Do restaurants really serve microwaved 'ready meals'?

[AtleastitsnotMonday]

As it says really. This has come up several times on threads about eating out recently. Basically people saying they are not paying restaurant price for microwaved food. Is this really true? What's the point in having chefs if it's a case of sticking things in a microwave? Surely they wouldn't get away with it. It's often mentioned in discussion about pasta dishes in Italian chain restaurants, surely buying in ready made meals would cost them a whole lot more that cooking a bit of pasta and sauce anyway.

Yes, that’s how kitchen work. It’s not like you order a lasagne and they start chopping onions and making sauce.

yeah that's normal twankey.

I used to work for a big restaurant company.
It is hybrid in most restaurants.
Brakes are often just a large distribution company for big chains. Menu design teams create dishes in a development kitchen for their brand. Brakes then recreate the dishes for consistency and deliver them to be reheated by the chef. If you go to chains you expect exactly the same dish in any branch you visit - this is one way to ensure this.
Also this is a way to confidently quote calories on the menu. A chef using a tad more oil in a frying pan could massively change this. Then there are allergens to think about.
It is also impossible to recruit chefs since Brexit and Lockdown.
I understand everything people are saying on the thread - but just wanted to give a little bit of insight!

Good point on nutrition/allergen information. My daughter is diabetic and really appreciates knowing the values of what she’s eating. Consistency makes that a lot more reliable.

The thing is that I don’t mind a chain doing this. When you are somewhere you don’t know you go to a chain for the consistency. You know what you like in Prezzo and know you can rely on it to be familiar.

We are very lucky to have a small cafe near us with a skilled chef who has worked in Michelin starred kitchens. He food is great but whatever you order is slightly different each time depending on what he could get in that day. I like that, and it shows a good chef at work but it could be off putting to some.

Gordon Ramsey? I remember something like that. I think this is completely fine. If you order a slow cooked lamb shank, it has to be pre prepared - it take the best part of 6 hours to cook properly. Many dishes cannot be cooked to order in a busy restaurant.

Re other thread comments, 'boil in the bag' could be sous vide - again, completely acceptable in a good restaurant if its prepared in house.

I don't really care if something is pre prepared - it's often necessary - as long as it's prepared, stored and served with care and skill.

Wetherspoons are known for this
There was even a programme on it

Well they do advertise that so?

Wetherspoons are really cheap I have no issue with them doing this, its the more expensive ones that should not be.

Yes I'm always astonished that people think a roast dinner will be made fresh from scratch every time you order or a lasagne or pizza dough You would be waiting over an hour at least for your meal or not longer

Of course some ingredients fr some meals are pre prepared and then frozen or kept chilled for reheating when needed. Sometimes the food is prepared and frozen by the restaurant but often some of the ingredients are bought in, ready to be used or heated

I don’t have a problem with a microwaved meal when I’m out as long as the price is reasonable. I’d be pretty passed off if I was paying the earth for it and I was given to understand a chef was in house. A microwave is only a method of cooking after all and it’s what you do with it that counts.

Absolutely stunned by this thread. I never realised that pubs and restaurants bought in food from places like Brakes. I assumed it was all cooked to order, even places like Weatherspoons 😂. Why would I pay 9 quid or whatever for a microwave tikki masala when I can buy one for £3 in Tesco? And don't get me started on pre prepared scrambled egg😔. It all makes sense now - I was once in an Asda cafe and told they had run out of sausages. I just thought 'why can't they get more from the shop?' The whole point of paying more in a restaurant is to experience nicely cooked, quality food!

Old skool days a chef could bone an animal, fish, shellfish, into its parts, cook some & keep some in the fridge

Starters & desserts were made fresh daily

Vegetables were prepped daily

Now it's phone or click & deliver everything ready prepped; steaks, veg, desserts

Quick cook or ping !

Read about the chef who wouldn't use a lemon, because it was not local produce

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/twenty-six-courses-400-bills-artichoke-creme-brulee-i-wont-miss-fine-dining?CMP=fb_cif

something similar...

I recently discovered that if you don't see the bar staff making your cocktail, it's often from a pre-mix powder and that's apparently why you get so many places selling the same. Eg last summer everyone had rose and lychee martini. The rose and lychee part is sold en masse in sachets. Often bars who do this are charging almost as much as the fully handmade cocktail places.

Stick to going to your local carvery, if you have one. At least then you know your food is fresh.

pre made Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes made on Friday or frozen from a bag, stuffing ready made & gravy from a packet

There are two main restaurant options near me. Both privately owned. One serves mainly frozen food. Nice enough food and big portions. The other cooks everything themselves they have a real passion for food and several awards, everything local, smaller portions but more expensive than the other place. You get what you pay for.

Wetherspoons does, I've worked there. Even the Sunday roast is microwaved, the meat comes ready cooked in plastic bags with gravy. The breakfasts are cooked from fresh though 😂

Just to play Devil's Advocate, though, if you ate it and enjoyed it, some would say, what's the problem? You may not have been served freshly prepared food from fresh ingredients, but you had a change of scenery from home and food you didn't have to buy, store, prepare, cook, clear away etc - and at an affordable price.

Points 1 and 2 are worth very little to me, for me it's all about the food and drink.

I have heat, light and decor at home, and no, I don't have a big posh house, quite the opposite, it would fall far below MN expectations of location, decor and cleanliness.

If I CBA to cook, I'll do something that's zero skill, time and effort, like an omelette, garlic prawns and nice bread, steak and bagged salad or a nice ready made pizza (eg Crosta & Mollica, Waitrose).

If I'm paying restaurant prices to eat out, it has to be significantly better than decent supermarket ready meals or something that is generally unavailable in supermarkets or I cannot easily make at home, requires lots of ingredients, chopping etc, which is why I never go to places like chain Italians or pubs, steakhouses etc.

So generally independent Indian street food, Mexican, Thai, Japanese, that sort of thing.

If I wanted microwave pasta, I'd get it for about £3 from M&S, not £13 from Pizza Express and even more when adding on the cost of the wine etc.

Broadly agree with that, @BarbaraofSeville, but so many people in the UK are short of time and money and also lack confidence and skills in even deciding what to cook (hence success of Gousto and Hello Fresh), I can see why those who can afford it often eat out or get takeaways.

As well as choosing meals one wouldn't even contemplate making at home, I expect some people seize the opportunity to have things they don't eat at home for other reasons, e.g. one person hates mushrooms so communal meals are all mushroom-free, only one person is a carnivore so most meals are meat-free, and so on.

I have sometimes chosen steak when out as I hardly ever cook it at home - I'm the only one who would want it. The incident when I inadvertently swallowed a lump of gristle and my husband had to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on me in the middle of the restaurant rather put me off steak, though ...

The chain restaurants I work in use microwave and pre-prepared elements (due to consistency, allergen safety and nutritional values) but are cooking fresh meat etc. The thing is when you go to a restaurant you aren't paying £10 for the food - you are paying £10 for someone else to serve you, someone else to cook for you and someone else to clean up after you as well as the restaurants overheads.

Don't forget the best dish of all: pasta with non-descript red sauce. Beloved by vegetarians and vegans everywhere 😂.

Ah yes. Fondly known as “splodge” here