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.

This is why I tend to avoid places with really long menus - there’s no way they are cooking all those options (and keeping the ingredients in just in case they get an order of that dish), they are bound to be out of the freezer.

I like places with small regularly changed menus and open kitchens, you can see the work that’s going in, these tend to be places that pride themselves on their food and cooking. Not so easy to find outside big cities or well heeled towns though.

Wetherspoons and other chain pubs definitely do this, anything such as a curry or lasagne will be microwaved. Stuff like fish and chips would be deep fried, or steak would be cooked on the griddle.

Of course they do. It's how chain restaurants can have the exact same menu all over the country and ensure consistency. They wouldn't be able to put the calorie count on the menus if chefs were preparing the meals however they liked as there'd be huge variation.

I used to work in a higher end chain restaurant. Most stuff you can batch cook was brought in frozen - eg sauces, meat ready to go sous vide. Veg was cooked fresh and added to the side, salads were prepared freshly. I'm sure in some restaurants all the veg is brought in ready meal style too.
But there is no creativity for the chefs. They follow the product sheets as consistency is the goal.
I find chain restaurants boring to eat at but they're good for people with allergies because of the consistency.

I was a waitress 25 years ago and this was usual for things like lasagne and other pasta type dishes,

Meh, I can't get overly get up about it in anything below high end restaurants to be honest - I live in London and have enough disposable income to eat out once or twice a week - sometimes that's our local pub which is a gastro burger type place, our local independent Italian where they make their own pizza dough, cook it in front of you but the pasta dishes are quite obviously reheated ( but are ok), sometimes somewhere in town like Brindisa or Lobos, sometimes bigger chains like Côte or Dishoom, and sometimes we push the boat out and go higher end, or somewhere that's just opened just to see what it's like and have the experience. Occasionally the price doesn't match the end result on your plate ( Burger and Lobster I'm looking at you) and that's fine, I just don't go back.

For me the experience of seeing my friends, eating and drinking together in a warm, clean environment and not washing up afterwards is what I'm paying for. Yes of course I could get an M&S deal and invite my friends over but I'd rather eat out.

I also appreciate that I'm very lucky to live in London and try all of these places.

For me the experience of seeing my friends, eating and drinking together in a warm, clean environment and not washing up afterwards is what I'm paying for. Yes of course I could get an M&S deal and invite my friends over but I'd rather eat out.

But what changed - and when - that put an end to the old traditional non-fancy cafe, where meals would indeed be cooked freshly to order, from scratch? Granted, the options weren't always myriad, and you had a bit of a wait for your food, but the prices were always reasonable.

Are we saying that the owners of chains of 100s/1,000s restaurants simply don't have the ability or financial capacity to achieve what Pam's Greasy Spoon could back then, even if they wanted to?

When I was in my teens I worked in a kitchen in Berni Inns. The ‘Farmers Choice’ soup was Heinz Big Soup, watered down, kept in a soup boiler, chilled at night and heated the next day. Topped up when it got low. Boiler was cleaned about once a week. It was a ‘Sunday evening graveyard shift’ job.

Working in a kitchen has also taught me never to send food back with a complaint. I have seen pissed off chefs throwing steaks on the floor before putting them back under the grill when people complain they are underdone amongst other awful practices.

Well at the moment a friend of mine who runs a small cafe/deli/bar has had their energy bills go from £1.5K per month to £5k pcm in the past 6 months. So I can see why he is making cutbacks where he can on fresh ingredients and having to raise prices across the board.

I appreciate that is a more recent development though. Lots of cafes have invested in those huge super powerful microwave/ grills that heat up/ finish off food incredibly quickly so food can still have that ' freshly cooked' taste rather than the ' been hanging around under a hot light for hours' taste.

Our local pub does a cooked breakfast for £12. It's sausage/ egg/beans/toast/ tomatoes and mushrooms. It tastes like most other cooked breakfasts I've ever had- I have no idea which bits of any/ all of them are reheated/ sous vide because it just tastes like cooked breakfast food - it's hot, the vegetables aren't obviously tinned and the sausage tastes of cheddar and leek because I always have the veggie offering.

I have seen pissed off chefs throwing steaks on the floor before putting them back under the grill when people complain they are underdone amongst other awful practices.

Now that's got me wondering if the modern trend for serving beef still pink is purely because of supposed better taste, or whether the quicker turnaround and less fuel used than if properly cooking it might also be a factor?!

Pam's Greasy Spoon would typically have opened very early to serve cooked breakfasts to workmen and commuters. Short order cooking, air heavy with grease and smoke. Probably a quiet time during the morning when just a few retired or unemployed people, or housewives wanting a break during shopping, might come in for a cup of tea or milky coffee, maybe a bit of toast. Workers would throng back at lunchtime for more stodgy greasy food - typically sausages, beans, pies, eggs, chips with everything, often one token less greasy dish as special of the day - e.g. shepherd's pie, liver and bacon, stew.

What's happened in recent years is that coffee shops have sprung up everywhere and taken away a lot of that casual trade during the lull between breakfast and lunch, and often at other times too. Pre-packaged sandwiches and so on (lunch deals) are readily available everywhere and fewer people take a proper break at lunchtime, so the lunchtime trade is probably down. Traditional British food has a lot of competition from Indian, Chinese and other Asian cuisines, Italian food, sushi, burgers, chicken shops and for some people healthier options like vegan/vegetarian/juice bars. No small place can cook a huge menu to order. If people want variety, the proprietor pretty much has to buy in ready-made food, I'd imagine.

It's all happened quite fast. We've been living in our area (SE London) for nearly 40 years. When we first moved here greasy spoons were the only cafes for miles around. Pubs didn't really do food. We had an old-fashioned Italian restaurant which closed shortly after we arrived (unconnected!) and then a winebar opened, which offered food, but only a very short, limited menu. There was a very good Indian restaurant about a mile away. Quite a few takeaways of one kind or another. That was it, within walking distance. It's very different now.

When you think about it, it’s not much different to us batch cooking, dividing it up into portions, freezing it to reheat at a later time. In effect a ‘ready meal’.

Gordon Ramsey's lamb shanks would be like that, yes. A ready meal made in a factory, probably a lot more removed from what most of us would recognise as cooking.

Take a second look at your local ‘greasy spoon’ cafe. You can see the hygiene rating on the door. Ours sell everything you can think of with chips, for much less than weatherspoons et Al. Look at the menus though, ours also do a lovely salad, avocado on toast, grilled halloumi and other healthy options. Don’t dismiss them, our local in Sydenham, SE London, ‘Chefs Delight’ is legendary. The staff are so friendly.

My ex was a chef, a very good one. He got laid off over Covid so took a job in a pub chain to make ends meet.

He said the majority of the food is bought in ready made, and either deep fried or reheated. Its all portioned out in bags too so no waste and strict stock control. He hated it as its not cooking, so moved on when things got back to normal.

Do Wagamama still cook the food on site? I seem to recall they tell you it will come at different times etc.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I'm all nostalgic for 25p toast from the local greasy spoon now!

Striking distance from us - I may get on the 122 and give it a try!

I feel very unhappy, and stupid, after reading this thread. It's obvious now it's been pointed out 🙄 It explains a lot of things too. As a family of restricted eaters and veggie we like things being the same but sometimes they add things or change things and they can't remove them because it's ready made. Mum is a traditional British food type. Traditional British from 70s and 80s that is. Nothing with onions or chilli or peppers or aubergines or much that is "foreign" but she will eat a pizza or cannelloni from a good independent Italian. Small mercies there. It makes eating out tricky when we all go out together.

Sorry if being thick but knowing this shouldn't make things harder?

I don't think I said it made things harder?

Sorry, I misunderstood.

No worries, I'm often thinking everything but don't always type everything so get misunderstood 😁

I think it's all pretty common and not new. It will be the same in almost all if not all chain restaurants, cafes and hotels, fast food places.

In a previous life I was a manager at a large department store which had a restaurant. Standard practice was that, almost without exception everything was precooked or frozen in portions or large canisters to be reheated and served on a buffet set up (breakfast etc). I often oversaw a stock-take for audit compliance and you're essentially camped in a huge walk in freezer the size of my living room ticking off various boxes and bags that all look the same but are labelled "cod in batter" "parisian rolls" "pea and ham soup" "whole jacket potato" "lamb rogan josh" "macaroni cheese" so on ad infinutum.

The scrambled egg for example for the breakfasts or buffet breakfast came in 1kg frozen blocks (20 portions as memory serves) which were heated as per instructions in the microwave for a few minutes and fluffed up.

Everything simply gets defrosted appropriately on a rolling rota and put in large ovens, microwaves or is steamed for its allocated time frame.

It's the same in supermarket retail, staff go in an hour or so early to start the 'baking' - AKA turn large ovens on and put wholesale breads and pastries in for the day on a timer with amounts pre agreed. Cakes will usually come from an external factory wholesaler and come prepared and boxed.

I've no idea if it's still the case but it used to sometimes be that rotisserie chickens were shorter dated fresh chickens that weren't likely to sell at the butcher (supermarket or otherwise), and rotisserie chickens that weren't sold by a certain point that meat would be repurposed toward the 'fresh' chicken salads.

Either way I tend to avoid rotisserie chicken in the supermarkets, it's usually processed prior to arrival with saline injection and the addition of preservatives and flavourings.

EmmaEmerald · Today 11:49
Do Wagamama still cook the food on site? I seem to recall they tell you it will come at different times etc.

I was wondering about them too ?

and local Chinese / Indian takeaways - I actually see those being cooked - the Chinese , the stir fries etc while waiting.

I think asking for something that you know takes a while to cook and multiple processes and getting in 10 minutes is a a good sign

but also asking for something with an something extra or taken away will tell you eg I don’t want pepperoni on this meat feast pizza or can you add extra chillies in the sauce (as opposed to over the top)