Why to restraunts have to ruin good food?

[Bailes1992]

Went out for food last night. Bit of a rare occasion, about 10 of us just got up and decided to go for food.

So I ordered a Cheese Burger and Chips as they didn't have any fillet steak.

It was nothing but a cheese burger, yet the menu said "Steak and Sea Salt burger with Llangloffan Cheese served with some chips".

This is what turned up...


Why do they need to do this? I had no more than 7 chip in a cup?
I want to eat off a plate, not a piece of bloody wood!
Totally ruined the meal for me. I should have gone to McDonalds.

[/Rant]

[steve_earwig]

Restraints? Resting aunts?

I think the operative word there was "some", a pair is two, a few is 3 or 4, so some could mean as little as 5. Or is that a handfull?

Some restaurants these days seem to think charging a large amount of cash for a tiny amount of food arranged in an interesting design is more important than actually feeding people. It's not happened here yet, I think they know some people kept hold of the guns when the war ended...

Anyway, I wouldn't touch that burger, looks like someone's already had a go at it

[OdinEidolon]

Sometimes, despite all, I'm happy to live in Italy

[FarmerPug]

My cousin is italian but he was back home last week, he was hard to please and i can understand the food over there is great.

What a faff for just a burger and chips what is the point in the stick in the middle of the burger?

[CountryPug]

Serving food on a plank really is a bit of a piss take. Its hard enuf eating a fully garnished burger which inevitably will burst out of the bun without taking away your plate safety net

[OdinEidolon]

My cousin is italian but he was back home last week, he was hard to please and i can understand the food over there is great.

Yes for us what for most other countries is a top quality food is just normal. It's hard when you travel to get used not to have a delicious pasta a day! In the european zone, only Spainish food, French food and Arabian food can match what for us is standard. for me it's really one of the best reason to live in Italy and righteously Italians are very proud of their cooking...

When I went to London for two weeks (I was 15) we noticed that Italian restaurants which just cooked what we usually do every day were always very crowded, despite the hugely inflated prices. Naturally we had to eat in one of the university's caterings... which was appalling! We were very happy when we culd eat at MacDonald's

[robb]

Couldnt complain at the Haven holiday camps pub grub at scarborough last week there was enough grub on my plate to choke a pig Although I wouldnt want it served up on a plank

[sirwiggum]

Seems to be the way of serving thick burgers with filling and a floury bap is to stick a skewer through it.

I'd a venison burger on my birthday I ended up leaving most of it, it was bone dry and the blue cheese topping was rotten.

I once ordered fish and chips in a restaurant, and it arrived out in a chipshop style box!
Paid good money for it, might as well have went to the chippy down the street!

Another thing restaurants/takeaways do to ruin food is to put bloody mushrooms in everything. Lasagne, bolognese, pies, pizzas. Horrible grey slimy fungus.

[highlander]

Venison burgers are brilliant - if they're done right. I had one in Inverness around the time I got married (10 years ago now) and it was superb. Cost a packet though. And blue cheese is horrible stuff. I like mild cheeses, like Edam, Mozzarella and Jarlsberg. Can't stand cheddar though, and I especially can't stand that rubbery processed vivid-yellow muck that restaurants insist on putting in burgers (especially microwave burgers).

On a similar note to the mushrooms (which I hate the texture of, rather than the taste)...

... why is it that whenever I buy any kind of chicken sandwich (whether it's pre-packed or from KFC or something) that the chicken always comes with a thick layer of mayonnaise on it? It's revolting stuff - easy-spread chilled vomit On the rare occasions when I do go to KFC, I ask for a Fillet Tower burger WITH NO MAYO and half the time the buggers give me one with mayo anyway

What really ruins good food for me is people who insist on eating it with their mouths open when they chew. For god's sake, that's basic manners; I was taught to close my mouth when I chew before I got to primary school. I don't want to see people's jaws flapping open and their food going round their gob like a cement mixer, and I sure as hell don't want to hear it. So rude!

The wooden plate in Sam's original post doesn't really irk me; as long as it's clean I don't care. But the stupid little pot with 7 chips in it is an insult, and the burger does indeed look regurgitated. I don't mind the cocktail stick thing, as long as it is being used to hold together a sufficiently-sized burger. On the very rare occasions I take the family out for a meal at Frankie & Benny's, I like to treat myself to one of their double-burgers. Any time I've done that, I've not felt the need for a starter or a dessert, because those burgers are pretty big and very filling (not American-style million-calorie sized burgers, but bigger and tastier than you get most other places).

Oh yeah, and when the hell did breakfast cereal suddenly get so expensive? I used to buy Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Clusters (Chocolate Curls) and they used to be just over £2 per 500g box. I fancied a box of that again and when I got to the shops they were £3 each for the same size!

That's enough food-related ranting for now. I am sadly cursed with being very picky about food, even though my tastes are fairly basic, so I'll probably be back with more at some point.

[FarmerPug]

Why do pizza shops feel the need to put a tonne of cheese over everything, and if you ask for no cheese they blankly stare. Surely there is more people who get sick from eating cheese (lactose intolerant).

About the mushrooms i like eating the farm ones at home. But in most restaurants they are crap mushrooms cooked badly, they end up as slimy flavourless things.

And the sauce, in some restaurants they feel the need to just put very thin lines of it over the food, what happened to a good dollop of red or brown sauce in the corner of the plate.

[Welly]

In my experience, Restaurants = dubious cleanliness + overpriced food + mega-overpriced drinks and a dose of the screaming abb-dabs in the morning

I am confident in saying my cooking is bloody spot-on, I can do a mouth-watering Beef in Black Bean Sauce, Beef in Oyster Sauce, and lots of Indian dishes all with fresh ingredients and home-made. Me and SWMBO have been out for numerous meals at these eateries and, without exception, have come away saying "could have made better than that at home" and usually £70.00 lighter

+1 for the cement mixer chewers

+1 for 'pissing about' with food to effect some sort of 'presentation' on the plate

[steve_earwig]

Not that I can say much (eating out I usually leave it up to the wife to tell me what there is I'm actually allowed to eat ). A few comments though:

British sausages should have a label on them - "warning - may contain traces of meat"

Mushroom soup made with wild vrganj - drool.

5 people eating themselves into immobility on decent food in a nice restaurant - 40 quid.

There are two McDogburgers in ZG. Both usually empty.

I've just been next door to see my neighbour, where I was force fed garlic sausage (yum), hard cheese from Livno (BiH) (bluddy hell, someone can make cheese round here!) and some banana, strawberry & cream cake (wow!). Don't tell the wife.

How could you eat pasta every day? Even with the daft names it must get pretty dull

I can't remember the last time I had a burger, not even a guess.

[OdinEidolon]

Not that I can say much (eating out I usually leave it up to the wife to tell me what there is I'm actually allowed to eat ). A few comments though:

British sausages should have a label on them - "warning - may contain traces of meat"

Mushroom soup made with wild vrganj - drool.

5 people eating themselves into immobility on decent food in a nice restaurant - 40 quid.

There are two McDogburgers in ZG. Both usually empty.

I've just been next door to see my neighbour, where I was force fed garlic sausage (yum), hard cheese from Livno (BiH) (bluddy hell, someone can make cheese round here!) and some banana, strawberry & cream cake (wow!). Don't tell the wife.

How could you eat pasta every day? Even with the daft names it must get pretty dull

I can't remember the last time I had a burger, not even a guess.

Well almost every day pasta, yep. Usually at midday. You can not imagine how huge the selection can be. It's like eating a sandwich, you can put everything in there. And it's delicious most of the time.
For example here at the university every day I eat at the canteen, which gives me
- one first dish between a choice of 4, usually pasta or rice with various ingredients (pasta with tomatoes is always there 'cause everyone likes it). I'd say there are about 40 different kinds of pasta they offer during the month.
- one second dish between a choice of 3, usually some meat or fish. I'd say there are approximately 50 different things they do over the month. One could opt to eat ham or cheese instead of this second dish
- Something to go with it, which is a choice between salad, various kinds of potatoes and cooked vegetables
- a dessert, which could be a yogurt or some pudding, or fruit or cake usually.

Also they offer, instead of what I told you:
- pizza + chips (usually 3 different kinds of pizza available, cooked at the moment, not the kind of pizza you eat in UK )
or
- sandwiches + chips for those who have to eat fast

The price includes whatever quantity of beverages you desire. The overall quality is decent and for the price it's lovely. Most people pay about 3-4 euros but I pay 2 euros top because I'm in the lowest fascia (it means I'm poor ).

I often say that if this kind of service was offered in the USA or UK people would be happy to pay 20 euros for it...

EDIT: it also strikes me how you can go out for dinner and get a burger, here one eats a burger only if he goes to MCDonalds or something like that (which happens very rarely) or once a month, and noone does that when going out. When out people usually eat pizza or go to restaurants, in which if you ask for a burger they'll throw you out

I do not want to sound rude or something, I love the UK and it's an overall better place to live, with nicer people and less to worry about compared to here. Really. But I could not stand the eating, no sir. It's just that us italians are by nature inclined to eat well, and for us eating well is very important, even for those like me who usually do not love to stay at a dinner table for hours and think eating is just... necessary

[highlander]

British sausages should have a label on them - "warning - may contain traces of meat"

Typically very true. The Wifely Person is an Indonesian Muslim so we don't eat anything from pigs (makes shopping a real chore to ensure you don't buy stuff that has pork fat, pork gelatin, or anything else you wouldn't necessarily expect in it - also, restaurants are real minefields). So I buy beef sausages, and when I do, I have to look at the label to ensure it's all beef meat or if they've been sneaky and made a beef sausage part beef or part pork meat, or if they've put a fully-beef sausage meat inside a pork skin.

In addition to this, the labels on sausages always show the percentage of meat content, and I've seen beef sausages with less than 20% meat - at this point you might as well refer to it as a loaf Thankfully I can usually get some nice sausages that have at least 80% meat, and they taste pretty good.

I've also found a company that makes nice chicken frankfurters - they're really good, especially if you chop them up very thin and stir-fry them along with some rice, egg, and Indonesian sweet soy sauce (thick, sticky black stuff called "Kecap Manis") in a wok.

Lamb sausages are nice; some of the nicest sausages I ever had were Morrison's Lamb and Honey sausages, but they don't seem to sell them here any more; not seen them for years

OdinEidolon - you're right regarding Italian pizza - I have been to Rome and we had pizza there, and it was pretty nice. The closest I have had to this in the UK is from Pizza Express, who actually do seem to take the time to make proper Italian-style pizza. That said, I do like Dominos and Pizza Hut stuff too And all restaurant food here seems to cost far too much.

[OdinEidolon]

In addition to this, the labels on sausages always show the percentage of meat content, and I've seen beef sausages with less than 20% meat - at this point you might as well refer to it as a loaf Thankfully I can usually get some nice sausages that have at least 80% meat, and they taste pretty good.

How can a sausage not be 100% meat?
I understand 1 or 2% could be salt and various aromas, but...