Red Flags on Menus?

Good grief - guilty!!!

A place near me proudly announces that it does not have a children’s menu. I recall it words it something like “We do not have a separate menu for small people aged under X”. But, if preferred, it will make smaller portions of several of its main menu items. There’s usually a goodly number of families - evidence that kids do not need “kids food”.

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

Eg - seafood “paella” - is it paella or not?

Or

Beef “osso buco” - if it is just braised then say braised, osso buco is an actual thing all by itself.

“House made” has described both the worst ketchup and the worst breakfast sausage I’ve ever had.

Or some of the best…

Some of these callouts are getting picky for picky’s sake.

and seem to be more in line of “pet peeves” vs. a menu red flag.

one man’s peeve is another’s flag . . . .

I guess the only real “flag” I could get from a menu would be crushed, crusty, dried food bits stuck all over the menu. If you can’t keep the menu clean . . . . probably best to move on to another restaurant.

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

I’ve had some very good “house” sausages, but I sort of expect that if I’m eating at a decent place they’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 shouldn’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 “oh, it’s actually homemade!” which has stuck in my mind ever sense.

I guess my general point is that it’s a red flag to me if someplace is trying to remake the wheel, because it’s often unnecessary or they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s not that I hate “house-made” food – it’s that its use as a marketing term on menus usually means I’m about to have a disappointing meal.

I’ll see your “deconstructed” and raise you a “curated”.

Did you read the Tampa Times article? Just because a restaurant lists sources doesn’t mean that’s where their stuff came from.

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:

“Our burgers are 100% Certified Angus Beef, and we open-flame grill them to your preference. Served with our French Fries.”

This was when they switched from Niman Ranch beef and hand-cut fries to save money. I complained to the manager, and haven’t been back.

Do we use the second person plural in English - other than colloquial phrases ( eg y’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 didn’t know the previous specifics it would seem fine.

It’s a fucking burger and fries.

In linguistics, there is a set of principles guiding appropriate conversation, called Grice’s maxims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grice’s_maxims#Grice.27s_Maxims

One says “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.”, and another “Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).” Including the extra information can result in suspicion. If they’d said, “made with real beef”, wouldn’t you be a little alarmed–what else could it be made of?

Oh, OK. Unnecessary flowery descriptors. I get it. But, come on… you’ll put half the writers in the world out of business. ;o)

“deconstructed” can be quite helpful as it often indicates use of certain ingredients but not in the classical fashion

Really? Weird, I’ve honestly never seen it in that context. Whenever I’ve seen “deconstructed” as a description of a food item, it’s specifically meant to describe a well-known dish that’s presented in a way for the diner to assemble themselves. For example, a “deconstructed” 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.

Oddly, I just looked up the menu for that cafe, hoping to provide more “flowery” descriptors. But they changed it again, and all it says now is “100% Angus”.

Half the “writers” in any world are below average ability, although we’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 “guidance” counselors adore (at the risk of helicopter parents’ wrath).