Red Flags on Menus?

Good grief - guilty!!!

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A place near me proudly announces that it does not have a childrenā€™s menu. I recall it words it something like ā€œWe do not have a separate menu for small people aged under Xā€. But, if preferred, it will make smaller portions of several of its main menu items. Thereā€™s usually a goodly number of families - evidence that kids do not need ā€œkids foodā€.

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Anytime they put an actual dish in quotes to describe something they are making that is actually something else.

Eg - seafood ā€œpaellaā€ - is it paella or not?

Or

Beef ā€œosso bucoā€ - if it is just braised then say braised, osso buco is an actual thing all by itself.

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ā€œHouse madeā€ has described both the worst ketchup and the worst breakfast sausage Iā€™ve ever had.

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Or some of the bestā€¦

Some of these callouts are getting picky for pickyā€™s sake.

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and seem to be more in line of ā€œpet peevesā€ vs. a menu red flag.

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one manā€™s peeve is anotherā€™s flag . . . .

I guess the only real ā€œflagā€ I could get from a menu would be crushed, crusty, dried food bits stuck all over the menu. If you canā€™t keep the menu clean . . . . probably best to move on to another restaurant.

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I guess I could have said more. For me, itā€™s a red flag that a restaurant feels the need to point out that they made the food Iā€™m ordering. In my experience, most of the places that tell you something is ā€œhome/house madeā€ end up serving something worse than I would expect. This is more true with something like ketchup, where Iā€™d be happy with heinz, while the ā€œhouseā€ version tends to be too sweet or to just be tomato sauce.

Iā€™ve had some very good ā€œhouseā€ sausages, but I sort of expect that if Iā€™m eating at a decent place theyā€™re making that stuff and not defrosting something from Sysco. The terrible breakfast sausage I had was at a diner kind of place, where I was surprised to see that they had started making their own. They shouldnā€™t have - it had the dry, mealy texture of meat that got too warm during grinding. When I complained to the waitress that it was dry, she replied that ā€œoh, itā€™s actually homemade!ā€ which has stuck in my mind ever sense.

I guess my general point is that itā€™s a red flag to me if someplace is trying to remake the wheel, because itā€™s often unnecessary or they donā€™t know what theyā€™re doing. Itā€™s not that I hate ā€œhouse-madeā€ food ā€“ itā€™s that its use as a marketing term on menus usually means Iā€™m about to have a disappointing meal.

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Iā€™ll see your ā€œdeconstructedā€ and raise you a ā€œcuratedā€. :grin:

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Did you read the Tampa Times article? Just because a restaurant lists sources doesnā€™t mean thatā€™s where their stuff came from.

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My red flag is any description of a dish longer than just a few words, especially if it uses first-person plural, especially if the menu is laminated. A local favorite cafe changed their menu, obviously hiring a menu-writing consultant, producing things like this:

ā€œOur burgers are 100% Certified Angus Beef, and we open-flame grill them to your preference. Served with our French Fries.ā€

This was when they switched from Niman Ranch beef and hand-cut fries to save money. I complained to the manager, and havenā€™t been back.

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Do we use the second person plural in English - other than colloquial phrases ( eg yā€™all)?

Oops, I meant first-person plural. I corrected my post.

I can see not liking the switch from Niman Ranch, and the potato change, but would you pre-judge the food based on less-specific text? To anyone who didnā€™t know the previous specifics it would seem fine.

Itā€™s a fucking burger and fries.

In linguistics, there is a set of principles guiding appropriate conversation, called Griceā€™s maxims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griceā€™s_maxims#Grice.27s_Maxims

One says ā€œDo not make your contribution more informative than is required.ā€, and another ā€œBe brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).ā€ Including the extra information can result in suspicion. If theyā€™d said, ā€œmade with real beefā€, wouldnā€™t you be a little alarmedā€“what else could it be made of?

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Oh, OK. Unnecessary flowery descriptors. I get it. But, come onā€¦ youā€™ll put half the writers in the world out of business. ;o)

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ā€œdeconstructedā€ can be quite helpful as it often indicates use of certain ingredients but not in the classical fashion

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Really? Weird, Iā€™ve honestly never seen it in that context. Whenever Iā€™ve seen ā€œdeconstructedā€ as a description of a food item, itā€™s specifically meant to describe a well-known dish thatā€™s presented in a way for the diner to assemble themselves. For example, a ā€œdeconstructedā€ black forest cake might have slabs of cake, a dollop of cherry compote, a container of coconut, and a dollop of walnut paste smeared on a plate.

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Oddly, I just looked up the menu for that cafe, hoping to provide more ā€œfloweryā€ descriptors. But they changed it again, and all it says now is ā€œ100% Angusā€.

Half the ā€œwritersā€ in any world are below average ability, although weā€™ve heard said that the Lake Woebegone Exception applies where every kid in the neighbourhood is Madame Currie, Mary Cassatt, and Madonna wrapped into one precious parcel whom the ā€œguidanceā€ counselors adore (at the risk of helicopter parentsā€™ wrath).

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