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.

Jesus Christ. They are culinary terms. Not made up. Get a proper cook book and yes you will see the difference between stock, sauce and velouté
Custard and creme anglaise
Oven chips and twice cooked homemade chips
Purée and mash
Gravy and jus
Pan fried and deep fried

These things aren't made up to make money you know :S these terms and differences are around hundreds of years

Not so much on a menu but on some recipe blogs I visit (they are the worst culprits!):
"studded with"

aghh

My work canteen says "-old fashioned roast potatoes " on their Xmas menu. I did ask once what that meant.... = roast potato

'Slaw gives me the rage.

And menu items with adjectives or onomatopoeias in the title can fuck off. "Oink sandwich", "Bang bang chicken burger", "kicking kebabs" etc

A quick translation list of bimgy85's post:-

Stock = over boiled cabbage water.
Sauce = named meat flavored over boiled cabbage water.
veloute = mushed up & sieved veg/meat flavored over boiled cabbage water. (could be classed as baby/invalid food)
Custard = thick & pourable (def. no skin!) nice in custard slices.
creme anglaise = watered down custard.
oven chips = fuck off!.
twice cooked homemade chips = piss off!.
puree = mushed up & sieved baby/invalid food.
Mash = as it is says on the potato
Gravy = not over cooked, unlike jus.
jus = oh fuck! it's over cooked, quick sieve & serve it in small drips.

It's not just restaurants. It's crisp manufacturers as well. "Sea salt & balsamic vinegar" = salt & vinegar. "Vintage cheddar & red onion" = cheese & onion....etc etc etc.

And why does everything have to be 'pulled' these days and served with a 'concasse' of summat or other....

And as for serving food on roof tiles

Just stop

Freshly made Should mean no Brakes processed food involved but it rarely does. There are so many processed short cuts in food prep it's worth boasting that you made it in the kitchen - daft as it may sound - I can open a can of minestrone and I can make a minestrone from scratch - I would not pay of want to eat the former.

concasse = diced/cubed.

Bang Bang chicken is a legit Chinese dish!! Not heard of it in a burger but it is a real thing. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_bon_chicken

Oink sandwich sounds utterly ridiculous though.

The problem with the wanky way of listing ingredients on a menu gives no idea as to what the end dish is.
So
Lamb, Celeriac, Mint, potatoes could be
A) a hot pot with lamb neck chops.
B) a hot pot with shoulder of lamb
C) a roast rump of lamb with roasted veg and a minty drizzle.
D) lamb chops with celeriac purée and pommes Anna
E) mint marinated lamb leg steaks served with celeriac and potato chips.
F) a celeriac and mint consommé served in a fucking tea pot that you pour over your thinly sliced fillet of lamb
G) Grilled lamb chops with sauce polaise and Boulanger potatoes and celeriac.
H) Lamb Brains braised with potato and celeriac served with a mint oil.

See - I might not fancy any of those or I might like all but since I’m just confronted with a list of three or four ingredients I haven’t got a damn clue. JUST SAY what the finished item is on the god damn menu!!

THIS wanky crap on menus is the main reason why I don’t eat out anymore.
Or maybe it’s because I’m such a good home cook now that I can’t bear to spend £25 on a main course that I know I could have done better myself. And not served it with foam which looks like bird vomit.

Definitely culinary masturbation. Which is fine as long as the meal I'm served is guaranteed to make my mouth water, toes curl and leave me fully satisfied and panting for more.

A poster on here made me howl once.

She had ordered a burger that advertised itself as coming with "a slab of Cheddar"

In fact it came with a cheap Kraft type plastic slice

She was so fucked off with them (bad day I think) having been looking forward to it, she reported them to Trading Standards and they had to reprint all menus. 😂

Her version was much funnier but Bravo that poster if you are reading.

We Want Plates is a great Twitter thread for wanky food trends

YANBU OP.

I also detest it when they use French in the menu, as though that somehow implies a higher standard of food. French words to describe classic French dishes, fine, but otherwise it's pretentious and pointless (unless of course the restaurant is in France).

Loving this thread.
Crushed potatoes anyone?
Refried chips?

I’ve never seen just a list of ingredients, only ever a dish followed by the ingredients. I don’t doubt it happens though.

artisan
artisanal!
rustic

As a food pub manager I understand the difference between veloute, consomme, gazpacho and soup, between jus and gravy, between salsa and ketchup.

What I hate is when soup, proper soup, is described as consomme or veloute when it isnt. When gravy is named as jus when it isnt etc etc.

Thats what makes it wanky!

Crushed potatoes = badly mashed spuds (without added milk/cream or even full fat salty butter) with lots of gray bits collected from schools for the last 35 years
Refried chips = only trust fresh proper chip shop chips cooked in "beef dripping" (sorry Veggies ).
Last nghts chips? No fucking way!.

I actually like crushed potatoes! I make roasted crushed new potatoes which sounds wanky but actually means that there is a larger surface area to get all crunchy and tasty.

Yes but boiled spuds broken up?
I roast crushed potatoes too which are lovely. Or mash them.. properly with milk and butter, possibly a bit of mustard or cheese or,.. well you can't just boil a pot of spud, break them up and service, with a wankery name!

My apolls to PYKB & Monty .

No apology needed *steamtrains"

:o

Over describing pisses me off.

'Strips of maple cured crispy bacon, fresh crisp iceberg lettuce, slices of juicy ripe beef tomato with thick lashings of free range egg mayo on toasted granary bread'

Fucking BLT then