before (because queues) so thought we’d try it. It was delicious.

A singular lack of ice bucket when we’re drinking white. Warm Sancerre - just no.
Leaving you to put your own napkin on your lap. Small napkins.
Only one wine glass in each place.

Huge rooms were the noise travels
I hate it
Very sensitive to extreme noise

Everything being sweet. Brioche is not suitable to put a burger in. Why would you insert a burger into the gap you have cut in a cake?

Sweetened vegetables and salad dressings. Stop chucking sugar in everything and cook properly with actual flavours.

so noisy. Loud music and nothing soft in the room so I can't hear my very quiet, very interesting friend M and get backache from craning trying to glean SOMETHING of what she is saying.

Over familiar service from men half my age who get far too chummy and patronising with me. Don't fucking patronise me, you child.

Predictable mistakes that you know they are going to make but politeness dictates that you have to wait for them to make them before you say anything about them. like: they are definitely going to forget your water, but you aren't allowed to say "tap water please, but listen, here's the thing: please actually bring the tap water rather than making us ask a couple more times"

Staff with hideously strong artificial personal fragrances

other nasty smells like air fresheners

Main courses which don't come with any carbs so you have to order extra side dishes.

The Crystal maze style toilet experience.

First up you need a spidey sense to figure out where they are as they don't have any signs.

Then when you've asked a harassed waiter and they say over there you find yourself faced with what looks like a wall, could be a wall of mirrors or padding or wood - but oh no it's a not a wall it's a cleverly hidden door for the loos.

Once you've made a twat out of yourself pushing walls for three minutes you get in and it's pitch black. More cryptic door finding and then an engineering degree required to use the taps. And tough shit if you want to do your lippy. adding to the darkness to make the mirror experience exceptionally shit is an old piece of glass that's not clear.

Gives me such rage and I'm often in these places for work

Charcoal. The only use for it orally is to absorb poisons. I don't think that's a message a chef should be sending.

Uncomfortable chairs. Why?! Why do restaurants want to make us feel like we're sitting on knives?!

@ChipsAreLife there’s a restaurant in Glasgow that has several branches, 2 of them don’t look like they’re that close together but they’re connected by a basement and share the same toilets there. I got lost and ended up in the other restaurant. Apparently it happens all the time!

Wooden platters. I had food poisoning because of them being intrinsically filthy. They cannot go in a dishwasher so they just get wiped. PUKE. I do not want fish served on a lump of dirty wood, a plate is just fine. Oh and little deep fry baskets as though the fairies run a chippy yuck.
I don't eat out much, I prefer my own money food.

ok Ms Lexic I hated the stupid little baskets till you said "fairies run a chippy" and now I love them :)

But the boards. Seriously. I have a wooden chopping board at home which is only used for vegetables and it gets scrubbed hard with washing up liquid under the hot tap. Please don't tell me they only wipe them. WIPE is already one of the nastiest words in the language :(

I agree with every single contribution above. I always ask for a plate if I see other diners without and refuse food on anything other than one when I have been caught unawares. The waiting staff know we all prefer plates so why the hell does the message not get through to the kitchen?
If EVERYONE refused their food unless properly plated perhaps chefs might change their ways.

“A million gins on the menu but only 1 kind of sugar-free tonic”

Sugar free tonic kills the taste of a decent gin.
My gripe is that many places that sell gin with decent tonic water will offer all the flavours of Fever Tree tonic water, but if you just want unflavoured tonic water they only have diet Schweppes (bleurgh).

“Only one wine glass in each place.”

Why do you need more than one?

CherryPavlova "Leaving you to put your own napkin on your lap. " SERIOUSLY ???

'Pop ups' in drafty cold fruit and veg markets or ex warehouses. I want to go out and eat somewhere that is more attractive than my house.

White and red?