to wonder what the fuck is wrong with PLATES.

[KeemaNaanAndCurryOn]

Just been out for a meal.

Food arrived from the kitchen on either a slate or a giant block of wood.

What the fuck is wrong with plates???

Why do they feel the need to stick my food on something I stick on my roof or a bloody breadboard?

Is it just me? I WEEP for the poor neglected china.

I firmly believe there is a good market out there for good quality, 70s and 80s food unpretentiously served.

The crokery bollocks is Emperor's New Clothes - disguising the fact that most eateries have no decent chefs and all the food is bought in from 3663. Fancy it up on a plate disguises the fact that the "chef" can't actually cook, let alone garnish. It's symptomatic of what's wrong in the catering industry imho

Not to encourage theft, but the little silver chips buckets make brilliant holders for eye pencils, lip gloss pots, and such...just saying.

Happens near me at posh places ie not 5 courses inc booze and coffee for a tenner. For the tourists, I think as we have slate at Allassac and Travassac not too far away.

Try Asia, here you are likely to get your food on a banana leaf. Knives are frowned upon in lots of restaurants, you just get a spoon or chopsticks.

One of the local restaurants here puts a hot plate in front of you and you cook your own meat, which is pretty cool.

Nigel I can spot a 3663 plate a mile off and tend to AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE. You are, of course, correct.

UseToDoACTUALCateringTiggaxx

Was food in the 80s good quality? I seem to remember some hideousness that was Nouveau Cuisine. 2 peas and and a morsel of chicken for 50 quid. With a penny sized blob of jus of course

Oh dear....our usual Saturday lunch in this house is me putting loads of bread, cold meats, cheeses and other yummy things on a massive wooden board in the middle of the table for people to help themselves. We even have a slate for particularly mobile cheeses...

hangs head in shame

Though we do have our own individual plates to put it on. Eating directly off wood or slate is just wierd but the noise of cutlery is unbearable.

The more aged of us know that this was a very 70's thing .

I can cope with a wooden board if it is all part of a "rustic" theme, but slate is just horrid.

Anyway, all food looks better against white.

I've just seen the brick-licking link.

lastnight what you do in the privacy of your own home is no worry to me at all.

I just lost it last night when I tried to get my chicken off my skewer and the whole lot slid off the breadboard onto the table.

It is truly irritating. On a par with places where the waiter asks "Have you been here before? No? Then let me explain how this works".

I order food. You bring it. I eat it and pay you for the privilege.

Almost as bad as a Michelin starred place that we went to recently(which shall remain nameless) where the puddings had names like "Oriental rhapsody" with no explanation as to what constituted the dish. When asked the waitress told us they didn't like to tell diners what the dish was made of, they preferred people to go on a journey of culinary exploration. Twats.

Arf at culinary exploration. Maybe you could hace asked them to explore the kitchen cupboards for a proper plate.
I totally agree I dont want my food on a wooden board its not hygienic and its wanky.. As for deconstructed puddings they can fuck right off. I want to put my fork through layers of cream and fruit and biscuit. Not chase it round a slate like a demented cat herder trying to reconstruct a mouthful

#freethesauce

I was once served chips in a miniature shopping trolley - I quite enjoyed that. I do worry about how they clean all this stuff though. Our local pub went through a phase of serving chips in a really quite large enamelled bucket intended for holding pegs complete with oddly sprung tongs that shot chips across the dining room if you weren't careful.

Another pub served burgers with a steak knife rammed through the middle, pinning it to the board it was inevitably served on. Made it look like the chef was having a tense night.

Part of the reason restaurants do this is because suppliers of catering equipment now offer them the necessary bits of slate and tiny chip baskets - they buy them because they can and they think it adds sophistication.

You can go to suppliers like Russums and buy 'slate plates' for your own home if you want.

The fashion emerged from up market restaurants but now everyone does it. Surely everyone remembers chicken-in-a-basket that was sophistication in the 1970s but no one would do it now except to be ironic. Instead we have slate and tiny chip baskets and widdy little copper pans and dinky dolls house iron cocottes on a wooden board.

Personally, the last time someone served me 6 chips in a tiny basket I went and demanded more and made a formal complaint. If I am spending £20 on a steak I want a decent plate of good chips with it that cost no more than £1 to make.

Yes Orangeanddemons!!Nouveau cuisine had starving punters shamelessly turning a sharp right to the nearest burger joint.After forking out a fortune for the 'artistic' dollshouse portion.

YANBU. It's ridiculous.

I'll not have a word said against square white plates though!

Square plates are just miles better than round ones. I am getting some for using at home to distract guests from my cooking because they are more practical.

Those sizzling brick things also makes the whole restuarant smell and if you wear anything that is made of natural fibres,like silk or wool it stinks like old onions forever.Airing useless,so expensive dry cleaning.

Where does the trend for no vegetables come from? It's disappointing when you just get a slab of chicken/fish/whatever on top of mash or with a chips side dish - but no vegetables at all Often they're not even available to order separately.

new

Good question. I love a nice salad. But three day old ore packed salad that's browning dumped on the side of a warm plate and covered in raw onion does not a salad garnish make. Why can't we get crisp fresh side salads. Or sweet crunchy steamed veg on the side. Or stir fried veg??

I want veg as part of the meal, not an after thought. And I don't count yellow peas left in a Bain Marie either!!

I had bread served in a little flower pot once. I have no idea what the fuck they thought they were doing, baking bread in flower pots. I still cringe when I think of it.

I recently went to a weatherspoons in Newcastle and was served my burger and chips on a board. With the chips in a bucket.

It's shit, and wanky
Also, can you get wood/slate as clean as china/stoneware? Surely wood is porous? And if it's treated to stop it, is the oil/varnish food safe? How often do they re treat it?
Anyone with wooden worktops knows they are a bastard to maintain, can't see the pubs being too concerned.

Glass plates get my goat. Frigging hate it, I do not enjoy looking at the gravy stained tablecloth / table trying to figure out where the food on the plate is.

Once served a ploughmans on a board, it had a whole apple on it with a knife through it. Said board was rough as a badgers arse and my cheese had splinters, fucking ridiculous situation.

The only exception is if a cheese board is marble.

I am not completely against non-plate food serving options, but if you are serving "gourmet" food on a plate, then at least ensure that the plate presents the food in an appetising way.
I recently had a meal where the meat course was served on a brown plate. It looked horrid & didn't taste brilliant either, although I am sure this was mostly due to the unattractive appearance.

Oh I hate all these new fancy ways of serving too! I recently ordered a breakfast and got egg, bacon and sausage in a frying pan. I can't bear to scrape metal so had to send it back and ask for a plate instead.

The worst was a Caesar salad which came as 5 lettuce leaves, a rasher of bacon, a couple of slices of parmesan and 3 blobs of dressing...WTF?? I asked the waitress to give it back to the chef and get him to chop it all up into a bow so I could eat the bloody thing. Apparently it happens every time...you'd think he'd have learnt something by now!