...to want a posh restaurant to cook my dinner?

[Pizdietz]

I don't often eat out, and can count on one hand the posh/fancy restaurants I've been to.

Many years ago, in Australia, I got to taste seared scallops and couldn't get over how delicious they were. This was in the 1990s.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago, and through work I ended up at some super-duper restaurant in Covent Garden. Seared scallops were on the menu, and I was very excited to taste them again.

Imagine my disappointment when I bit into one and it was grey and slimy, not actually cooked at all except on the outside. It looked like a glacuous eyeball. I asked the waiter if I could have them a bit more well-cooked, and after some protests he agreed to ask the chef. Eventually the dish was brought back to me, but it was made very clear that the chef disapproved of me ruining the food like this.

For my main course, I'd ordered duck. It was supposed to be roast duck, but guess what?! there was blood oozing out of it. I got the impression it had briefly seen the inside of a warm pan.

Again I asked if they would mind cooking it a bit more, and again my apparently bizarre request was reluctantly granted.

I'd forgotten that weird meal until a couple of nights ago, when once again I found myself in a posh restaurant. Seared scallops were on the menu! and... well, you can guess the rest.

It is too much to expect food to be actually cooked in a posh restaurant? Are they saving on electricity or something?

YANBU = Food like this has much nicer flavour and texture when cooked through (and raw seafood/duck could pose a health risk?)

YABU = You are failing to appreciate the delicacy and sublety of truly quality ingredients, and the refined skills of the chef, you ungrateful cow!

I thought seared meant lightly fried on each side but essentially raw most of the way though, in which case the restaurants are correct

See what you mean about the scallops, but thought you you meant those restaurants where you are given a BBQ type thing on the table with skewers and you cook the meat/seafood yourself!

Don't get the point of that!

I think restaurants should cook your food to your taste, a bit like when they ask how you like your steak cooked (most chefs know it's better rare) 🤢
I personally would have done the same as you, sent it back and it certainly wouldn't bother me if the staff disapproved, if I'm paying I want it cooked to my preference as I'm the one that has to eat it not the chef.
Proud of you op!

These places are cooking the items 'correctly' - scallops, duck, beef, lamb... should be coloured on the outside and more lightly cooked inside. This is the accepted 'perfect' way to have them. If you want something other than this, then that's fine, but you should mention upon ordering, not expect your mind to be read, then complain when your meal is cooked perfectly. Most chefs would consider your preference overcooked and not serve them that way automatically.

Well I didn't complain so much as ask timidly. I'm not very good at this sort of thing. But if that's the "correct" way, if I ever find myself in a posh restaurant again I'll know what to do!

I quite like that idea 😁 although I've never been to one!

It is a fashion trend, though? I mean back in the 1990s, in Australia at least, scallops were cooked through. Or at least, they were in that restaurant. Maybe I just got lucky then, or unlucky, depending on your view.

I actually thought you meant your Christmas dinner. Like you wanted to get a professional chef to cook it for you and drop it round.

I wish!!!!!!!!!

Same

Seared scallops shouldn’t be cooked through. Duck should be pink. If you want them cooked differently you need to say when ordering.

If you don’t want your scallops raw in the middle, don’t order ‘seared scallops’. ‘Seared’ meat or fish means cooked very hot on the outside to seal it, and rare or raw inside. Ordering seared scallops and complaining that they’re not cooked through is a bit like ordering and complaining that it’s cold.

If I ordered duck breast and it came fully cooked through, I’d think it was a bad restaurant.

I had an AMAZING scallop last night. If anyone is in North Norfolk anytime soon I highly recommend Meadowsweet. I don’t think I’m ever going to get over it (and certainly can’t afford it very often!)

That's not seared though. Seared literally means cooked on the outside. So you got exactly what you had ordered.

Overcooked rubbery scallops have never been in fashion , no.

It looks amazing!

Was it white or grey inside? i.e. (in my terms) cooked or uncooked?

I didn't realise "seared" meant uncooked inside. I thought it just meant the outside was browned quickly.

Did you deliberately change your username to write that?! 😜

The first time my mother cooked scallops they were like hockey pucks. You could have bounced them off a wall. I couldn't look at them for years after, until I was taken to a posh restaurant and had them cooked properly.

You see, that first time I had them in Oz, there was nothing rubbery about them at all. They were soft and sweet and the texture was like nothing else in the world. Not a miserable grey jelly. I can't help thinking it's just easier to blast them on the outside and forget about the inside because getting them perfect like that, cooked but not overcooked, must be hard to guarantee.

Ha ha… this is very standard and the chef will typically cook certain meats rare as standard. You can perhaps ask for medium but for many chefs asking for well done is insulting.

I know, I know, it should be up to the guest but this is just how it is and the fancier the restaurant, the worse it is. I like rare so it’s ok with me.

I once had a friend ask if he could have baked beans with his expensive steak in a fancy restaurant… the chef personally came out to demand what was wrong with the steak!

I must admit when it happened again this week I felt too intimidated to ask for them to be better cooked. I just sat and ate them and tried not to gag.

There's nothing wrong with having preferences but you do sound out of step with current norms so would have to specify when ordering in future that you want your food cremated cooked a certain way.

I’m a bit like this with fish , the ‘best’ way is apparently to have the centre translucent but I prefer mine cooked through but not dried out

Yes, this is what I'm beginning to realise. Out of step with current norms!

Wikipedia is not that clear about what searing means, other than to say the outside is browned quickly and then it can be finished off in the oven, or under a grill.

I can't get my head round something that's so absolutely delicious when cooked through, being preferred as a grey slime? Do people actually prefer the taste???

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searing

I once went to a French restaurant that would only cook steak rare or blue. I like it medium/ well done. I ordered something else instead.

It’s so pretentious, this insistence by chefs that essentially raw meat and fish is right and anyone who likes it cooked differently is some sort of philistine peasant.

I quite like a rare steak (and I bloody love sushi!) but half cooked duck, salmon, tuna, seafood is vile.

I am very careful about what I order in high end restaurants for this reason, because I don’t want to eat undercooked food or get into a spat with some prick chef who thinks French classic cuisine is law.