To be irritated by wanky and pretentious restaurant terminology?

[ManicUnicorn]

I should start by saying I love food and eating out, it's one of life's great pleasures IMO. But I'm finding myself increasingly irritated by restaurants using pretentious and fancy names for stuff and trying to dress things up as more exotic than they actually are.

A new restaurant has just opened here and I was looking at their Christmas menu earlier, and amongst lots of the wankery on there one of the deserts really stood out 'Rich orchard apples in crumble with creme anglais'... so that'll be apple crumble and custard then? Why not just say what it is? A hearty and much loved traditional British pudding that's been enjoyed for years, you don't need to dress it up as anything else! Oh and there's so much 'jus' on there as well, it's just fucking gravy for Christ's sake!

It reminds me of when I went out for a Christmas meal a few years ago. Set menu, and were all wondering what the hell one the starters was. Someone googled it and guess what? It was just a fancy name for soup.

I don't know if I'm just a bit common but I think there's something so pretentious about this kind of thing. Food is food at the end of the day.

YANBU. Food is food as you said!

Jus and creme anglais are both pretty standard! What was the word for soup? Consommé? Gazpacho? These are all different things.

YANBU. What's an "orchard apple"? Don't all commercially available apples come from an orchard?

Fish, chips and peas puree. They're mushy peas surely???

I take the piss out of stuff like this, but my pet peeve is being served a main course and have it occupy less than 50% of the plate surface.

It's a main course and I paid more than £15 quid for it, I want to feel FULL after eating, thanks.

I'm a chef and I agree with you.

I will agree apart from 'jus' and 'gravy' being interchangeable.

Gravy is meaty thick sauce of the Gods. Jus is meat juice dribble and inferior in every way.

lol that was my first thought regarding the apples ferma.

I once saw fish and chips advertised as 'Beer battered cod and tripled fried chipped Maris Piper potatos'. I don't remember if 'pea purée' accompanied it.

YANBU. I'm also annoyed by the modern trend for not including the pound sign on menus. Do they really expect us to not notice that 5 is £5 and rather a lot of real money for a couple of scallops on a smear of mushy peas pea puree.

I love the term "wanky".

misses point of thread

I really dislike the current trend for listing ingredients instead of a dish.

Lamb, potatoes, mint, celariac - sounds more like a shopping list than a meal

I had some lovely mushroom veloute in a restaurant the other night.

I'm always relieved when I know what all of the words on a menu mean. I don't mind having to translate them in my head, but if I have to google it then it's gone past wanky.

What was the soup name you didn't recognise OP?

Veloute! That's it! It was carrot veloute and it really did taste exactly like carrot and coriander soup.

My COME DINE WITH ME menu...

Starter: Lovely juicy noodles, with a bombay bad boy flavour.

Main: Lightly baked oven chips, with oven-baked chicken-a-la-crispy, and lightly boiled traditional baked beans.

Dessert: Selected pieces of chopped pineapple and peach, with Asdaz 'creme-de-la-fresh' poured on top.

Yep, all bollocks.

I agree but I’ve always thought the same with Starbucks using grande and vente, I refuse to say that.

I don't think anyone DOES say that at Starbucks and Costa and so on @OutPinked.

I agree about Starbucks, and never say that either. I also agree with the poster who mentioned menu pricing.

'Hand cut chipped Red Rooster potatoes and pan friend free range chicken egg. 3'. 3 what? Eggs? Chips?..

I wouldn't order anything that was jus, foam or anything else pretentious. I want food with substance. And I want it cooked - I don't want meat so rare it's practically walking off the plate back to the field.

YANBU - this has been bothering me for years. It's so insulting.

pan fried annoys me. What else would you fry it in?

Cannot stand chocolate "soil" and what is the obsession with foam? A blackberry foam?? I am quite bitter about how shit desserts can be at wanky restaurants

I agree too!
Maybe the egg, 3 is relating to its size (as in a size 3 egg)