Which recent food trends make you roll your eyes?

Like the tuna tartare of the 90s, some ingredients/dishes seem to be found everywhere on the menu these days.

Kale has yet to disappear from Caesar salads (whyyyy), hot honey is put on errrrrrything – but usually on fried Brussels sprouts with bacon and/or balsamic (another seemingly endless trend) – and charcuterie boards aren’t going anywhere.

What dish, ingredient or prep makes you feel like you’re experiencing serious déjà vu - not to mention boredom with the conformity of so many, many menus?

Keep it light. Be nice. Disagreeing about something doesn’t have to get personal. Someone’s annoyance with a food you love isn’t a dis on your entire existence. It’s just f’n food :wink:

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Shrimp and eggplant pizza.

Too soon? :sweat_smile:

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Butter boards.
I’ve never even seen or participated in one but I’m still sick of them.
We used to get in trouble for directly buttering our corn by rolling it on the stick of butter. Now doing that is trendy and hip.
:slight_smile:

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$20+ cocktails.

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Is that recent? You live in the city if I’m not mistaken, and I recall forking over $21 for a lowly G&T at the Breslin back when April Bloomfield still had her place there, and this was easily well over 10 years ago.

One of our favorite cocktail bars in Philly also charges around the $20 range. I guess it’s more a matter of inflation… which I suppose is technically a trend, but not a culinary one.

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Actually, I thought that was one of the more interesting and possibly quite tasty trends, but I’ve yet to encounter or make one myself.

Pricey places have always had pricey drinks, but more and more cocktail bars are pushing up the cost of drinks, and not in line with the general menu prices.

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It’s ALWAYS the right time for shrimp and eggplant pizza.

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The worst food trends are the most widespread:

Brioche used for sandwiches, hot dogs, and burgers. I do not want my sandwiches on sweet bread.

Kettle potato chips. Mostly burnt and hard.

Smashed burgers and burgers stacked tall with toppings. None of this
Comes close to a thick burger ordered medium rare.

Lobster Mac n cheese. You’ve just ruined both.

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Agree on all counts - especially - the lobster mac, but I find most sandwich breads or burger buns in the US to be on the sweeter side.

These things tear the crap out of the roof of my mouth, so I avoid them (if I can).

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TikTok videos of what ends up being godawful looking dishes that the uber-thin girl with fingernails an inch long has never made before and never eats the results on camera but is only creating something horrifying (wasting perfectly good ingredients) for the clicks.

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Those are basically just stunt videos with edible props. 99% of those don’t pass as actual ‘food.’ :nauseated_face:

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People putting nduja in everything. Might just be a UK thing , it’s the new sun dried tomatoes.

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It’s not. The suffering is global. Or at least in two countries.

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Oh, I really love it, so I welcome it whenever it’s on the menu. But it def fits the bill of trendy foods.

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I like it too but it’s getting a bit much now.
Exhibit A for the prosecution.

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“Small plates” restaurants.

They’re spreading as fast as Covid did and with about as much enjoyment.

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Yeah, we’re nowhere near that kind of proliferation. I can get a hunk for $30 at a local Italian cafe/grocer, but … thazza lot of nduja for two peeps. I wonder if it freezes well :thinking:

As someone who much prefers to try many different things at a meal out vs. the traditional app/main/dessert, I absolutely love it. Well before small plates became a more mainstream thing I almost always enjoyed the antipasti / mezze / entrées part more than the main. I experience flavor fatigue pretty quickly.

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