I can't do posh

Plukky

HAL9000 said:

Well on our last night in Austria I took Mrs9000 to the poshest restaurant I've ever been to. Never again. Food very nicely presented but so little of it that I doubt they even drew blood from the animals comprising the meal, and suspect that even now they're frolicing around a field somewhere. The vegetation probably came from bonsai plants, and pudding was a redcurrant in a swirl of foamy cream.

Some of the clientele were breathtakingly rude to the waiting staff, and the whole thing appeared to be style over substance.

What's that all about then?

Am I missing something here? Were we all being taken on an expensive ride that no-one dared complain about for fear of being seen as the one that somehow didn't 'get it'? Or an I the Philistine?

For me: I have eaten a few meals that cost a lot of money - I have come out every time with no question that I got what I had paid for - if this restaurant didn't make you feel like that...  It sounds like you shouldn't go back to this restaurant again, primarily.

As to whether you should "get it" or are a "Philistine", it's all a matter of taste, the same as how some people think that any guitar beyond a Squier is an extravagance, and some people own guitars with 5 figure price tags,

Phil_aka_Pip

I don't care if the posh/rich want to squander their money on miniscule portions of non-food that would be better displayed in the Tate Modern. I had a very good meal recently which was (for me) expensive but at least it fed me. As for the crap referred to above, give me a plateful of sausage bean & chips any day

RaymondLin

Maynehead;692698" said:

The extra money mostly goes on service. Food is food, a carrot is still going to taste like a carrot even when you spend a fortune on it. :P

There is some truth in that and there are not.

Most crop these days are grown for quantity, some even are genetically modified to grow larger and faster in order to maintain the demands of the population.

What if you grow the crop for taste? You know how some apples taste better, some grapes are more sweet and some more sour. What if you grow and bred only for taste and not for quantity?

There are restaurants who do that. Dan Barber's Blue Hill Farm in New York is one of them, the restaurant has its own farm, it grows and breed animals for tastes.

Moe_Zambeek

boogieman;692820" said:

I was on jury service with a guy who was a chef at the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge. He invited us all over for a meal after the trial had finished (only three of us turned up). It was the most spectacular food I've ever had, it was so beautifully presented it was almost a crime to eat it and the flavours were superb. Bigger portions than Raymond's pics too. The best bit was he'd called in all sorts of favours with the hotel manager and got staff discount as well, so we got a brilliant table, a five course meal, loads of alcohol including aperitifs, liqueurs and a different wine with every course......all for £30 each.
I can understand the reason behind the normal relatively high cost of a meal like that. The poncey "lettuce leaf served with gold foil and unicorn hoof dressing" stuff for £50 a portion is just a pisstake IMO.

That sounds like an excellent karmic reward for doing your civic duty

randomhandclaps

Posh restaurants are one of the things that epitomise the problem with the posh and rich. They drag their underachieving born into money lazy arses past homeless ex-soldiers on their way to have their egos massaged by minimum wage waiters who are forced to suck up shit so they can feed their kids.  They spend their evening looking for petty complaints about service not befitting their social standing and get their unsustainable sense of self-impotance reinforced by spending an average hard-working person's monthly wage on a piece of meat that has had better living conditions (after it was dead) than the guy serving it. 

I have a friend who is a phenomenal chef in one of the poshest places in London. He is working to save to move his family to Canada. He lives in a tiny maisonette and if you heard some of the shit he has to put up with then most of us would going off all Michael Ryan. 

Personally I think the whole nation would be improved if you served them McDonalds burger and fries, gave the leftover money to charity and made them watch a video of what life is like in the real world and how those mother's who they pooh-pooh for feeding their kids shit like McDonalds for their birthday don't actually have a choice.

Plukky

randomhandclaps said:

Posh restaurants are one of the things that epitomise the problem with the posh and rich. They drag their underachieving born into money lazy arses past homeless ex-soldiers on their way to have their egos massaged by minimum wage waiters who are forced to suck up shit so they can feed their kids.  They spend their evening looking for petty complaints about service not befitting their social standing and get their unsustainable sense of self-impotance reinforced by spending an average hard-working person's monthly wage on a piece of meat that has had better living conditions (after it was dead) than the guy serving it. 

I have a friend who is a phenomenal chef in one of the poshest places in London. He is working to save to move his family to Canada. He lives in a tiny maisonette and if you heard some of the shit he has to put up with then most of us would going off all Michael Ryan. 

Personally I think the whole nation would be improved if you served them McDonalds burger and fries, gave the leftover money to charity and made them watch a video of what life is like in the real world and how those mother's who they pooh-pooh for feeding their kids shit like McDonalds for their birthday don't actually have a choice.

Leaving aside the generalising, troll nature of this post and the massive potential for hypocrisy assuming that you have eaten a meal in your life that cost more than a Big Mac, and that you do presumably live a lifestyle that has a standard higher than the "real world" you describe...

Why can't people spend their money as they see fit? Should the "minimum wage waiters" be unemployed rather than have a job?

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I don't care if the posh/rich want to squander their money on miniscule portions of non-food that would be better displayed in the Tate Modern. I had a very good meal recently which was (for me) expensive but at least it fed me. As for the crap referred to above, give me a plateful of sausage bean & chips any day

IMO you're conflating basic nutrition with a sensory experience.  You don't (purely) go to a posh restaurant to fill up on the calories you require to live, you pay for an experience, which happens to be a culinary one.  You wouldn't compare a 3 pound pint of beer with a free glass of water on the basis that they are both a drink which you need to survive.

Grunfeld

Plukky said:

...You don't (purely) go to a posh restaurant to fill up on the calories you require to live, you pay for an experience, which happens to be a culinary one.

Yep, that makes sense of it for me.  I guess that some of us value that experience and some of us don't.  I don't value it and wouldn't like it at all but at least you've made it make sense for me. 

Hootsmon

drink lots of water and turn on kitchen tap see if that helps.......if that fails see Doc for diuretics

scrumhalf

I take my hat off to whoever invented nouvelle cuisine. To be able to serve less food and persuade people to pay more for it because of the way it's been put on a plate - genius.

I used to eat in quite a few fancy restaurants in Knightsbridge/Kensington/Chelsea, the food was nice but worth nowhere near what we paid for it. I always preferred to eat at the pub round the corner which had tendencies towards being foodie but managed to hold itself back.

The, for want of a better word, poncification of food is appalling.

RaymondLin

For the record, I am happy eating a fish and chips wrapped in newspaper as the next guy, as long as it's good fish and chips. Food doesn't need to be presented like art for it to be good. However, an 18 course meal like above isn't about getting your dinner meal and get fed, it's about the food, it's almost a celebration of food and what it can be. In one meal I got to taste a lot of flavours, each one unique and not something you find in a ready meal. You would have to spend a hell a lot more cooking it yourself on ingredients alone to cook them all, before taking into account the skill to do it in.

That's before we talk about the experience of dining, just sit and talk to your friends while people bring you food, they would come and clear bread crumbs off the table too if there are any, top up the wine if your glass is empty. Sure, and yes, I can do that and I do feel weird having someone being THAT attentive, but isn't it nice if someone does it for you? Not because it's expected, but just nice to.

Over that course I had about 5 waiting staff who brought me food and drink, the chef themselves who cooked the course comes out to explain the ingredients and origin of the dish, before I got there that day, in the afternoon they called me to confirm my attendance (I was in Heathrow, the restaurant is in Copenhagen). One might read that as snobbery but it's just good manners and polite to me?

It seems small minded  to make judgment on the entire social aspect of society base on hearsay.  

Rude people are rude.  Money or class has little to do with it.

randomhandclaps

Plukky said:

randomhandclaps said:

Posh restaurants are one of the things that epitomise the problem with the posh and rich. They drag their underachieving born into money lazy arses past homeless ex-soldiers on their way to have their egos massaged by minimum wage waiters who are forced to suck up shit so they can feed their kids.  They spend their evening looking for petty complaints about service not befitting their social standing and get their unsustainable sense of self-impotance reinforced by spending an average hard-working person's monthly wage on a piece of meat that has had better living conditions (after it was dead) than the guy serving it. 

I have a friend who is a phenomenal chef in one of the poshest places in London. He is working to save to move his family to Canada. He lives in a tiny maisonette and if you heard some of the shit he has to put up with then most of us would going off all Michael Ryan. 

Personally I think the whole nation would be improved if you served them McDonalds burger and fries, gave the leftover money to charity and made them watch a video of what life is like in the real world and how those mother's who they pooh-pooh for feeding their kids shit like McDonalds for their birthday don't actually have a choice.

Leaving aside the generalising, troll nature of this post and the massive potential for hypocrisy assuming that you have eaten a meal in your life that cost more than a Big Mac, and that you do presumably live a lifestyle that has a standard higher than the "real world" you describe...

Why can't people spend their money as they see fit? Should the "minimum wage waiters" be unemployed rather than have a job?

No I don't live a life above that, we struggle like most friends I know do.  We work hard but equally we struggle.  Not that really it has any baring on a human being's opinion, although I appreciate you may disagree.

My issue isn't with how people spend their money it is to do with the ridiculous gulf that people like yourself (displayed above) feel is acceptable in a civilised world.  With your slight that mine was a troll post you merely highlight your ignorance that people can view the world, humanitarian priorities and social make up as different to your own.  Then again ignorance and snobbery are close allies as Holnrew noted earlier with his Emperor New Clothes comment. The bizarre belief that those serving you should be grateful for any pay or working conditions rather than expect decent and comparative ones is in line with what I think is horrendously wrong with the rich and you've clearly sit on that side of the fence (at least belief wise) so we aren't going to agree are we? So it's no surprise it ruffled your plumage.  

You complain about me generalising whilst admittedly making assumptions about my life experiences of which you know zilch which does kind of make your cry of hypocrisy not only a generalisation in itself but clearly inserted merely as a cheap dig. 

In the end all you actually did was pose a couple of questions that you probably view as rhetorical (because you have a definite concept of world order) and try and have a sly pop. Weirdly that is precisely how most customers treat my chef friend so I can understand why for you, coupled with great food, it would be an enjoyable dining experience.

axisus

If I can't get a slab of steak, a ton of chips and no rabbit food then I ain't interested.

guitarfishbay

HAL9000 said:

Well on our last night in Austria I took Mrs9000 to the poshest restaurant I've ever been to. Never again. Food very nicely presented but so little of it that I doubt they even drew blood from the animals comprising the meal, and suspect that even now they're frolicing around a field somewhere. The vegetation probably came from bonsai plants, and pudding was a redcurrant in a swirl of foamy cream.

Some of the clientele were breathtakingly rude to the waiting staff, and the whole thing appeared to be style over substance.

What's that all about then?

Am I missing something here? Were we all being taken on an expensive ride that no-one dared complain about for fear of being seen as the one that somehow didn't 'get it'? Or an I the Philistine?

There's no need to be rude to people and I hate that.  I think those people just suck tbh.

I'm not rich but I do like food, and once, maybe twice a year we'll go to a place that will be expensive (to us).  I'd call £50 a head for a three course meal expensive (I don't drink alcohol which keeps the bill down).  I'm in the North so Londoners may feel differently.

Did you just eat a main meal?  IME you need to eat starter, main, dessert, plus whatever mini courses they bring you in between if you want to feel 'full'.  Portions are usually smaller but it is better in some ways as you can try more things (providing you're willing to spend the budget).

There's a place fairly locally to where I work which is nice, but if you only buy a main you wouldn't be full.  Quite a few people from work have been and complained they've got chippy on the way home.  When we went we went all in and did starter, main, dessert... we were stuffed (and we both eat too much in general anyway, so are aware of what being stuffed feels like).

As a general meal out this stuff is well out of my price and comfort range, but I enjoy good food cooked well and am more likely and open to trying new foods at a 'posh(er)' place.

Most of the time I'm more than happy with a kebab from my local takeaway.  On Saturday night I had a drive through McFlurry because the bloody shops were shut and I wanted ice cream...

WezV

I am all for it.  Sadly i can't afford it, doesn't happen very often.   But i love food, i enjoy flavours... couldn't give  a crap what it looks like really though   

I enjoy sausage egg and chips.   but not all sausage egg and chips is created equal  - I am sure we would all have a different idea of what our ideal sausage egg and chips would be.  I eat cheap sausage and oven chips fairly regularly, it fits my busy lifestyle - i never skimp on eggs though, a properly cooked high quality egg is better than anything ever 

I once spent 3 days cooking a slab of belly pork.  That included making a marinade, a long long time slow cooking,   time being pressed and resting.  then it was sliced into perfect little squares before finally having 15minutes frying in a pan.   This was just for me and my wife, and just because I wanted to try something.  it was fun, the process allowed me to develop layer upon layer of flavour into the pork,we both really enjoyed eating it.   We also enjoy  a strip of belly pork that has spent 20-30 minutes on a BBQ.

ICBM

It's not the food as a form of art that I have a problem with - I understand that, although it's not something I'm particularly interested in - it's the customer attitude towards the staff and the expected behaviour of the staff (presumably if they want to keep their jobs, anyway) that I take exception to.

To me a waiter is an employee doing a job for my benefit, not a servant. I wouldn't treat them as an inferior, I don't want to see other people doing so, nor do I want servile behaviour towards me - I find both equally offensive. I've never been in the sort of 'posh' restaurant this thread is really about, but even the closest I've come has usually left me irritated or outright annoyed, and some time ago I made the decision never to again.

stickyfiddle

ICBM said:

It's not the food as a form of art that I have a problem with - I understand that, although it's not something I'm particularly interested in - it's the customer attitude towards the staff and the expected behaviour of the staff (presumably if they want to keep their jobs, anyway) that I take exception to.

To me a waiter is an employee doing a job for my benefit, not a servant. I wouldn't treat them as an inferior, I don't want to see other people doing so, nor do I want servile behaviour towards me - I find both equally offensive. I've never been in the sort of 'posh' restaurant this thread is really about, but even the closest I've come has usually left me irritated or outright annoyed, and some time ago I made the decision never to again.

Lots of this. I've seen some entitled shitty people in restaurants being dicks and justifying it because they're paying loads, when actually, they're just dicks.

I'm always super-nice to waiters. I've spent enough time around food service jobs to know what a complete bollock it can be, and how much easier your shift is when people are nice to you.

I also don't want to piss off anyone who has the power to put god knows what in something I'm going to eat...

guitarfishbay

Yeah but having money doesn't mean you're like that. I know people who to me are rich (everyone has different definitions) and they're not like that, but I also know people who aren't but who are rude to serving staff. I don't buy this class/wealth argument, maybe it is just my experience but I have seen plenty of 'average' people giving serving staff crap in non expensive restaurants. I think we all agree on the fact you should be respectful to serving staff. Some people are just rude.

holnrew

randomhandclaps said:

Plukky said:

randomhandclaps said:

Posh restaurants are one of the things that epitomise the problem with the posh and rich. They drag their underachieving born into money lazy arses past homeless ex-soldiers on their way to have their egos massaged by minimum wage waiters who are forced to suck up shit so they can feed their kids.  They spend their evening looking for petty complaints about service not befitting their social standing and get their unsustainable sense of self-impotance reinforced by spending an average hard-working person's monthly wage on a piece of meat that has had better living conditions (after it was dead) than the guy serving it. 

I have a friend who is a phenomenal chef in one of the poshest places in London. He is working to save to move his family to Canada. He lives in a tiny maisonette and if you heard some of the shit he has to put up with then most of us would going off all Michael Ryan. 

Personally I think the whole nation would be improved if you served them McDonalds burger and fries, gave the leftover money to charity and made them watch a video of what life is like in the real world and how those mother's who they pooh-pooh for feeding their kids shit like McDonalds for their birthday don't actually have a choice.

Leaving aside the generalising, troll nature of this post and the massive potential for hypocrisy assuming that you have eaten a meal in your life that cost more than a Big Mac, and that you do presumably live a lifestyle that has a standard higher than the "real world" you describe...

Why can't people spend their money as they see fit? Should the "minimum wage waiters" be unemployed rather than have a job?

No I don't live a life above that, we struggle like most friends I know do.  We work hard but equally we struggle.  Not that really it has any baring on a humab beings opinion, although o appreciate you may disagree.

My issue isn't with how people spend their money it is to do with the ridiculous gulf that people like yourself (displayed above) feel is acceptable in a civilised world.  With your slight that mine was a troll post you merely highlight your ignorance that people can view the world, humanitarian priorities and social make up as different to your own.  Then again ignorance and snobbery are close allies as Holnrew noted earlier with his Emperor New Clothes comment. The bizarre belief that those serving you should be grateful for any pay or working conditions rather than expect decent and comparative ones is in line with what I think is horrendously wrong with the rich and you've clearly sit on that side of the fence (at least belief wise) so we aren't going to agree are we? So it's no surprise it ruffled your plumage.  

You complain about me generalising whilst admittedly making assumptions about my life experiences of which you know zilch which does kind of make your cry of hypocrisy not only a generalisation in itself but clearly inserted merely as a cheap dig. 

In the end all you actually did was pose a couple of questions that you probably view as rhetorical (because you have a definite concept of world order) and try and have a sly pop. Weirdly that is precisely how most customers treat my chef friend so I can understand why for you, coupled with great food, it would be an enjoyable dining experience.

I enjoyed this post more than having an orgasm.

ESBlonde

I've seen plenty of arrogant wankers being abusive to staff in places McDoughnuts or Pizza palace or local pub/restaurants. The class of human has little to do with fiscal wealth, some people are just cnuts.

There are places of all budgets (I don't generally feel comfortable in places charging £100 a head myself) which are good and bad. Often the chef is the decider for me. If they are passionate about the food it usually shows in several ways, I am happy to indulge myself sometimes. If the quality of food is reheated splodge then I expect fast service and low cost. Polite service is always reciprocated and indeed I will continue to be polite even if the serving staff are clearly not, Just because they are wankers doesn't mean I have to act like one.

Plukky

@randomhandclaps

I don't view the questions as rhetorical at all actually - please feel free to respond to them.

As far as calling your post a troll post, I don't believe that you think that writing "[the rich] drag their underachieving born into money lazy arses past homeless ex-soldiers on their way to have their egos massaged by minimum wage waiters who are forced to suck up shit so they can feed their kids" is part of a rational and reasonable debate, so I called it as I saw it. 

Being rude and entitled is separate from being rich - you can walk past a homeless soldier on the way to McDonalds, and be rude to the staff there without being rich.  I doubt the soldier or the member of staff see much distinction.