Random Rant of the Day: Screw fancy restraurants!

[the rye]

I have been to five star luxury restaurants, and have had totally different experience to what the OP describes.

From my owns experiences I've hardly had to wait, usually my table is booked (months) ahead and even if i do have to wait its in the lounge where i am served coffee and aperitifs.

As for portions, yes small portions tends to be the rule than the exception when it comes to fine dinning. However from where I've eaten i had about 6-8 courses, (i once had aubergine soup in a small espresso type cup). naturally despite small portions after eight courses one is going to feel quit full.

The food is better then other restaurants, not only is the food good but they serve dishes you will rarely at other places.

As for price, one of the reasons five star restaurants are so expensive is because you are paying for not just the food but the service as well relaxing in the restaurants lounge for coffee and liquors afterwards. Essentially the point of going to a high class restaurant is for the experience.

From what the OP describes it sounds like he went to one of those overpriced trendy restaurants rather then a well respected high class restaurant which has a much more traditional aesthetic.

 

[Togs]

Pretension. I subscribe to the Dillan Moran Theory of Wine, and it extends equally well to food; there are three types of wine - "Yum", "Mmmeh", and "Yerghlh". If I can go to a little local joint run by genuinely enthusiastic people on a moment's notice, pay eight quid, and eat a three course meal featuring a beautifully prepared and seasoned Aberdeen Angus steak; why on earth would I book weeks in advance at some ridiculously over the top restaurant who do all their trade based on awards handed them by fellow snobs, pay thirty pounds, and be served what even a starving Ethiopian would struggle to call a meal with a straight face, featuring cheap cuts of meats that poor people eat in stew-form for good reason simply because that's what's fashionable?

Have you ever actually been to one of the restaurants your criticising? As pretty much everything you've said are the type of cliches that people rabbit when they have zero knowledge or experience of them.
The bad, shallow stereotype of "food as fashion" places arent as common as you might think- fancy restaurants are normally run by food lovers for food lovers- its less about sustenance or fuel but for the taste of the food itself- the small portions are there so you can eat more dishes.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

The people are consider retarded are those that go to posh restaurants that are owned by tv chiefs and spend a fortune on food under the delusion that that same tv chief has made their meal. Which couldn't be farther from the truth. If you think the food is going to be good, then you will trick your brain into thinking it is. Penn and Teller did an episode of Bullshit on this. They made food out of cheap ingredients and sold it to the eaters with posh sounding names such as "hand grown tomatoes from the Spanish mountains" even though they were bought in a can from a supermarket. An those people tasted the food and thought it was amazing.

Plus i dont see dining as an experience. I want to go some where and have a meal and leave within the hour. Not spend my evening in a dining room waiting for courses, which is just there way to make you think its taking a long time to prepare, when it was probably cooked 30 minutes ago. Plus they want you to pay for their overpriced beer. Hate it.

Mostly i hate paying a fortune for a meal and still have to spend £1 on the way home for a bag of chips to fill me up.

 

[subjectseven]

It's more about the novelty of it. The atmosphere and mood of expensive restaurants are better for getting to know your date and often encourages that you stay awhile after your meal as well. I see it more as a social experience shared with another person.

 

[Lady Larunai]

Think of high class restaurants like Iphones and it will pretty much explain itself...

 

[Woodsey]

Maybe you should go to some better fancy restaurants.

Fancy Restaurant A and Fancy Restaurant B will have different chefs, recipes, staff, menus, ingredients, and prices. Saying they're all this and they're all that is monumentally retarded.

Also: of course you have to book. "Fucking duh," comes to mind. And if other people are always booking before you, think ahead a bit more.

 

[Commissar Sae]

I like a good middleground honestly, Me and my girlfriend are pretty easygoing and don't particularly feel then need to go to a fancy restaurant when we go out, but we do like to eat good food on occassion and so try to pick something both affordable on our student budgets as well as tasty. Went to an independant Italian restaurant a while back to celebrate our anniversary, price came out to $60 including a generous tip (the service was excellent even with the crowd)and we were more than okay with that, the portions were good without being huge and everything tasted excellent. It took a while to get served because the place was packed but we weren't in a hurry to be anywhere so we enjoyed each others company and had a good time.

You have to find the right places to go if you want a fancier meal, some places charge an arm and a leg for no real reason but you can usually see a difference in the quality of the food.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

Just because you don't like fancy restaurants it doesn't mean they don't have a right to exist. I don't like mayonnaise, but you don't see me sending letters to Kraft asking them to stop producing the foul stuff. I just don't buy it.

I've been sing this mentality everywhere as of late. The whole "I don't like it/can't afford it, so that means it's inherently evil and a detriment to all of society" thing. Good grief, when did people get so conceited?

 

[SovietPanda]

Plus i dont see dining as an experience. I want to go some where and have a meal and leave within the hour. Not spend my evening in a dining room waiting for courses, which is just there way to make you think its taking a long time to prepare, when it was probably cooked 30 minutes ago. Plus they want you to pay for their overpriced beer. Hate it.

Mostly i hate paying a fortune for a meal and still have to spend £1 on the way home for a bag of chips to fill me up.

Dining isn't always an experience, eating is generally about just filling you up and keeping you alive. But sometimes your families in town and you want to have a really awesome meal sit around drinking, talking crap with each other and have food and wine brought to you all night, sometimes its worth paying a couple of trained proffesionals to treat you like some kind of king for a few hours. As to you suggesting chefs hold food to make you think it takes along time its retarded. We want to get as many meals out as fast as we can, makes more money that way, you want to know why your meal takes 45minutes, ask the simpleton on your table that ordered the well done fillet mignon

 

[No_Remainders]

There is this idea that if you get a cheap cut of meat (something fatty like cheek or belly rather than sirloin or fillet) and spend more time cooking it, it somehow reflects how good a chef you are / tastes better.

I'm gonna give you a set of directions here.

Buy a shoulder of lamb for a Sunday roast.
Slow-roast said shoulder of lamb with rosemary and garlic for ~6 hours (can't remember the temperature, look it up).

Cook usual roast stuff with it. Potatoes, vegetables, gravy.

Eat, and it's fucking DELICIOUS.
Honestly, best meal ever.

OT: Well, I've been to two fancy restaurants ever. One gave me the largest lamb burger I have ever seen in my life, and damn was that tasty. The other, I had belly of pork, which was delicious and all, but I'd never have it again, because despite the amazing taste of it all, I just didn't really enjoy it. And to be fair, they were fancy, but it wasn't exactly the most expensive. It was 25 euro for a starter, main course, and dessert (but to be fair, it was the early bird menu...)

 

[Petromir]

THere are good and bad reastaurants at ALL price points, and even the best have their off days.

If its not a chain near me then if your eating at a popular time (so lunch or anything between 1900 and 2100) then booking is gonna be required, if a places doesnt do bookings (the cheaper end) then you are in for a massive wait.

Most food that posh restaurants serve takes time to prepare and cook, and posher places are more likely to cook from scratch rather than reheat, precook etc where there is a quality advantage to do so. If something takes 45 mins in an oven at home, don't expect a proper reastaraunt to serve it in 10 minutes.

Also alot of restauranuts are trying to offer more than food and drink, they are trying to offer pleasant surrondings, an entire experience.

This tiny portions thing in my experience is largely a myth, there are a few, and clearly truckstop sized portions cannot be reasonbly be expected.

I've also never had a posh restaurant serve me a slightly pink steak claiming its rare, a common occurunce in pubs and cheaper joints. THe biggest tste lottery in the world is trying to get steak cooked right in the UK, as you'll never know how they're setting the bleu-rare-medium-welldone boundaries, usually rare is barely pink, and medium is dry and tough, i shudder at the thought of most cheaper english places defintion of well done, the issue with ordering assuming that is every so often you get a desive chef who's been to the continent where they know how not to overcook meat and ordering bleu gets you a steak thats so rare you wonder if they killed the cow specially.

 

[eels05]

To the person who wrote this thread,as a chef working in Sydney all I can say is if you've sat down and had Lasagna at your "fancy restuarant",then its probably not a fancy restaurant in the first place.

Also some points to consider,food prices have risen dramatically over the last year or two.Yes,the buisness has to pass the price hike onto you the diner,how do you think they stay open?
If its free food your after go eat at a soup kitchen.

That relates directly to the food portion size.If say for example they've imported truffles at over $1000 per kg,are using fresh seafood and quality meat they your pretty fucking stupid if you rock up and expect brasserie style portions.
Bottom line you come across like a surburan hick who dosen't know the difference between brasserie,fine dining,casual dining,buffet,cafe style or a fucking Maccas.

You've also reminded me of an idea I've had to write a book directed at the clueless masses like yourself from a chefs perpective.
A nasty,angry,insulting book that should balance out all those lame,repetative overly helpfull cookbooks pumped out by bland yet media whorish celebrity chefs that all seem to take it up the bum.
It'll be chock full of things every chef has ever wanted to say to every dumb arse customer,like for example,'People if you're in a hurry to catch the 9 'o'clock show,DONT order your FUCKING steak WELLDONE and expect it to be out in 5 minutes you dumb arse!!'

'People,if you're allergic to seafood to the point of dicing with death,DONT EAT IN A FUCKING SEAFOOD RESTAURANT!!

'People,braised meat cant be cooked to a degree like medium or medium rare,its BRAISED for FUCKS SAKE!

People,if you've rocked up to a massive restaurant and are expecting fine dining,and go away a bit dissapointed with the style or presentation,maybe it just didn't strike you as very 'Fine Dining',thats probably because its FUCKING NOT 'Fine Dining'.Do some research on the place you're going to before you go....FOR FUCKS SAKE,your ignorance is not helping grow or support this industry.

 

[Lawlhat]

You know, I agree with the OP. I just recently went to a restaurant where I had to pay 15 dollars for a bowl of pasta that was worse than pasta I've had others places that cost less money.

 

[Psychedelic Spartan]

#2: Macroscopic food portions: that would be a big portion, just letting you know. Besides, the point isn't how much you eat it's what the food tastes like.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Seriously, what's the point? Let's go over the reasons as to why they suck:

#1: Long waiting times

In more than one sense of the word. First of all, if the restaurant is popular, there'll be an hours-long waiting list to even get in, and that's if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, you'll have to wait days, or even WEEKS to get in! And once you DO get in, what's next? Oh, just some more waiting. Hour-long waits for the menus to arrive, hour-long waits for the food to arrive, and it's all for...

#2: Macroscopic food portions

Sure, they say that good things take time. But if you're going to take eons to cook up a piece of food no bigger than my fist, than I think I'd rather eat my beard that I didn't walk into the restaurant with. I wouldn't mind the wait if it looked like it actually TOOK time, but in most cases, it looks like the chef was taste-testing it the whole way through, leaving almost nothing left. Fun fact: Any old schmuck can buy a cookbook with 20-minute recipes and can make them taste good as long as they know what they're doing. Speaking of making it taste good

#3: The food's no better than any other restaurant

Here's a fun little story: A few months back, I was taken to a fancy restaurant somewhere in Sydney for a cousin's wedding, where I ordered some lasagne. It took two hours to get to my table and the lasagne was passable at best. The next week, me and my mates went out to some Italian restaurant in the suburbs, where I again ordered lasagne, which was the best damn lasagne I ever tasted. What's the point of going to a fancy restaurant if I can get better food at some small-time restaurant that's struggling to pay its bills? Speaking of money...

#4: It's too zetta expensive

That fancy restaurant I mentioned above? Five bucks for a glass of Coke. I think you all know where I'm going with this.

In summary, I fail to see the appeal of fancy restaurants, due to the fact that you have to wait for hours for an expensive morsel of food that isn't even very good. I have no idea what everybody sees in them, but I for one am never going to another one of those scams again if I can help it.

A'ight, that's enough of me. Tell me what you think about fancy restaurants in the comment section below. Either that, or hype over the fact that I'm from Australia. Either one's good. Or you could prove me wrong, also an option. Either way, I'm out. See ya, mates!

I believe Micheal McIntyre shares your sentiments...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKbNIHkg474&feature=player_detailpage

(sorry for the bad quality, but it's still funny.)

 

[Generalissimo]

poor quality at a "fancy" restraunt?

well i have a wee story related to that...

one fine evening my family and I went somewhere "nice" to....actually i have no idea why. anyway, i ordered the biggest steak on the menu. which was 6" long by 4" wide by 1cm thick, some potatoes, and vegetables. i was filled with anticipation. 2 and a quarter hours later, i wasn't quite so exited. upon FINALLY recieving me food, ugh.... it was maybe about HALF what was promised, the few potatoes were soggy, and the veg was bitter and limp. later, for my second course, i had crippling stomach pains, nausea and a headache. altogether, once we had finished pretending our food was any good, we got our bill.

-.-

£110 for the lot. not including food poisoning symptoms that night.

 

[dickywebster]

I never understood why you would want to pay more money for less food that isnt always that tasty...

 

[funguy2121]

Seriously, what's the point? Let's go over the reasons as to why they suck:

#1: Long waiting times

In more than one sense of the word. First of all, if the restaurant is popular, there'll be an hours-long waiting list to even get in, and that's if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, you'll have to wait days, or even WEEKS to get in! And once you DO get in, what's next? Oh, just some more waiting. Hour-long waits for the menus to arrive, hour-long waits for the food to arrive, and it's all for...

#2: Macroscopic food portions

Sure, they say that good things take time. But if you're going to take eons to cook up a piece of food no bigger than my fist, than I think I'd rather eat my beard that I didn't walk into the restaurant with. I wouldn't mind the wait if it looked like it actually TOOK time, but in most cases, it looks like the chef was taste-testing it the whole way through, leaving almost nothing left. Fun fact: Any old schmuck can buy a cookbook with 20-minute recipes and can make them taste good as long as they know what they're doing. Speaking of making it taste good

#3: The food's no better than any other restaurant

Here's a fun little story: A few months back, I was taken to a fancy restaurant somewhere in Sydney for a cousin's wedding, where I ordered some lasagne. It took two hours to get to my table and the lasagne was passable at best. The next week, me and my mates went out to some Italian restaurant in the suburbs, where I again ordered lasagne, which was the best damn lasagne I ever tasted. What's the point of going to a fancy restaurant if I can get better food at some small-time restaurant that's struggling to pay its bills? Speaking of money...

#4: It's too zetta expensive

That fancy restaurant I mentioned above? Five bucks for a glass of Coke. I think you all know where I'm going with this.

In summary, I fail to see the appeal of fancy restaurants, due to the fact that you have to wait for hours for an expensive morsel of food that isn't even very good. I have no idea what everybody sees in them, but I for one am never going to another one of those scams again if I can help it.

A'ight, that's enough of me. Tell me what you think about fancy restaurants in the comment section below. Either that, or hype over the fact that I'm from Australia. Either one's good. Or you could prove me wrong, also an option. Either way, I'm out. See ya, mates!

Um, "zetta?"

Not every nice restaurant out there is represented by the one you're describing. I like any restaurant where they make the food just right and it tastes like I spent some money on it. That, and cleanliness and frendliness of the service are my only criteria. Though I probably wouldn't go that that pretentious rich-asshole restaurant that Trump owns where people eat gold for dessert.

"The food is the same as any other restaurant." Somebody has only eaten at one fancy restaurant and needs to calm down.

Look, you spent a pretty penny, and you got shafted. Never feels nice. Why not give 'em a shitty google review and move on?

 

[Shadu]

I'm so poor that a fast food place, like Wendy's, is considered pretty fancy. And the Olive Garden (the most expensive place we go anymore, ever) is like "OMG! WHAT? SPECAIL OCCASSION?!"

I think the last time we went to the Olive Garden is because we had a gift card.

 

[cookyy2k]

As has been said before on this thread, you're not just paying for the food but for the entire experience. You go to a fancy restaurant with people to socialise as much as for anything. There is one such "fancy" restaurant I commonly go, you have to book about a week in advance, it costs around £60-70 for two of us and we spend around 4-5 hours there in all having drinks and chatting. The food is amazing and potion sizes are just right, you get to taste the food without it becoming too much or leaving you too full for the next courses. Just because something is not your thing don't think they're no one's thing.