I want my dinner on a plate.

It is like pies in a deep pie plate. I have yet to work out; do I take individual veg out of the veg dish and dip the veg in the pie dish to get some gravy on them or do I decant the pie onto the (Usually) dining plate, risking getting gravy all over the table and then put the veg beside them in the traditional way.

In Portugal our meals were served on plates but our friend got his dinner served in what looked like a piece of terracotta guttering! In Cheltenham any restaurant you visit now serves food on trays - literally. I had one meal on a tin tray that was unheated - that was sent back very rapidly with a request for a plate, or at the least a warmed tray!

I love a plate and get really fed up with tiles, baskets etc, but then I also insist on eating pizza with a knife and fork - much to the amusement of the younger family members.

Dont mind chips in a wire basket, but hate meals, any kind, served in a huge soup bowl, as for the wooden slabs, they are full of bacteria it is said,wouldnt fancy eating from one of those.
As for the Swedish little wooden boards, they are just for show these days, or to give someone in another country as a present, not too useful, however the little wooden butter knives are still around, I use them myself sometimes.

Our pet hate is waitresses/waiters who serve drinks by holding them around the top of the glass. YUK! No not a fan of wooden boards instead of plates. Meat juices especially may soak in to the wood and it seems to me possible that you could get E-coli from such boards. Even if they are washed in a dishwasher any cracks may still hold germs. Mashed potatoes and sausages served in a wine glass is just silly imo.

When I watch cookery programmes I notice everyone puts a smear of sauce on the plate and then piles vegetables on top, with undercooked meat balanced precariously at the highest point. I always think - no imagination think of something different.

SO was reading this before lunch, he put a floor tile in the dishwasher on the 30 minute programme, now he is cleaning the filter as the cement? back has all washed off.
Commercial dishwashers do not change the water every time and I would not like to eat from items where slate, or tiles had been cleaned previously. I have also sent steak back and told the chef I would try it if he paid.
How do you clean a flat cap ???????

Lilylilo
There is interesting, then there is gross!

wewantplates.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/food-on-sanitary-towel.jpg

Site wewantplates.com was posted on an earlier page by Isabella

Kim19 I went a few times to a very upmarket restaurant in the 70s where if you requested salt (there were no cruets on the table) the Chef would come out of the kitchen with a bag of salt & plonk it on the table. He was making the point that his food was perfectly seasoned (in his opinion)This was before all the "Celebrity Chefs" on TV.

I hate slates & wooden boards. Don't mind pies/hot pots/etc served in cooking dishes as I can put as much/little on my plate as I wish. Chips in wire baskets I like, again I can dip into them as I wish. But sausage & mash in a wine glass

That reminds me of one time when we were eating in a pub and the man on the next table ordered a well done steak for his wife. The steak came and it was - I could see - very pink. He sent it back. The landlord, who was also the chef, came out and said that steak should not be overlooked and should be eaten the way he had presented it. The man said "well, we'll leave you to eat it then". And they got up and walked out. I felt like applauding them (though I like my steak rare!).

Lily wonder what your dinner guests say when they get home??

I love the exciting way food is presented these days. I thoroughly agree with janeainsworth - just stay at home then and eat off a plate! We often serve food in interesting ways when we have friends for dinner - mmmm.... mini sausage & mash ln a wine glass? -think i'll try it!!

Isn't this a sort of extension of this awful 'celebrity' thing? Let's face it, many chefs are kind of prima donnas. Just listen to 'yes chef; no chef; three bags full chef' I feel many of these plating up quirks come from that urge to be different. Once worked in a restaurant where a chef was really upset that he didn't have the appropriate buttons on his whites to signify his position. Dearie me! I'll never forget an occasion when a lovely young waitress approached my husband with a message from the chef to say that he was only prepared to cook lamb pink. My husband sent her back with his reply to the chef that, as long as he was paying, he would have his lamb tartan if so required. Poor waitress. 'Don't shoot the messenger' springs to mind...... We left pretty soon after but - the chef never appeared before we departed.

I sometimes take on Mystery Shopping jobs and always report back the problems encountered when the restaurant uses anything other than conventional plates. Wooden boards having gone through the dishwasher crack and are most unhygienic, slates with liquids running off them are messy etc. I make a point of saying that it would prevent me returning and if neighbouring customers were commenting I quote them also. Doesn't seem to make a difference but I keep trying.

EVERYTHING that food is served on - slate, baskets, wood, plates - goes through the dishwasher in a commercial kitchen. Unless it's a food item itself

OMG Isabella that site has some really horrid stuff. The red berry dessert on a sanitary towel? EWWWWWWWW

Liked the sign that said they served food on plates. YES!

I am not a fan of slates. If I am having hot food, I like the British tradition of heated plates and do this at home. Coming from New England, you would have thought I'd have been doing that all my life but never did.

Do not use such places. This is uaually a passing fad but when they change they may find they lack those customers they need because of such sillyness.

Omg! Welshwife rat pee,i hadn't thought of that!

My rhubarb and ginger crumble was served in a little pan with a handle. Really weird

How are you supposed to use a knife and fork to cut the sausage if it is in a wine glass? I don't mind chips in metal buckets. I assumed it was a way to control portion.

Not sure about chicken in a basket, I used to love soup in a basket!

Soup in a basket was even worse.........

My views are reflected in John Finnemore's song - he's no singer but he absolutely nails it - warmly recommended!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX4KuEAYIYY

Here in the Black Country years ago when we had steelworks and foundries, the men used to reheat their 'snap' (lunch) in the furnace on a shovel. There's a pub nearby which, as a novelty and when requested, still serves food on a shovel. The shovel is pristine, mind you. Probably unlike the old days when I dread to think on the state of the shovel....

The worst I had was a roast dinner served on a tea plate - I think they had run out of horrible wooden boards - needless to say most of the food ended up on the table. They got a bad TripAdvisor review and I've not been back.