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AIBU?

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Original poster

Why do restaurants serve food on manky looking wooden boards.

97 replies

Aeroflotgirl · 26/08/2016 12:57

We went to a well known restaurant last night with some friends. I have never been there before, so diden't know what to expect. The food was great, but food was served on this rather manky looking chopping board type thing. I asked for a plate so that I could put my food, and was given one. Is this the done thing now! Wooden boards are not that hygienic, I was thinking of all the germs harbouring on there. I will go there again, and next time as I am ordering, ask the server for a plate.

OP posts:
MabelFurball · 26/08/2016 14:59

Must create loads more washing up for the staff. A wooden board and then a basket / bucket of chips holder, then a few pots of coleslaw or sauce. All that fiddling around when the whole lot could just be bunged on a plate.

carefreeeee · 26/08/2016 15:06

Food should come on a plate.

Round here the trend is going away from chopping boards and over to enamel ware - tacky but at least it's plate shaped. Although the last place I went to the tea was on the menu as 'Builder's Brew' and was served in a white enamel mug that clearly had never been washed as the inside was stained with thick brown tea stains - the sort that you could scrape off with a fingernail.

Jellybean83 · 26/08/2016 15:24

I ordered fish chips and mushy peas once. The fish came on a board, wrapped in pretendy newspaper, the chips in a miniature chip basket and the peas in a miniature saucepan! " can I get you anything else?" Erm yes a plate

Filling Station by any chance?

This happened to me in there a few years ago with fish and chips.... I swapped the mushy peas for peas, trying to stop peas rolling off a flat wooden board while I'm eating is not really an experience I want to repeat!

StealthPolarBear · 26/08/2016 15:28

I refuse to believe wooden boards are cleaner than China plates

OverlyLoverly · 26/08/2016 15:32

There are some weird posters on this thread Confused

OP, YANBU. I just want a plate too and not a ginormous one either. Just a normal one. With a normal amount of food. It seems too much to ask. You either get a huge plate with s teeny tiny dot of food in the middle or s normal size plate with the food arranged vertically in a massive tower.

Original poster
Aeroflotgirl · 26/08/2016 15:34

stealth stealth I don't think they are, I cannot imagine how they coukd be. There are knife marks where people had cut their steak so bacteria and food can seep into it. Steak blood has leaked previously, hence the stain tgat coukd not be washed, with a China plate you woukd not have this, it's cleaner IMHO.

OP posts:
ShelaghTurner · 26/08/2016 16:23

YANBU. If the restaurant gets peed off/has loads more washing up then maybe they'll use plates in the first place! And chillies are a fairly big ingredient to not mention. It's not like omitting to mention parsley or something. Sounds like you handled it just right.

Chattymummyhere · 26/08/2016 16:25

We have had this lately kids fish and chips served in a bucket with a spade (you get to keep them), same restaurant Mac and cheese again in a bucket with spade.

Share platter on a wooden carrying tray, chips in little metal buckets it's bonkers.

I want a plate with a fork and knife thank you.

Original poster
Aeroflotgirl · 26/08/2016 16:35

It seems like it's deemed quirky or fashionable by restaurants. My chips were served in a little bucket. That was not too bad, as I could empty them on my plate.

OP posts:
MyBreadIsEggy · 26/08/2016 16:48

YANBU in the slightest.
I couldn't give a fuck how fancy it looks on a chopping board/slate/in a shopping trolley, I would like to eat off a plate like a civilised human, not chase my run-away food around the table when it inevitably slides of its side-less "plate". Deserts are the worst, I have been given cheesecake served with ice cream presented to me in a roof tile Hmm it took seconds for the ice cream to start melting and for a puddle on the table. Surely it's less work for the waiting staff to just put it on a plate/in a bowl? They must have spent a while scrubbing the sticky, melted ice-cream puddle off the table when we had finished!

DeadGood · 26/08/2016 20:10

To clarify, it's not the "asking for something" that would embarrass me. I'm not backward in coming forward in that regard.

But there is something a bit "oooooh, how ODD! A STEAK... on a BOARD?! No, can't accept that. Simply couldn't eat something off a board. No, it's ceramic or nothing for me!"

OP I can see why your millipede incident would make you very reluctant to eat off a board so for that YANBU. But I just wouldn't be bothered, and I really can't get worked up over chips served in a little metal bucket. One of my favourite places in Soho has served them that way for years and years. And a board is like a chopping board, I find it easier to use a steak knife on wood than a screechy plate.

GooodMythicalMorning · 26/08/2016 20:17

I ask for plates. No one's been embarrassed yet I don't think. Hate the boards.

bumsexatthebingo · 26/08/2016 20:33

Went out to eat with my kids the other day and our food came in a miniature half barrel?! My dc1's food had gravy on it which leaked all over the table. She had a miniature portion of salad in a clam shell. Dc2 asked the waiter why it was in a shell and did they wash it!
Went to one of Jamie Oliver's chain once and after we had ordered the waiter brought us 2 tins of chopped tomatoes with no explanation. Were they a strange complimentary starter? No. Soon all became clear when our food was brought out on what looked like a piece of railway sleeper and balanced on them. Wondered afterwards if the chopped tomatoes were now ours to take home but no - they were cleared away! Gave me and dh a good laugh anyway.

Original poster
Aeroflotgirl · 26/08/2016 21:55

dead I asked politely, and I am sure others would not want to eat their food off something that looks like it's seen better days. I bet they have other customers ask for plates too. No biggie if you work in that industry. The food was really lovely, I would go back.

OP posts:
bertsdinner · 26/08/2016 22:11

That made me laugh, bum, the salad in the shell. Im sure they did that in the 70s.
I had a pizza brought on a wooden board, which was ok, and the board had a slot/indent in it with a miniature pizza wheel in it. It was quite ingenious and gave me endless amusement as I cut/wheeled my pizza.

sashh · 27/08/2016 05:18

You sound like a terrible customer.

For some people a plate is necessary because they use a plate surround, nothing terrible about it.

www.completecareshop.co.uk/eating-aids/plate-surrounds-and-guards/

JudyCoolibar · 27/08/2016 05:30

One of the worst examples I came across was a pizza place which served everyone's pizzas in squares on one long board, so that you had to change places when it arrived to be near your choice of pizza.

I blame the obsession with serving food prettily. I remember cheering Janet Street Porter along when she was on Masterchef and made it clear that in her view the important thing is how food tastes, not how it looks, but even she had to give in by the end to avoid being chucked out. I was recently in an excellent restaurant which did use plates but went in for the pretty food look, and we were most disappointed that the delicious sauce was served in a few tiny but pretty dots so we could barely taste it.

JudyCoolibar · 27/08/2016 05:35

Just been looking at that We want plates website - extraordinary! What on earth possesses restaurant owners to decide they need to invest in miniature supermarket trolleys to put chips in? Or to build little lego baskets? I wonder if they take them apart every time to wash them, or leave the germs to develop nicely in the crevices?

ButtMuncher · 27/08/2016 05:37

I was thinking of this thread whilst eating lasagne and chips at our local pub tonight.

Lasagne was served in little ramekin and was hotter than the sun. Impossible to cool down despite dismantling it as much as possible.

Chips served in a frying basket that took over the entire 'plate'

'Plate' was perhaps the funniest - slate, encased within a wooden board Grin my DP had a steak, and with the knife the poor bloke had to apologise each time he cut into his food.

Meal was really nice, but it did make me laugh Grin

Charlieismydarlin · 27/08/2016 05:58

OP you have made me laugh.

I don't think you are unreasonable at all! I couldn't care if my dinner party guest wanted a plate - it would amuse me.

I hadn't thought of the germs bit before as I don't worry about germs. I think boards look a bit naff now, though? Nothing nicer than a proper white plate Smile

JC23 · 27/08/2016 06:12

YANBU I hate them!

WiddlinDiddlin · 27/08/2016 06:15

It does also depend on where it is I am eating, and what it is I am eating.

I have no issue at all with the flat plastic baskets a local american style diner serves their burgers and fries in (they will happily do it on a plate too and actually offer the choice on the menu) - because this is finger food, I don't expect to eat this with a knife and fork.

That said another local american style diner served their fries not in a shiny metal bucket, not in a mini fryer basket.. but, in a tiny, broken, mucky looking mini plastic tub-trug, the mini version of the thing you'd collect garden waste in.. I drew the line there (And the place has since closed down due to being UTTERLY shite!)

My scampi and chips in a pub however, I wish to eat with a knife and fork, but I can't cut up scampi piled into a tin bucket, ditto the chips in a mini fryer basket..

Where 'style' is put before practicality, such as sauces dribbling off boards or slates onto the table or even the diners lap, or the inability to eat the food with a knife and fork, then I ask for a bloody plate.

StealthPolarBear · 27/08/2016 06:47

"
But there is something a bit "oooooh, how ODD! A STEAK... on a BOARD?! No, can't accept that. Simply couldn't eat something off a board. No, it's ceramic or nothing for me!""

I've just re read the op and I need you to point out where that sort of thing is. Closest I've found is something like "so I asked for a plate..."

user1468407812 · 27/08/2016 08:20

DH is a chef and he commented once whilst eating out and being served his meal on a board, that he was surprised they got around being able to do it due to how porous wood is.

P1nkP0ppy · 27/08/2016 08:29

Just how do they get the boards clean? Obviously they don't go in the dishwasher.
I really don't like to think of my food being served on a board that's been saturated in blood from a rare steak - heaven help vegetarians 😟