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

Jus, drizzle, glaze, dressing- so sauce then.

Relish/salsa/crushed tomatoes-ketchup in other words

Pan fried? Oh dear I normally fry stuff in a toaster 🙄

Oven baked- well what else do u sodding make stuff in?

Triple cooked chips my arse I saw the 3663 lorry.....

Speak English people

'Rich orchard' apples PMSL, as opposed to what exactly???

I don't mind a tad of dressing up on a menu but it at the very least needs to make sense!

The worst thing I've eaten was also a crumble which was described as having a 'spiced crumb'. I was expected maybe cinnamon with the apple and blackberry - cumin.

Yes Acity I get what you mean. The best deserts IMO are the ones you get at cheap and cheerful Brewers Fayre/Marstons 2.1 type places. Chocolate fudge cakes, brownies, sundaes, cheesecakes, Velevet cakes, giant cookies etc that are massive and have about a months worth of Sugar in them, leaving you in the biggest food coma ever afterwards. A pretentious wanky desert with 'coulis' or foam doesn't come close.

Weeelllll...

Crumble example - yes totally wanky ;-)

But....Veloute, Gazpacho and Consomme, for example, are all soup, but different types of soup, so I would expect that to be specified (veloute is based on a roux of butter and flour, for example, unlike a normal soup which just uses stock)

I would say jus and gravy are different too and would expect different things.

@Frogletmamma

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

A deep fat fryer. There is a difference.

Relish/salsa/crushed tomatoes-ketchup in other words

The only resemblance between fresh salsa and ketchup is that they both contain tomatoes. If you think that salsa is ketchup you must never have had real salsa.

I don’t mind the terminology normally if it’s in a posh restaurant.. doesn’t have the same feel in a cheap & cheerful one

I do object to weird ways to serving food - shovels, deconstructed whatever etc

More chocolates than restaurants, but "enrobed"

BarbaraofSeville I was going to say the exact same thing! Although, it's never '5', is it. More like 15.5, for 2 scallops and some apple.

I'm sick of the 'clever' ways to plate up food - i.e. without plates. Slates, wooden boards - basically, ways to ensure that half your food ends up on the table.

I went out for lunch in Bath and the menu said Braised hake fillet with hazelnut crumb, pea veloute and parmentier potatoes. I recognised hake and potato but was very suprised when fish, chips and mushy peas came out.

What name deconstructed anything means it gets eaten by a fussy ds2!

While we have shepards pie he has to have his deconstructed coz he doesn't like it.

Menus where you have to buy all your vegetables separately, usually for about £3.50 a pop wind me up

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

I prefer not to order anything containing 'soil' or 'foam', or that is 'deconstructed'.

The irony is that super posh places just use simple terms like
"Apple crumble"
"Fish, chips and mushy peas"

"Hens egg" is a common food snob term....what other egg might it be...ostrich, dinosaur? Mind you, duck eggs are imo revolting - it's my single gag food hate; they are often 'gifted' at holiday cottages, probably because nobody else likes'em 🤢

A new restaurant in Manchester has posted the following on its website:

"Using strictly British produce, the menu changes constantly to enable our creativity and evolution. With an extensive testing and development process, we understand our ingredients and deliver them to you in a way which we feel best represents their identity and essence.

From October through November, we'll be serving our Fall menu, focusing predominantly on wild game, early season shellfish and a cornucopia of the forest."

In other words, we will decide what you're eating and when, and you will pay £95 for the privilege, plus extra for drinks. I don't fucking well think so, because that's wanky.

Anything including the word foam is a huge no.

Who the fuck wants to eat foam?? 🤮

I like to know the name of the dish but a list of ingredients I suppose works better for them- less litigation? I love a wanky supper club or tasting menu but I still want it to say chips if there are chips!

I can’t fancy anything which involves “foam”,

Agreed. Makes me wonder if the chef has taken an, erm, personal interest in the food.

@SurlyValentine

A Manchester restaurant serving a Fall menu? That's wanky in itself!

I have got so used to restaurants describing complicated dishes in a simple understated way - we ordered chicken and rice in a reputably excellent restaurant - expecting it to be a lot more - but no it was simply chicken and rice - and we were more than a bit disappointed!

yanbu. That and what is wrong with serving food on a plate?! I do not want a slate or a piece of wood. I want a plate!!!

I hate it when they serve you the food and then stand there for ages as your food gets cold describing it to you.

"This is the wild caught halibut pan-seared in jersey butter with a side of mesclun and beetroot petals served with a framboise compote."

I know what's in it - I LITERALLY just ordered it.

Slate is awful - I have asked to have my food to be re-plated if it's served on slate - can't imagine why anyone thought that was a suitable suface to drag a knife across.