a restaurant review I enjoyed

[vorsprung]

Jay Rayner goes to an expensive 3 star Michelin place in paris....

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/09/le-cinq-paris-restaurant-review-jay-rayner

[Pickled Onion]

 

Also worth clicking through to his blog to see the pictures of the actual dishes, as they were served!

[nicknack]

I wonder who picked up the tab?

[The French Tandem]

I have always considered that spending 600€ on a meal for two is silly, and I'm happy that finally, someone say it clearly.  I'm infinitely more impressed by my local Turkish sandwich shop, where I was fed yesterday with a very decent and healthy sandwich for 5€.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Also worth clicking through to his blog to see the pictures of the actual dishes, as they were served!

They are works of art, aren't they, but sound to be disgusting to eat.

Some of the nicest and most impressive meals I've eaten have been in the cheapest (or most reasonably priced) restaurants.

[hellymedic]

Am I alone in feeling too much 'Art on a Plate' is off-putting?

I like my food to look like food - tempting, tasty, not too much, not too little.

Maybe 'fine dining' is not for me.

I probably get at least half a dozen food/restaurant emails daily and most do not encourage or tempt me.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Most entertaining - cheers for the link.

My lips purse, like a cat’s arse that’s brushed against nettles.

 

Is that business of giving the “ladies” (or, as he suggests, the “nieces”) a menu without prices a common thing in such places? How horrible.

[The French Tandem]

Is that business of giving the “ladies” (or, as he suggests, the “nieces”) a menu without prices a common thing in such places? How horrible.

I would like to know how do they deal with gay couples.

Waiter: "Who's the husband and who's the wife?"

[Kim]

If they even let you in in the first place, I expect they'd make an arbitrary decision based on height or age or hairstyle or something.  That's usually how it works.

[Jakob W]

I do like a bit of Jay Rayner when he's got a head of steam up.

Is that business of giving the “ladies” (or, as he suggests, the “nieces”) a menu without prices a common thing in such places? How horrible.

It's not uncommon for haute cuisine places; I've occasionally been given one when being taken out for lunch. On the one hand I approve of the sentiments behind it - the idea being it allows the guest to choose the dishes they'd most like without being steered by the prices - but in practice it becomes another opportunity for stereotypes to rear their heads (and goodness knows most haute places have more than enough of that already.)

[mmmmartin]

Great thread. This quote is good: My companion winces. 'It’s like eating a condom that’s been left lying about in a dusty greengrocer’s,' she says."
I hear the voice of experience.

[citoyen]

That sounds terrible. The dishes he was served, going by his own pics rather than the press shots, are most definitely not works of art. They look revolting.

Most expensive meal I ever had was at Sketch in London, which was about half the price of Jay Rayner's meal at Cinq (although it was 12 years ago, so prices have probably gone up since then). It was similarly disappointing - a long procession of showy dishes that were well executed but seriously lacking in the flavour department.

Around the same time, I had dinner at Nobu, which also came to well over £200 but was worth every penny - the food both looked beautiful and tasted incredible.

I should add that I wasn't paying for either meal, but I would happily pay my own money to eat that food at Nobu again. I can still clearly remember some of the dishes. I can't remember a single one of the dishes at Sketch.

[mmmmartin]

"It is mostly black, like nightmares, and sticky, like the floor at a teenager’s party."

Hahahah!!!!!

Best place I've eaten recently was The Swan at Ingham in Norfolk.
http://www.theinghamswan.co.uk/
Was in the area on holiday in December, had lunch there and instantly booked lunch for the next four days. Great food, done well, not pretentious, friendy efficient staff. Worth an effort to go there.

And this from a rider who thinks the height of culinary achievement is a Ginster's pasty and a pint of milk at 3am at the Barton Mills garage on one of Tomsk's rides.

[Pickled Onion]

I wonder who picked up the tab?

Apparently they split the bill, and the newspaper reimbursed 50% of his half.

[Julian]

Is that business of giving the “ladies” (or, as he suggests, the “nieces”) a menu without prices a common thing in such places? How horrible.

I would like to know how do they deal with gay couples.

Waiter: "Who's the husband and who's the wife?"

They guess based on height, which is why C always gets awarded my chips and beer, and I always get her salad and soft drink.  The only exception to this is if I'm wearing a tux.

[Wascally Weasel]

Is that business of giving the “ladies” (or, as he suggests, the “nieces”) a menu without prices a common thing in such places? How horrible.

Yes.  When the Former Ms Weasel was taken to La Gavroche for a work Christmas meal, the only man present was given the menu with prices.  The female director (who was paying) was not best pleased.

[mrcharly-YHT]

They guess based on height, which is why C always gets awarded my chips and beer, and I always get her salad and soft drink.  The only exception to this is if I'm wearing a tux.

Do you alter your tip if they don't make assumptions?

MrsC and I get assumptions when ordering drinks to a table, since she will usually have a pint and I a half. A number of servers will automatically plonk the pint in front of the 'man' don't get as large a tip. The ones who check first get a bigger tip.

[Ham]

My MiL (87) tipple of choice is a pint, which always confuses servers.

[ian]

I've eaten at quite a few posh places (because not paying, though I've paid a few times). I've rarely been impressed and I've often been disappointed. It's the sort of showy nonsense that makes me want to demand an actual meal. Not a froth, an emulsion, or a spherification. I want my ice cream to taste of ice cream and not a sea urchin. If I'm not in France I don't want my menu in florid French. Frankly I don't want florid fucking French in France.

These places are just status, look at the size of my bill. An ugly way to live. In all honesty, I don't want to sit in a roomful of people in £1000 shoes with £5000 handbags engaged a contest of ostentatious pissing. I piss in their consomme.

Yeah, the his-and-her menu thing, I had hoped that would die, but it still happens. As my wife will sweetly ask, does this mean ladies eat for free?

Give me a good grilled kebab and bread, with a side of beer, in a decent mangal and I'm happy.

[citoyen]

Not a froth, an emulsion, or a spherification.

Nothing wrong with an emulsion - many classic sauces are emulsions (eg hollandaise). Froth is just an affectation though.

I've seen the spherification technique used to good effect, eg to make pearls of jelly, like a sort of ersatz caviar. It's a good way to deliver an intense hit of a secondary flavour, along with some contrasting textural interest.

I don't have a problem with sea urchin ice cream either. I've had oyster ice cream and it worked very well. Sea urchin ice cream with raw scallop sashimi should work as a flavour and texture combination, but as Jay Rayner points out, it is hardly original.
 
The one that really riles me is 'soil'. Fucking soil does not belong on a fucking dinner plate.

The real problem with a lot of so-called 'fine dining' is that all these fancy affectations might have been innovative and interesting once upon a time but have become commonplace clichés, badly executed and thrown on a plate by hack chefs who lack an original idea of their own. In fact, the whole fine dining thing is a cliché.

[Hot Flatus]

It's quite interesting to eat something blindfolded. Sometimes it's very difficult to know what you are eating, so the relationship between visual and gustatory senses is an interesting one.

I suppose you could just enjoy looking at the food, and not bother too much about eating it.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's the "halved and refilled passionfruit" that puzzles me. I just don't see the point of that sort of thing. Why not just have a passionfruit? Or a melon or whatever you have. There's very little if any food that beats ripe fresh fruit. Also, it makes me wonder what they've done with the rest of the fruit.

The one that really riles me is 'soil'. Fucking soil does not belong

Soil? Is this a foodie term for a soil-like texture? It can't be actual earth, surely? Or could it be nightsoil?

on a fucking dinner plate.

On Saturday's ride we stopped at a pub in Tetbury that was doing cream teas. They served it on a slate. Despite the ponciness of this, I didn't really mind, because the scones were delicious and so was everything else. Besides, I've eaten off banana leaves in India, so why not bits of suitably shaped stone? Compared to a leaf they're flatter and have the advantage of being reusable! And as for the ponciness, it was Tetbury, and it was cream tea in a pub. I bet they did jenga chips too.

[ian]

Well, that's the problem, don't call my sauce emulsion. I want emulsion, I'm going to B&Q not Les Petits Testicles. I swear I went somewhere where they offered me a spume. Why not spittle? An expectoration of vibrant asparagus sputum or whatever the fuck that is en Français.

Sea urchins shouldn't be in anything. They're about 90% jizz. I don't care how many vitamins they claim it contains, I am spitting that out. I'm not that kind of date. Spheres are just like eating eyeballs. I'm not eating teeny tiny eyeballs. Raw fish! I mean seriously, I have to travel around with one of those little chef's blowtorches to cook my own food at the table. Everyday is a Mongolian barbeque. Do I get a discount? No. Fucking chefs. Poncy name for a cook if you ask me.

[citoyen]

Soil? Is this a foodie term for a soil-like texture? It can't be actual earth, surely? Or could it be nightsoil?

Yeah, just a highly pretentious way of saying that you're serving a pile of crumbs. I really don't get it. It might have seemed like a good idea to whoever invented it, but it has become yet another crap restaurant cliché.

Well, that's the problem, don't call my sauce emulsion. I want emulsion, I'm going to B&Q not Les Petits Testicles.

But emulsion is a good English word. And I'm all for the anglicisation of menus. Stop calling it hollandaise, call it Dutch sauce.

I swear I went somewhere where they offered me a spume.

Spume? Dear god. That's unforgivable.

Raw fish!

Oh yes, I was forgetting you had views on that subject. #lolz

[citoyen]

They served it on a slate.

Presume you've seen this:
http://wewantplates.com/