Your opinion required - excessive use of black pepper in food

[purpleprincess]

I had a birthday meal more or less ruined (well the main course) by the chef's excessive use of black pepper and wondered what other people thought. I ordered some red snapper (fish) which i think was supposed to be in some lime butter and on bed of red onions, crushed new potatoes etc in fairly nice pub/restaurant. When it arrived it was covered with large bits of pepper that looked like they had been put on before the fish was cooked. I do add pepper when cooking but never garnish my food with it as I dont like the taste and find it very overpowering. This is not the first time this has happened and they did offer to take the food back but would have taken a while and spoilt DHs as well so I just scraped it off.

I'm fed up of having to think about saying 'no black pepper please' surely people should be able to add their own!

What do you think!!!

(stands back and waits for reaction....)

What just me then......

well...its hard to get too worked up about this to be honest. I think if you really don't like it you have to be prepared to tell the waiter when you order as most cooks use black pepper as a flavouring

I love black pepper but prefer to add it to food rather than having mountains of it put in during cooking.

With SueW on this one, never noticed it either.

I love the stuff. And haven't noticed it being used to excess when eating out.

I often have meals ruined for me by too much salt. If there's too much salt then I can only taste salt.

I think the chef should season food minimally so the individual can do their own fine tuning. This is why salt and pepper is on the table after all.

It sounds like you're on a one woman campaign. I think most good chefs would think twice about how much they season food after a compalint like yours.

From my experience of kitchens if you complained about a chefs seasoning they'd hit the roof. If you don't like it tbh i think it's down to you to point this out before you order it.

Where i've worked they would take it into the kitchen and wipe off the pepper with a mop, or something worse.

I HATE pepper - would have been livid

I was talking about good chefs though. The type of chef who listens to feedback because he wants to make stuff his customers like.

I would expect to see that much black pepper if it was an integral part of the dish - eg snapper in lime butter and black pepper, or on a pepper steak. Other than that it should be discrete as salt should.

Glad to see I've got a few supporters here! As I said I dont mind pepper being used in the cooking of the dish (I do it myself) but not excessively as a seasoning. As Joelalie pointed out I would expect to see that much if it said in the description of the dish but not otherwise.

Oh well interesting to see what other people think....

The more the better for me - we go through tons of the stuff but I never salt anything and don't have a problem asking for veg and stuff not to be salted if I go somewhere - if I'm paying they can damn well do as I ask!!