My friend was absolutely adamant about how good it was. I’m glad he told me!
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It is fun watching this thread morph. I strongly suspect that most of us just want to put great food on the plate, not a tower of orzo or a broccolini tipi. As regards Champagne, I love, love, love it. Try it with Belgian endive leaves filled with sour cream and topped with lumpfish caviar.
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I love champagne, and if I want to put a sculpture on a plate, well, I have an old set of tinker toys in my office.
Absolutely, and truth be told, that’s what I really look forward to in a restaurant.
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I love Pol Roger Champagne. I’ve tried a number of more expensive ones (bought at duty-free stores), but always return to it. Unfortunately it’s a very rare treat ($$$).
On one occasion when a waitress was bringing glasses of Kir Royale to our table, it smelled like she was carrying a bouquet of flowers. It was Pommery with Crème de Mures (blackberry).
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I thought of plating today, working on this.
I’ve got a lot of rosemary and citrus in the garden, a lot of orange jamalade in the cupboard and the recipe said it’s not just for looks, but it did look nice!
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That’s beautiful (and looks delicious!)
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So it’s disjunctive? Plating or Champagne? What’s the punishment for both?
Can’t we agree that even great food can be plated so as to make it unattractive? And, if so, would you enjoy your Fallen Stars as much?
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I don’t really understand … I like champagne, I like great food, attractive plating is always desirable, but over the top, chichi plating of bad food is - bad food.
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Does plating extend to drink ware? I find the notion of a half filled mug of a great Champagne like Krug NV or Billecart-Salmon rose extremely appealing, maybe with a plate of oysters. I dislike flutes, and even though a few flutes sit on a top shelf gathering dust, I always grab a wider wine glass for Champagne. Good Champagne demands that I get my nose involved.
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I wonder if over the top chichi plating might also be a way of distracting you from very small portions. I see photos of a tower of something with three spears of asparagus artfully arranged over it. Come on, it’s asparagus. It may be expensive as vegetables go, but it certainly isn’t expensive as vegetables go. I would appreciate 8-10 spears. If you need to dress it up, serve it on its own plate. If you must drizzle a sauce over it, please make it a good one, but leave the bottom ends so that I can still pick them up with my fingers! To me the best plating is less about how the food is arranged and more about displaying the foods themselves, plus ensuring they are there in the right proportions. Half a ribeye, sliced and fanned, is way more appealing than two or three bite sized slices. If it must be sauced my only requirement is that the sauce not be one that breaks and leaves a puddle of oil or butter oozing out.
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I’m with you. I dislike the extreme tipping back of the head involved with getting that last bit of Champagne, but I can’t see myself using a mug, not even my favorite one (which I use for coffee)!
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I love asparagus, but have too often been served tree trunk-thickness spears that have not been trimmed or peeled, and are swimming in whatever sauce is on the meat.
Perhaps the worst plating I’ve seen in a restaurant was a surf and turf (which I usually avoid), with a few shrimps sitting on top of a beef filet, and the restaurant’s “signature vegetables” on the same plate, all swimming in a brown sauce.
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Yuck. I am with you on thick, woody, untrimmed asparagus. For meif asparagus has anything on it, I am fine with a squirt of lemon, a pat of butter if you must. Whenever a restaurant kitchen sends anything out swimming in brown sauce it seems as if they are hiding something.
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Try Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve. Almost as good as vintage.
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I often wonder that, too. And I’ve concluded the answer is yes.
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You guys! Advanced (whether real or imagined) plating and appropriate drinkware are intended to increase the visual satisfaction/satiety aspects of eating and drinking. They generally do that, or at last should.
I think the “small portion” critique isn’t particularly fair if the meal is multi-course, prix fixe, etc. But when the prix is $$$$, there’s a natural temptation to bellyache over portions that don’t fill the belly.
As for Champagne flutes and coupes, another big reason these are “appropriate” is–sometimes–sitting right there at table: the icebucket. Smaller pours held away from your hands make for a more consistent chill, and sippable appeal.
We wouldn’t enjoy food as much if we ate blindfolded. Nor would we enjoy tepid Champage as much from 24-ounce balloon stems.
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A lot of people including me agree: Champagne is also very enjoyable in a wine glass.
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Of course Champagne is enjoyable in a wine glass. Probably so through a beer funnel, too.
I don’t mind it in small (5-9 oz) stems, or even small Duralex.
I have been to too many restaurants that are regarded as quite fine, charging astronomical sums for very small portions, astronomical prices for appetizers, salads, sides, and desserts, and case prices for single bottles of quite good but not earth shaking wines. They seem to assume that their clientele is either sufficiently wealthy or on expense account and will not bat an eye at that fifty dollar entree with various $20 items preceding, accompanying, or following, all washed down with $300-400 bottles of a very fine but not staggeringly good wines. Yes, the meals were pretty, pretty enough that the plating enhanced the experience, but I still left hungry. Too many such restaurants are pretentious but not really making truly great food. Yes, there are some rare restaurants that really deserve those kinds of accolades and pricing. Oddly, I never leave one of those hungry and somehow they can find and offer superb wines for under $100. It takes a special breed of sommelier to find those.
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