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.

I have worked in restaurants where they do cut their own chips. Yes there is frozen versions of hand cut chips but obviously some restaurants do make their own in house. They use a machine to cut one huge potato into lots of chips, usually done by a kitchen porter when not busy or a kitchen helper/commis chef

But to say no restaurants cut their own chips is just hilarious

Our local chippy cuts it's own chips - I've seen the sacks of Maris Piper being delivered. I like to think I can tell the difference between and fresh cut and a frozen chip - I ate nothing but chips as a child, and frozen chips lack texture, I ate freshly cut every night!

Yup, my Chippy does too ....
And they charge £2.30 for 1kg of cooked chips

But they do not stack them jenga style at the side of the plate
or served in a little pressed steel bucket
or in a trendy glass
drizzled lovingly with a balsamic infusion

they sell them wrapped in paper with a pickled egg

Oh I think I really want chips now!

I can’t fancy anything which involves “foam”, in my mind it equates to “spit”.

"Here comes the spume!" That's what I shout every time I watch the Great British Menu thing.

I worked in a chippy when I was a student, definitely cut our own chips. Big machine in the back called a rumbler to peel them then whack them through a cutting machine.

I once had ‘chocolate truffle’ for pud in a posh restaurant. It was a load of different types of chocolatey bits (I think soil and foam did feature) flavoured with...actual truffle, the mushroom kind. It was inedible. I was very sad.

I suppose you all think the term 'sautéed ' is wanky too then? Since all these genuine culinary terms affect you so much

You mean fried?

Tempura surely

Nope, they mean different things. www.finecooking.com/article/sauteing-vs-pan-frying

@SteamTrainsRealAleandOpenFires there's really no point in denying that sautéing and pan frying are not different things. They have been practiced for hundreds of years and will continue to do so. Just like all the other 'wanky' famous culinary terms

Wanky posts, on the other hand, are wanky.

Ooh yes. I totally forgot about 'slaw'. So, so wanky! Thanks to the poster who helpfully pointed out how it differentiates from coleslaw 'shredded vegetables'! So just coleslaw then? It looks like coleslaw and tastes like coleslaw, it's fucking coleslaw!

@HarrySinger I just shuddered at the thought of a slate plate

Cole = cabbage. Sla/slaw = salad.

If you shred vegetables other than cabbage then it’s a slaw but it’s not coleslaw.

I make one with shredded chicory, radish and apple.

@Backboiler I just shuddered at the thought of a slate plate I don't mind a bit of food wankery - seriously, I am entertained by the attempt to seduce my tastebuds and I see it as a challenge to learn to see through the bullshit and chose a restaurant that I want to eat in - I still fuck up - Pollen Street Social was supposed to be casual fine dining - I like this idea for a birthday night out but it was just sloppy and inattentive - not that I need much attention - just some one to smile, give me a menu and take an order is enough but they failed to meet my pretty low minimum bar. I think sometime restaurants forget their purpose!

And I make sauteed onion at home - it's a 1970's type of fried onion - chunky and browned and works so well with steak. I'd hope for the same thing of I ever saw it when out but that's unlikely.

Who the hell cares if they call it coleslaw or slaw? They're hardly gonna take up half the page saying 'thinly sliced shredded carrot and white cabbage coated in mayonnaise'

Use your brain people

SteamTrainsRealAleandOpenFires there's really no point in denying that sautéing and pan frying are not different things. They have been practiced for hundreds of years and will continue to do so. Just like all the other 'wanky' famous culinary terms

Do they both use oil/fat to cook things?

Jay Rayner came into the restaurant I worked at years ago and gave it a really bad write up, predominately for the use of slates as plates. As a waitress I was secretly pleased when we stopped using them as they were SO HARD to pick up off the table

It has already been mentioned upthread, but menus with no £signs.

This gives me the rage.
It’s not 12.5..... it’s £12.50 you pretentious fools!

Actually re-reading this:- SteamTrainsRealAleandOpenFires there's really no point in denying that sautéing and pan frying are not different things.

So you do admit that sauteing & pan frying are the same thing?

@SteamTrainsRealAleandOpenFires yes they do both use oil. How does that make them the exact same? Is poaching the same as boiling, and same as simmering because they're cooked in water? No.

This gives me the rage. It’s not 12.5..... it’s £12.50 you pretentious fools!

Next time you eat in a place with no £ signs, offer them 12 1/2 lego bricks/ chicken heads/shoes/buses.

Ooh yes. I totally forgot about 'slaw'. So, so wanky! Thanks to the poster who helpfully pointed out how it differentiates from coleslaw 'shredded vegetables'! So just coleslaw then? It looks like coleslaw and tastes like coleslaw, it's fucking coleslaw!

If a menu has apple slaw written on it, it’s a very big hint that it’s not going to have cabbage in it, and it will not be coleslaw. It will have apple, and will taste at least a bit of apple. Not of coleslaw.

But by the same token if I ordered salsa and ketchup showed up, I’d be pretty annoyed. So we’re all different.

Like others, I find about 80% of stuff moaned about here helpful. I do mind if my food has been deep fried if I was expecting pan fried, and tbh I’m interested to know if it’s been sautéed or pan fried, even though it’s a subtle difference and I’m sure many kitchens aren’t as precise as they might be. I want to know what kind of slaw they’re serving. I want to know if I’m ordering a gravy, a jus or a different kind of sauce, because it might make me choose something else on the menu if I’m wavering and the type of sauce doesn’t strike my fancy.

I agree that food belongs on crockery, though.