But do you accept that a wooden board is less practical than a plate?
Also, I don't think this is so much about fancy restaurants with multiple courses as it is about gastropubs and the like - the £20-£25 per head price point.
Well, it depends what you're eating. A burger on a board with chips in a basket I don't find impractical at all. Pasta or a roast dinner or soup on a board obviously would be. I can honestly say that I've never been served anything that I've found harder to eat, the places I go to that do it, (like you say, mostly pubs, could probably be called "gastropubs" as they serve proper food) only serve things that are ok on a different serving vessel.
Well, it depends what you're eating. A burger on a board with chips in a basket I don't find impractical at all. Pasta or a roast dinner or soup on a board obviously would be. I can honestly say that I've never been served anything that I've found harder to eat, the places I go to that do it, (like you say, mostly pubs, could probably be called "gastropubs" as they serve proper food) only serve things that are ok on a different serving vessel.
Well, each to their own I guess, but I definitely feel less comfortable eating a burger and chips from a chopping board and wire basket like this than a plate like this.
It's like restaurants are refusing to acknowledge that the design of the plate has evolved to be the best vessel for meals which are mainly solid.
Well, each to their own I guess, but I definitely feel less comfortable eating a burger and chips from a chopping board and wire basket like this
I think I'd be OK with that one as it looks like something you would be at least half-expecting even if the chip jar makes it a pain to get an even salt coating. That said, the pointy stick is a serious safety hazard and there should be a proper 'eating your food safely' leaflet and training course and some safety glasses. Not suitable for vampires.
This looks far more manageable but I am not entirely enthused by the main part of the filling looking rather too much like some kind of solidified slurry! If I had wanted that I would have ordered the turkey twizzlers...
I think I'd be OK with that one as it looks like something you would be at least half-expecting even if the chip jar makes it a pain to get an even salt coating. That said, the pointy stick is a serious safety hazard and there should be a proper 'eating your food safely' leaflet and training course and some safety glasses. Not suitable for vampires.
This looks far more manageable but I am not entirely enthused by the main part of the filling looking rather too much like some kind of solidified slurry! If I had wanted that I would have ordered the turkey twizzlers...
Yeah, I couldn't find a good picture of a burger on a plate.
But the first picture... how am I supposed to eat that? I can't fit that in my mouth, so I'd need a knife and fork. I think that would get very messy on a wooden board. Plates have ridges at the side, and they're big enough to accommodate the inevitable disintegration of the burger. That board is going to end up leaving relish and salad all over the table.
Yeah, I couldn't find a good picture of a burger on a plate.
I'm just glad I don't have a dog or my description would have been a lot more graphic :eek:
But the first picture... how am I supposed to eat that?
I was thinking along the lines of squash-first though the downside is that it then changes from a nicely presented eating experience into a flat splayed bun and thinking about it that would suffer from lost relish too even if I did add extra red sauce when I forgot to take out the stick.
Eating a burger with a knife and fork is just... wrong.
I was thinking along the lines of squash-first though the downside is that it then changes from a nicely presented eating experience into a flat splayed bun and thinking about it that would suffer from lost relish too even if I did add extra red sauce when I forgot to take out the stick. Eating a burger with a knife and fork is just... wrong.
I agree, but until they stop the madness, I will have to.
I agree, but until they stop the madness, I will have to.
You just squash it down, the skewer helps with that, then you just take the skewer out. A burger should be thick, cooked pink in the middle and have lots of lovely toppings. I had one the other week that had smoked cheese, haggis, chorizo, onion rings and their own homemade chilli jam. It was incredible. That came out on a board and it wasn't messy or inconvenient at all. Any juices just stayed on the board due to the tables being level and the pub itself not moving.
This seems like an awful lot of fuss and drama over a problem that isn't really a problem.
I wouldn't say that, I find the opposite on here, there's a lot of reverse snobbery with people moaning, bandying words like "fancy" and "pretentious" about and moaning about small portions and things being piled up and how the likes of Wetherspoons and Frankie and Bennys are great. If people were fussy these types of places wouldn't be packed. For me, when it comes to food, you pay for quality and I'd rather pay a bit extra for homemade, proper, nicely presented food (be that on a plate or a chopping board!) than pay peanuts and get average, mediocre mass produced stuff.
noise747 mentioned that people on here wouldn't like the cafe he frequented in his youth and said he though people were fussier these days and expected more for their money. I said that I didn't find people particularly fussy as they frequent places such as Wetherspoons and Frankie and Bennys and a lot seem to wear that as some kind of badge of honour against these so called "fancy, pretentious" places that serve supposedly tiny portions (which is a load of rubbish as the so called "tiny" portions are often rich food and often part of a large number of courses. I've never left a nice restaurant hungry).
For me quality of food is the most important thing, price doesn't come into it, I'd much rather pay a little extra and get proper fresh food than mass produced rubbish. I value presentation though, although it doesn't bother me whether it's nicely presented on a plate or a slate or a wooden board as long as it's nicely presented.
Yeah, I couldn't find a good picture of a burger on a plate.
But the first picture... how am I supposed to eat that? I can't fit that in my mouth, so I'd need a knife and fork. I think that would get very messy on a wooden board. Plates have ridges at the side, and they're big enough to accommodate the inevitable disintegration of the burger. That board is going to end up leaving relish and salad all over the table.
You just squash it down, the skewer helps with that, then you just take the skewer out. A burger should be thick, cooked pink in the middle and have lots of lovely toppings. I had one the other week that had smoked cheese, haggis, chorizo, onion rings and their own homemade chilli jam. It was incredible. That came out on a board and it wasn't messy or inconvenient at all. Any juices just stayed on the board due to the tables being level and the pub itself not moving.
A burger should, fundamentally, be thin enough that it can fit inside a standard adult human jaw without being squashed so much that fillings start squeezing outside the bun. A lot of burgers you get served in pubs these days don't fit these criteria. And when they don't, you need a knife and fork. And it is just easier to eat a meal with a knife and fork from a plate than it is from a vessel that doesn't have lipped sides. That's why we have plates.
This seems like an awful lot of fuss and drama over a problem that isn't really a problem.
It doesn't seem like an awful lot of fuss to me. This is a fluff thread about something mildly annoying. And it is annoying to a lot of people. It's wanky, it's pretentious, and it carries associations with hipsterism. Because. as I've said more than a couple of times before, we have a perfect invention for eating food from - it's called a plate. We have a perfect invention for drinking cold beverages from - it's called a glass.
What is the value of repurporsing a less adequate item for doing these things? Only to look vaguely interesting, which is fine if you came up with the idea. But when everybody is doing it, it loses even that minor benefit.
Sounds like a load of hipsters being morons and not the sort of restaurant I'd ever set foot in if I knew what they were like beforehand.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're saying that even if you knew that the food was absolutely amazing then you wouldn't eat there just because your burger comes on a chopping board? That's ridiculous.
A burger should, fundamentally, be thin enough that it can fit inside a standard adult human jaw without being squashed so much that fillings start squeezing outside the bun. A lot of burgers you get served in pubs these days don't fit these criteria. And when they don't, you need a knife and fork. And it is just easier to eat a meal with a knife and fork from a plate than it is from a vessel that doesn't have lipped sides. That's why we have plates.
It doesn't seem like an awful lot of fuss to me. This is a fluff thread about something mildly annoying. And it is annoying to a lot of people. It's wanky, it's pretentious, and it carries associations with hipsterism. Because. as I've said more than a couple of times before, we have a perfect invention for eating food from - it's called a plate. We have a perfect invention for drinking cold beverages from - it's called a glass.
What is the value of repurporsing a less adequate item for doing these things? Only to look vaguely interesting, which is fine if you came up with the idea. But when everybody is doing it, it loses even that minor benefit.
It is a lot of fuss when you've got people like day dreamer who wouldn't actually go in somewhere because of it. If the food is good, who cares what it's served on? It's just not something that I'd let myself get annoyed about.
I've had some big burgers and I've never used a knife and fork and never had any issues with eating off a board. Fair enough if you have, we're all different.
Yes, you did and you read it completely out of context and misunderstood what I was saying. It was in reference to what noise747 had posted and not to the original topic. As a whole I've posted in a lot of food threads and found a lot of reverse snobbery on here. Anywhere more expensive than a cheap chain place is "overpriced", a "rip off" and "pretentious" and god help anywhere that uses the word "jus" or "homemade" or does anything like pearls or savoury ice cream! These people are for some reason almost proud that they can go to a cheap chain and have a 2 for 1 microwaved ready meal and oven chips and they're not getting ripped off! I just don't get it and I used this as an argument when noise747 said that a lot of people were fussy and expect more for their money when often it's the opposite and they're happy to eat cheap crap.
I agree with you I had a steak served on wooden board recently with a basket of chips and I asked them to take it away and put it on a plate. I would never buy a wooden chopping board I have colour coded boards for different food to avoid contamination.
I was once told never to use plastic chopping boards and always wood because wood was naturally antibacterial.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're saying that even if you knew that the food was absolutely amazing then you wouldn't eat there just because your burger comes on a chopping board? That's ridiculous.
Surely there's two separate main issues here - places that serve things on chopping boards that would be best on plates (though a wooden cheese platter would presumably be acceptable unless the brie was *really* runny), and other places that serve food in or on things that provoke a 'hope they sterilised that first' reaction.
I put a lot of these as novelties which (if there's any justice) should be short-lived but telling me that's not an old jam-jar is taking the P and omg they have knitted blue* cardigans on the chocolate coated ants' brains that's so cuuute omg I have to tweet this you know goldfish can focus for as much as ten seconds at a time that's like serious meditation did you try the one served in a retro sock?
* can't remember if that's royal or navy, sorry...
A few years back I had a steak dinner on a marble slab which was a "trademark" of the restaurant. The steak was simply magnificent, they cooked it till it was nearly done then put it on the hot slab to serve, so by the time you started cutting into it the steak was perfect.
I have looked at the thread but haven't seen anyone mention bread trenchers yet. Anyone here ever had a meal off one of those?.
Hmmm, I have some doubts about wooden boards and slate as well. A lovely country pub near Penshurst (A Gastropub) now serves starters/desserts on black slate and the servers complain about the difficulty of carrying them and also picking them up from a flat surface.
Their enormous Ploughmans are served on rectangular wooden boards which look very attractive but I'd be quite happy eaten off them providing they are 'steamed' in a professional dishwasher.
More annoying to me are the non-circular plates that a lot of food now is served up on. A place I go to and have rather nice sandwiches, are served up on narrow rectangular plate and it is very difficult manipulating the sandwiches, salad garnish and crisps in such as small area. Give me round plates any time.
Oh, and additionally Vintage Inns and presumably other branded pubs under the Mitchell's and Butler umbrella serve 'meals' on strange elliptical white plates where it is almost impossible to rest your knife and fork between mouthfuls. They won't stay put and insist on sliding up or down the sloping sides.>:(
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're saying that even if you knew that the food was absolutely amazing then you wouldn't eat there just because your burger comes on a chopping board? That's ridiculous.
I think its more a case of, if the food is absolutely amazing, then why would they faff about putting it on bricks, dustbin lids or trainers rather than a simple white plate? Excellent food doesn't need gimmicks, so if there are gimmicks I wonder if the food is secondary.
I have looked at the thread but haven't seen anyone mention bread trenchers yet. Anyone here ever had a meal off one of those?.
I've had meals off massive roti and paratha type breads in India. Also off banana leaves - but none of those places could remotely be called 'pretentious hipster joints':D
And what about hot food served on cold plates/platters etc? This to me is the worst sin and is prevalent in so many establishments.
When I see servers delivering my hot food with no hand protection, from what should be hot or at least warm plates, my heart sinks.
I think its more a case of, if the food is absolutely amazing, then why would they faff about putting it on bricks, dustbin lids or trainers rather than a simple white plate? Excellent food doesn't need gimmicks, so if there are gimmicks I wonder if the food is secondary.
I did say in my original post that the things such as bricks, dustbin lids and trainers were ridiculous (and gimmicky and a I agree with you on this, I mentioned a cheap local chain place that use dustbin lids and the place is rubbish), a lot of people seem to have a big issue with a simple wooden board or a slate though which I don't think is gimmicky at all. Hell, some people are even moaning about different shaped plates! As I've said, two of my favourite local pubs use boards and their food is fantastic and I've never had any issues eating from a board.
... Hell, some people are even moaning about different shaped plates! ...
To be fair, there are some designs/sizes/shapes of plates that really just don't 'work' though often this a result of poor choice of crockery, e.g. bowl instead of plate, or uncertainty over whether the bowl on a plate should be moved, left where it is, or emptied out next to the chips though this might be due to my ignorance of ettiquette...
A few years back I had a steak dinner on a marble slab which was a "trademark" of the restaurant. The steak was simply magnificent, they cooked it till it was nearly done then put it on the hot slab to serve, so by the time you started cutting into it the steak was perfect.
That sounds terrible.
Unless you have a steak well-done, it needs to be rested off the heat before serving to let the juices settle. Otherwise they run all over the, er, "serving device of choice".
I did say in my original post that the things such as bricks, dustbin lids and trainers were ridiculous (and gimmicky and a I agree with you on this, I mentioned a cheap local chain place that use dustbin lids and the place is rubbish), a lot of people seem to have a big issue with a simple wooden board or a slate though which I don't think is gimmicky at all. Hell, some people are even moaning about different shaped plates! As I've said, two of my favourite local pubs use boards and their food is fantastic and I've never had any issues eating from a board.
Just curious, do you even accept that a plate is better than a flat wooden board, or do you see them as having identical functionality?
Comments
Well, it depends what you're eating. A burger on a board with chips in a basket I don't find impractical at all. Pasta or a roast dinner or soup on a board obviously would be. I can honestly say that I've never been served anything that I've found harder to eat, the places I go to that do it, (like you say, mostly pubs, could probably be called "gastropubs" as they serve proper food) only serve things that are ok on a different serving vessel.
Well, each to their own I guess, but I definitely feel less comfortable eating a burger and chips from a chopping board and wire basket like this than a plate like this.
It's like restaurants are refusing to acknowledge that the design of the plate has evolved to be the best vessel for meals which are mainly solid.
This looks far more manageable but I am not entirely enthused by the main part of the filling looking rather too much like some kind of solidified slurry! If I had wanted that I would have ordered the turkey twizzlers...
Yeah, I couldn't find a good picture of a burger on a plate.
But the first picture... how am I supposed to eat that? I can't fit that in my mouth, so I'd need a knife and fork. I think that would get very messy on a wooden board. Plates have ridges at the side, and they're big enough to accommodate the inevitable disintegration of the burger. That board is going to end up leaving relish and salad all over the table.
I was thinking along the lines of squash-first though the downside is that it then changes from a nicely presented eating experience into a flat splayed bun and thinking about it that would suffer from lost relish too even if I did add extra red sauce when I forgot to take out the stick.
Eating a burger with a knife and fork is just... wrong.
I agree, but until they stop the madness, I will have to.
You just squash it down, the skewer helps with that, then you just take the skewer out. A burger should be thick, cooked pink in the middle and have lots of lovely toppings. I had one the other week that had smoked cheese, haggis, chorizo, onion rings and their own homemade chilli jam. It was incredible. That came out on a board and it wasn't messy or inconvenient at all. Any juices just stayed on the board due to the tables being level and the pub itself not moving.
This seems like an awful lot of fuss and drama over a problem that isn't really a problem.
I did read reverse snobbery didn't I?
Messy - but doable
Just dont have a first date there ;-)
A burger should, fundamentally, be thin enough that it can fit inside a standard adult human jaw without being squashed so much that fillings start squeezing outside the bun. A lot of burgers you get served in pubs these days don't fit these criteria. And when they don't, you need a knife and fork. And it is just easier to eat a meal with a knife and fork from a plate than it is from a vessel that doesn't have lipped sides. That's why we have plates.
It doesn't seem like an awful lot of fuss to me. This is a fluff thread about something mildly annoying. And it is annoying to a lot of people. It's wanky, it's pretentious, and it carries associations with hipsterism. Because. as I've said more than a couple of times before, we have a perfect invention for eating food from - it's called a plate. We have a perfect invention for drinking cold beverages from - it's called a glass.
What is the value of repurporsing a less adequate item for doing these things? Only to look vaguely interesting, which is fine if you came up with the idea. But when everybody is doing it, it loses even that minor benefit.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're saying that even if you knew that the food was absolutely amazing then you wouldn't eat there just because your burger comes on a chopping board? That's ridiculous.
It is a lot of fuss when you've got people like day dreamer who wouldn't actually go in somewhere because of it. If the food is good, who cares what it's served on? It's just not something that I'd let myself get annoyed about.
I've had some big burgers and I've never used a knife and fork and never had any issues with eating off a board. Fair enough if you have, we're all different.
Yes, you did and you read it completely out of context and misunderstood what I was saying. It was in reference to what noise747 had posted and not to the original topic. As a whole I've posted in a lot of food threads and found a lot of reverse snobbery on here. Anywhere more expensive than a cheap chain place is "overpriced", a "rip off" and "pretentious" and god help anywhere that uses the word "jus" or "homemade" or does anything like pearls or savoury ice cream! These people are for some reason almost proud that they can go to a cheap chain and have a 2 for 1 microwaved ready meal and oven chips and they're not getting ripped off! I just don't get it and I used this as an argument when noise747 said that a lot of people were fussy and expect more for their money when often it's the opposite and they're happy to eat cheap crap.
I was once told never to use plastic chopping boards and always wood because wood was naturally antibacterial.
I put a lot of these as novelties which (if there's any justice) should be short-lived but telling me that's not an old jam-jar is taking the P and omg they have knitted blue* cardigans on the chocolate coated ants' brains that's so cuuute omg I have to tweet this you know goldfish can focus for as much as ten seconds at a time that's like serious meditation did you try the one served in a retro sock?
* can't remember if that's royal or navy, sorry...
Legally, any paper with which the food is in direct contact must be food-grade.
I have looked at the thread but haven't seen anyone mention bread trenchers yet. Anyone here ever had a meal off one of those?.
Their enormous Ploughmans are served on rectangular wooden boards which look very attractive but I'd be quite happy eaten off them providing they are 'steamed' in a professional dishwasher.
More annoying to me are the non-circular plates that a lot of food now is served up on. A place I go to and have rather nice sandwiches, are served up on narrow rectangular plate and it is very difficult manipulating the sandwiches, salad garnish and crisps in such as small area. Give me round plates any time.
Oh, and additionally Vintage Inns and presumably other branded pubs under the Mitchell's and Butler umbrella serve 'meals' on strange elliptical white plates where it is almost impossible to rest your knife and fork between mouthfuls. They won't stay put and insist on sliding up or down the sloping sides.>:(
I think its more a case of, if the food is absolutely amazing, then why would they faff about putting it on bricks, dustbin lids or trainers rather than a simple white plate? Excellent food doesn't need gimmicks, so if there are gimmicks I wonder if the food is secondary.
I've had meals off massive roti and paratha type breads in India. Also off banana leaves - but none of those places could remotely be called 'pretentious hipster joints':D
When I see servers delivering my hot food with no hand protection, from what should be hot or at least warm plates, my heart sinks.
I did say in my original post that the things such as bricks, dustbin lids and trainers were ridiculous (and gimmicky and a I agree with you on this, I mentioned a cheap local chain place that use dustbin lids and the place is rubbish), a lot of people seem to have a big issue with a simple wooden board or a slate though which I don't think is gimmicky at all. Hell, some people are even moaning about different shaped plates! As I've said, two of my favourite local pubs use boards and their food is fantastic and I've never had any issues eating from a board.
Unless you have a steak well-done, it needs to be rested off the heat before serving to let the juices settle. Otherwise they run all over the, er, "serving device of choice".
Just curious, do you even accept that a plate is better than a flat wooden board, or do you see them as having identical functionality?
I know that, which is why they wrap the chips up first in food grade paper and then newspaper over that.