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 too worry about the hygiene and cleanliness aspect of the wooden
blocks - how DO they keep them clean exactly and free of the previous diner's spit?

YANBU. I completely agree.

My DH works at a pub that once served me ice cream on a fucking bread board! If it wasn't that my DH works there, next time I went I'd order my meal and ask for a plate at the same time. I daren't though in case he gets into trouble with the owner!

Not just the ice cream on a bread board... also your chips are served in a plant pot. Absurd!

As for mismatched china, 2 of my local cafes serve food and drinks on the kind of plates and mugs that my nan threw out years ago!

Luckily the mismatched twee china in no way distracts from the yummy chocolate brownies and flat white coffee.

As a pudding fan I can't understand deconstructed puddings. Recently was served with a deconstructed crumble at a posh work dinner ... crumble separate from fruit, separate from custard (probably called sauce au vanille or creme anglaise or something poncey). Missed the point of crumble altogether.
Also, can't quite understand the fashion for serving starters and puddings in kilner jars - last year, in a remote country pub, I was served eton mess in a kilner jar. Why?

How did I miss this thread until now? Properly guffawed at the plunger and tweezer cutlery.

Perhaps we need to be thankful that they're only faffing about with comedy plate replacements and miniature axes. I reckon the next thing to go will be the table, and they'll start presenting us with one of those sticks that you have to spin your plate on to keep it level, or a house of cards that you have to place your steak-laden board very carefully on top of. Or perhaps they'll put your chips in a bowl at the top of a children's slide, and you have to get all the chips out before they reach the bottom of the slide and fall into the sandpit.

Maddening isn't it? I had a fishcake on a slate the other day, and when I cut into it flakes of fish and breadcrumbs fell off the side of the slate onto the table. I must have lost about 1/6 of my lunch by the time I'd finished (t'was a small slate and a big fishcake, I'm not normally so cackhanded).

Can I also add food served in cups.... Aside from egg in a cup which is allowed.

I had a chocolate mousse in a expresso cup the other day. I've also eaten somewhere where they served chilli in a twee floral cup and saucer (same place put jacket potatoes into floral cups and saucers ). Both pissed me off.

MoreBeta it's been years since I looked at Russums now I neeeeeed some sideplate spoons.

SlapsSelfForBeingWankyTiggaxx

If weather spoons are at it then its time to go full circle and use white circular plates again

On the subject of no chips... There is an American diner which serves mounds of chips with ladlefuls of hot sauces.
Pepper sauce, BBQ, nachos cheese etc.

We went to a place the other day and got a burger (overdone) and chips (too salty) on a tray.

Fine at McDonalds. Not fine when what was effectively two posh meal deals is £30.

I don't get it either.

Ohhh I don't get it either.

My dp is a chef in his mums pub, she planned to start using boards and wotnot and my dp told her he would quit they are still using good old fashioned plates!

Years ago I had to present some new products at a board meeting and used a "Slate cheese board" I found in a cupboard because I wanted it to be fancy innit.

Only it wasn't and after sampling them the company secretary said "is that my new building tile sample?"

Fuck

Though I will now slink off the thread as we use kilner jars on our menu

I'm not the only one then.
Has anyone tried saying "Could I have it on a plate instead?"

I ask for a plate all the time, if I don't get it I leave.

Meat on wooden boards is one I've by biggest hates. I've actually refused a wooden board and asked the waiter to return it to the kitchen and ask for it to be put on a plate. I really can't stand it. I think it's incredibly unhygienic (although I may be wrong), it at least feels incredibly unhygienic to me. And ultimately it's not warmed like a plate and therefore food goes cold quickly.

I don't think wood is unhygienic as long as it's washed properly.
All the butchers I use use wooden butchers blocks and it seems to give them no problems getting hygiene certificates. The one I use most often has an award for good hygiene.

It is however incredibly nobby

Can't quite see what the big deal is? :P Eat your food and enjoy it!

Wood can't be hygienic - it's porous. I grimace if I see my food arriving on a wooden platter (unless it's cheese or bread).

I mean, you don't see wooden tables in a mortuary do you?

Wood has natural antibacterial properties - you get more germs on plastic chopping boards than wooden ones.
(I think it's in Bad Food Britain by Joanna Blythman, talking about cases where traditional ways of preserving or preparing food were banned based on ill-founded h&s advice.)

Tunip still not convinced about wooden servers - I don't want meat slapped on a board when I'm out, espesh when I don't know who else's meats been on it.

Wood kills bacteria. Tests have been done on wooden chopping boards showing bacteria die on wood very quickly. Wooden ones are far more hygienic than plastic. Butchers blocks are wooden.

The wood can get up and dance a naked fandango if it wants whilst singing I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts but I'm still not eating off it.

Am normally a fan of Joanna Blythman, but a lot of the original research on this topic was about HARDWOOD chopping boards in PRIVATE kitchens, rather than softwood plates used by many different people in quick succession) in public eating places.
www.woodworking.co.uk/Technical/Bacteria/bacteria.html

I have no idea at all whether these differences are significant. It would be interesting to know. Chopping boards are often used to prepare raw food before cooking, which subsequently kills most germs. Plates have a different function. They are used to serve already cooked, ready to eat, food.