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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To wonder how much in restaurants is actually made from scratch

70 replies

MsKLo · 14/01/2011 18:30

Have had quite a few dissapointing outings to all different kinds of restaurants the past few months and a friend told me they were talking to a catering supplier who said that lots of restaurants get thing in made already and frozen roast potatoes are especially popular etc

Do many restaurants do this? Doesn't anyone peel ans roast potatoes or thick cut 'homemade' Chips anymore? Is that cottage pie home-made or bought in?!

I just want to go to a nice restaurant or pub and have nic foooooood!

OP posts:

mrscynical · 14/01/2011 20:15

Most fine dining restaurants do a cheaper menu on Tuesday, Wednesday nights and some lunchtimes so you can actually eat fab food at less than nearly all chains.

I got so fed up paying for microwaved crap that, if I so chose, I could buy at Iceland and heat up at home so I have avoided the Brake Bros type eateries ever since.

Of course the only problem is that I cannot afford the fine dining prices on a Friday or Saturday night.

I can live with that.

MrsChemist · 14/01/2011 20:20

I'm quite fortunate that I live near a big city, so there are tons of little places to go that serve nice, cheap, made on site stuff.

I always think a good indicator is if you have an excellent view of the kitchen. No restaurant in their right minds would let the customers see in the kitchen if they sold mostly microwaved things.

wintersnow · 14/01/2011 20:36

I worked at Pizza Express and the bases are all rolled out from dough in the kitchen. Not sure about the sauces but most of the things they use are fresh

PlanetEarth · 14/01/2011 20:42

We had a pub meal one time and the kids had pizza - it was the cheapest, nastiest frozen cardboard-base you can get. I had veggie burgers and while they were OK they were just what I could buy in the supermarket. Just lazy, I think - and in the case of the pizzas, cheapskate too .

Original poster

MsKLo · 14/01/2011 21:21

i will give pizza express another go

planetearth - i hear you and have been there!

OP posts:

Oblomov · 14/01/2011 21:46

Not sure I agree with the open kitchen idea, that if its opne they are cooking formn scratch. Tony Roma's has a totally open kitchen. You can see it all, in KIngston Surrey. And although their ribs are good, surely it is all pre-packed.

nymphadora · 15/01/2011 10:00

Pizza express here you can see them shaping the dough. They do that throw it in the air thing too

altinkum · 15/01/2011 10:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sparkle12mar08 · 15/01/2011 10:17

I think it's naive in the extreme to assume that high street chain 'restaurants' use anything other than pre pack/pre prep or frozen foods frankly. In general unless you're paying around £40 a head in a decent place, it's almost certainly going to be at least part prepped. But don't forget companies like Brakes offer all sorts of menus from ultra premium pre prep to budget sling-it-in-the-microwave fare. Surely people don't honestly think that on top of cooking for 100+covers a day, somewhere like TGI's, Franky&Benny's, pizza places etc are actually going to a daily market, buying their ingredients, washing, peeling and cooking them do they?

Original poster

MsKLo · 15/01/2011 10:21

No, it's not that I believe that but places like Fridays and F&B used to be really nice 10+ years ago and it is just a shame that now the food is so shit!

OP posts:

BeenBeta · 15/01/2011 10:22

MsKLo - me and DW eat out a fair bit and we have been noticing this too recently in both high and low end restaurants. We suspect it is because of the economic downturn - we remember it happening in the early 1990s recession.

Smaller portions, cheaper cuts and definitley bought in things slipping on to the menu.

Last week we went to what was supposedly a very smart restaurant as a special treat. We were shocked when we got there to find only half the menu was not being served that day. It was clear from a surprisingly diverse things misisng on the menu that the delivery truck had not arrived.

The annoying thing was the menu promised all local sourced food - which it clearly was not. This is a fairly well known high end hotel chain which has feature restaurants in. They had also jacked prices up to extortionate levels and we refused to leave a service charge. We later found out that the chain is in financial difficulty and were clearly trying to make it back on the food and drink.

We have had very good experiences with this group in their other restaurants before but we gave them six months before they go bust. I suspect a lot of restaurant chains are the same - owned by priate equity groups that crank up the debt financing sky high and then raise prices and reduce the quality of the food to make the cash to pay the debt back. The resturant is not really run by a chef but by an accountant sat miles away who thinks getting in pre-prepared stuff is a good cost cutting measure. It does, but only at the expense of food quality.

I have had similar experiences in a few of the other chains mentioned in this thread. Its been a very noticeable trend in the last 6 months.

sparkle12mar08 · 15/01/2011 10:22

Toby all fresh my foot. Things like potatoes may be 'fresh' but they'll be bought in from the catering company in huge sack loads, pre washed and cut ready for cooking on site. So it won't be instant or ready made as such, but they're sure as hell not getting them daily from the market. Same with all veg. The meat joints will again be ordered from the suppliers as oven ready, all the desserts will be ordered in to be cut and portioned on site etc. I worked in an independent back street pub, and even that was probably 75% catering company supplied. It's impossible to prep and cook absolutely everything in volume, from scratch, every day unless you are a high price independent outfit.

TheSecondComing · 15/01/2011 10:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

charlotteolivia · 15/01/2011 10:27

Have worked in pubs a long time. In my pub we get all our meat/fish in fresh but buy in our risotto base ready made for us to add things to it. Our desserts are amazing quality and are made in small batches, but we still buy them in from a supplier. Our menu is small though, and changes most weeks. My partners pub however (se london) makes everything. Pasta, bread, ice cream, chips, pastry. The lot.
Both pubs are known for their food and service.
I am horrendously picky where I eat out. I the menu is laminated, or it is a three-fold-sheet of card I don't eat there. Chances are if it's got a curry dish, something with noodles on AND fish and chips AND sandwiches available past 5pm.... Even the chicken breast will be coming in frozen! Like another poster said above, brakes do from literally microwave-in-bag roast dinners, to small batch made tomato and basil pasta sauce.
It's all about consistency and working out what is better for someone price vs time wise for your chefs. If a company chooses to have a huge menu at £5.99 for each main, they will have to buy it Pre prepped rather than paying chefs/cooks more to comein earlier. It's simply not feasible to have a huge menu and be able to prep for it from scratch.

QueeferSutherland · 15/01/2011 10:29

BeenBeta, spill!

What was the name of the chain? I'd really really like to know.

Could the pared-down menu be because of the weather?

PlanetLizard · 15/01/2011 10:29

I can't remember the last time I had a really nice home-cooked lasagne in a restaurant. They're always flaccid defrosted ready-meals.

BeenBeta · 15/01/2011 10:30

Have to say that given our recent experiences we eat at home a lot more. It just isnt worth going out to eat food that is less good than what I can make at home.

Me and DW used to like to go out on a 'lunch date' once a week as we work at home and going out together is a nice change. Now we tend to just buy a really good bottle of wine and some nice food to cook at home.

Its not so much the money but the feeling of being ripped off and tricked into eating not very nice food. I am coeliac too so the bought in sauces often have things in I cant eat and the chef either often does not know or cant take it out.

altinkum · 15/01/2011 10:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BooBooGlass · 15/01/2011 10:33

I wouldn't touch Cafe Rouge with a bargepole after I saw a harrassed looking waiter, still in uniform and obviously in a hurry, wiht a basket full of value spaghetti bolognaise and salad in our local sainsburys

BeenBeta · 15/01/2011 10:36

Queefer - there was a slight amount of snow on the ground that day. The diverse things missing from the menu suggested it wasn't say the butcher or the fish merchant that had not delivered but pre-prepared things.

I dont want to name the chain as firms have a habit of suing people for slander nowadays - even when well founded criticism is levelled.

cumbria81 · 15/01/2011 10:38

As a student I used to work in a take away pizza shop. It was very run down and shabby but the owner would make all the dough from scratch (getting up in the middle of the night to knead it etc), all his sauces from scratch and all the toppings were fresh.

Next door was a pizza express with nice shiny floors and ambience music.

I bet their food was shit.

TheSecondComing · 15/01/2011 10:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

MsKLo · 15/01/2011 14:03

I agree about hating the fact I feel so fucking ripped off! But I can't believe how BUSY all these shit places are! How do people afford it?! We are ok and both work but I can't justify the prices of these places! A little coffee shop has opened on our estate and i thought 'great' a lovely place to go and have a coffee and bite to eat sometimes but they are taking the piss! A small jacket potato with a bit of filling is £4.30! A scone with jam is £1.60! Sandwiches are £4! Why don't they do things a little cheaper and fill the place? It is always empty (they have a shit attitude too) and I know for a fact they buy their 'homemade' cakes from Costco!

I just want to go to a decent place with decent foooood!

But it is my fault for eating at crap places - but no more! I will not spend anymore money on shite!

OP posts:

Original poster

MsKLo · 15/01/2011 14:06

Oh and of course I need to be able to BREASTfEED where I go and eyeball people...

That was for you secondcoming and altinkum...

OP posts:

Quattrocento · 15/01/2011 14:10

I stayed in quite a nice hotel recently. It was probably around 4*, from recollection.

Ordered some chips to go with some sea bass. The chips were coated in something. I asked them what they were doing, coating chips ... Turns out that they don't actually make their chips - they buy them in, pre-coated. Utterly disgusting and so surprising.

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