...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!

out of interest why 'insulting'?

It shouldn’t be grey slime, regardless of the level of cooking.

I think this thread is interesting because what is necessarily textbook isn't to everyone's tastes
Makes me wonder why certain foods 'should' be raw; can anyone with more culinary knowledge than I weigh in...?

I like scallop sashimi best, so yes? But seared is nice too, as long as the middle is still translucent. Though PMSL that an overcooked scallop you ate 30 years ago derailed your expectations 😁

Yes! that was the trouble with the Covent Garden restaurant. It was made very clear to me that what I was asking (very timidly, probably stammering) was greatly insulting to the chef and their superior judgement.

I think that's why I just sat and ate the miserable grey dollops of eyeball slime a couple of nights ago, rather than go through that humiliation again.

It's such a shame though, the meal was a lot more than my DH and I would normally splash out on and it was meant to be our Xmas treat.

He says he's going to cook me some scallops for Xmas 💗🥰🤩

To answer the OP yes YANBU if you think any restaurant would cook something to your taste, if your preference for a dish differs from what is considered how it 'ought' to be done, without you saying anything. But if you request it they should do it - you're their paying customer after all.

I don't care if it was overcooked, it was the most delicious heavenly thing I'd ever tasted and I wondered if I'd ever experience it again!! Sadly, the answer so far is "No!" but I'm counting on DH to turn the tables round for me on this one 💗

Plus honestly, I don't know how you can call something "overcooked" when it is soft, tender and sweet, with not the slightest hint of rubberiness.

I think you don't know what you're missing, all you cheapskates trying to save on electricity 😜

To be fair, if they were ‘grey slime’ they don’t sound very fresh. Scallop sashimi is white, delicate and not slimy at all (although it is slippery) and is incredibly sweet and delicious.

Haha, I wish I didn't like poncey food so much! DH and I literally plan every holiday around specific restaurants.

I got into trouble when I asked a Michelin starred restaurant to cook my steak blue. When the waiter was doing the obligatory 'how was the meal', fishing for compliments for the chef, I said, 'well,it was lovely, but the steak wasn't exactly blue, was it'. . .

We got snubbed the rest of the night.

With your scallop, OP, it sounds like it wasn't the freshest, unlike the one you got in Australia.

Well actually, come to think of it, "slime" is the wrong word.

It was sort of... rubbery!!!! Translucent grey rubber!

...whereas it could have been so delicious if it had been, errrmmm, in my books, cooked properly. I haven't forgotten what was once possible 🤩

I've been looking up scallops online and wonder if the snobbery passion for eating them raw is something to do with proving how fresh they must be? Because if it had been soaked for a fortnight in sodium tripolyphosphate, you'd soon notice?

It was almost creamy. Def no jelly in sight.

I would have sent back sad grey scallops as well. They’re so lovely when they’re cooked properly.

Oh gosh, that sounds heavenly and just like what I long(ed) for.

I question the freshness of the scallops - grey isn't any stage of scallop that I recognise? And I eat them anywhere from raw, sashimi, seared and cooked? Past pearlescent white into full white they become rubbery but before that- they are not or shouldn't ever be grey.

I think because the chef will see it as undermining their knowledge about how to best cook the meat to obtain maximum flavour and texture.

Try ordering a well done steak in France!

I also suspect the issue is the quality of the scallops, not just of the cooking.

Fresh uk scallops are in season in February and can be gently seared / fried whatever but remain white and tender inside and are delicious.

Grey rubbery slime scallops might have been frozen or imported or undercooked or overcooked or otherwise messed about.

OP - when you sent back the seared scallops and they came back from the kitchen well done, was that what you expected or had they been cooked too much?

If you like them so much why did you wait so long to have them again?

It doesn’t sound like they were fresh. When you had them in Australia was it at a seaside city by any chance where they can get very fresh/ same day caught scallops?

When they have that greyish tinge it usually means they've been frizen, or are older. The beautiful milky sweet ones are very fresh, not 20 hours away, nearer 3 hours.

BUT, yes, if you're paying then a chef might try and push you out of wherer you're comfortable. But they should want you to enjoy rhe meal, ie after trying it a new way ultimately they should graciously cook it how you best enjoy it.

Can't believe it's taken you thirty years to have something you liked again! Have you cooked them at home at least?

To your point, I haven't particularly noticed seafood (my fave) being undercooked, in high end or other restaurants.

The scallops in Aus were probably very fresh, in London they won't be. Well they will be fresh but in Aus seafood is generally served the day it is caught.

Unless you are in Alice Springs, that's a different story.

just because a restaurant is posh/expensive/has a michelin star or two or even three, doesn't mean you will like the food or that the food will be 'good' (in the case of some michelin star establishments this is due to style over substance).

from your description, it sounds like the scallops were not fresh. seared scallops or sashimi only work if the scallops are dead fresh. otherwise its disgusting. this is why they are best eaten in a seaside eatery. duck is normally served very rare so definitely have to let them know in advance if that is not your preference, but I wouldn't have it above medium rare as it ruins the flavour.

I agree it sounds like the scallops weren't fresh enough.

On your wider point yanbu to want food to be cooked to your liking. You'd probably have to request it well done in an upmarket place though. I blame the DFrench and their influence - they're mad for the raw meat that lot. Probably why they're obsessed with worming their kids all the time.

Was it the ivy café ? It probably was just.not fresh and if gray had been frozen.

I'm usually OK as I like things rare but I agree I find it pretentious for chefs/resturants to get the hump over this. Food is completely subjective. The fact that it's popular to have things rare does not mean that is the "right" way of cooking it, making everything else "wrong". If someone likes well done steak and they are paying you to cook for them, cook them a well done steak!