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.

'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'

The daft thing is that a certain type of person will cheerfully pay £15 for that but will balk at being asked to pay a fiver for a BLT made with exactly the same ingredients! Its wanky because wankers fall for it :o

YANBU op , find it very irritating and pretentious too!!!!

PyongyangKipperbang that's brilliant
'This is not just food, this is wankery food.
Paid for by wankers'
Smashed avocado? Ofgs!

I too remember when there used to be such a thing as coleslaw. Now it is just "slaw", or with an additional descriptor. Apple slaw, rhubarb slaw, etc.

stealth really? Maybe I should get out more.
Oh hang on... Maybe not

Most of the descriptions listed on here I find helpful, not pretentious.

Hand-cut chips tells you they are made on the premises not from a catering pack of frozen chips.
Triple-cooked chips is a way of cooking them that makes them extra crispy on the outside and fluffy inside.
Slaw is shredded raw vegetables (different varieties) with a dressing. Coleslaw is specifically cabbage, carrot & mayo.
Gravy & jus are very different.
Concasse is a very specific French term which denotes something has been finely chopped to achieve a certain consistency.
Veloute is also a specific type of sauce.
Stock is also very specific.
Pan fried tells you it's been fried lightly rather than deep-fried.

However, agree that overly descriptive (and, equally, overly simplified) menus are extremely annoying.

And I could never be doing with chocolate soil which reminds me of night soil.

Most of the descriptions listed on here I find helpful, not pretentious

I agree

It's not just restaurants, Sainsbury's oven baked bread, subway hand torn chicken... that makes me feel a bit yuk to be honest

Pulled pork

I know there is much frothing about foam but I once had fried celery foam, I was very dubious but it still stands as the best thing I have every eaten.

Hand-cut chips tells you they are made on the premises not from a catering pack of frozen chips.
No it does not

Have you ever read the Brake Brothers catalogue .....
they sell several types of "hand cut" chips, skin on, skin off, all supplied deep chilled from factories in Eastern Europe

You wont find many restaurants in the UK actually peeling and cutting their own potatoes

@Clevs why would they say onion if it's clearly red onion which are two completely different things... just get over the fact that these things do actually make a difference

Well really if you think about it, removing the €/£ sign from a menu isn't 'wanky' it's actually saving space I'm sure on a menu.

Nonsense. It saves the space of one character. And there is usually plenty of space. Sheer wankery and nothing else.

Oh god, yy. DH was working abroad this week, and had to cover an awards ceremony, where (unusually) they fed him - I can't find the photo of the menu he sent me, but it included 'structures of beetroot' 'fried lotus root', and 'crisp of coconut and violet flower' - we had a good laugh about it, but it obviously wasn't as posh as it sounded as he came back with a dicky tummy the next day.

And as for chopping boards as plates ........
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/restaurant-wooden-boards-food-hygiene-fines-ibrahims-grill-steak-house-warwick-road-birmingham-a8148086.html

Yes @nokidshere, I couldn't agree more! It seems to be quite a hipster trend to just list the ingredients rather than describe the dish. This is taken from a restaurant near me:

Plaice, salsify, Brown shrimp, buttered almond..........18

I don't know why but it drives me insane. I think perhaps it's a way to counter the other extreme for really elaborate descriptions but it ends up coming off a bit wanky too!

Wankiest thing I ever came across in a restaurant was carrot purée and carrot gel and carrot foam in the shape of a carrot.
It must have taken them hours to basically make a carrott

Ta1kinpeace I stand corrected on the hand-cut chips. However, as description it does let you know that they will be a chunkier type of chip.

You will find that pretty much every type of restaurant chip you are offered will be on this page
www.brake.co.uk/products/frozen-produce-accompaniments/chips-fries
including
www.brake.co.uk/products/frozen-produce-accompaniments/chips-fries/lamb-weston/connoisseur/f58427-lamb-weston-traditional-skin-on-random-cut-fries
Which are often passed off as made in house

Even the trendy coulis comes out of a plastic bottle
www.brake.co.uk/products/dry-store/condiments-pickles/bulk-condiments/salad-dressing/a88421-brakes-select-fig-pear-white-balsamic-decorating-coulis

Except for hand-cut chips !!

Although I don't doubt there are other catering suppliers who provide these.

Grumio
If you genuinely believe that any restaurant is hand cutting its own chips, I think you are in for rather a surprise when you look in their bins and see no potato peelings

What Brakes call them is one thing, the restaurant can call them "hand cut" but it does not make it true

ta1kinpeace did you bother to read my whole post?

I'm agreeing with you (& admitted upthread I was wrong):

I don't doubt there are other catering suppliers who provide these.

Most enlightening.

Well, there seems to be a few people on this thread who are not used to menus without Mc in front of everything, but I tend to agree.

#wewantplates wewantplates.com/

And I don't need to know every last detail about the food.

"The Maris Piper potatoes were hand dug in a village in North Hampshire by Claire, a woman who likes crochet and has a tattoo of Pikachu on her left buttock. The pork was from a Berkshire pig called Ian who leaves a sow and 12 piglets. We will pass on our condolences while you enjoy his meat served with tree apple purée and locally sourced and freshly opened pois Marrowfat de tin."

I do like a bit of info on provenance though.

I always prefer to eat at pubs which serve locally-sourced, seasonal food and are clear about the provenance. Lucky enough to have a few around here.

Goldenbug
I love eating out and paying fair whack for real food but
like to be served my food on a dish that can be cleaned
like to think that if I asked for something to be altered it can be - implying its cooked on site
like a clear impression of the actual dish from the menu

I went to Nico Landenis restaurant way back when
the dishes were tiny
but there were 11 of them