Just seen this on a sample menu for a hotel we are visiting soon

A while ago I went to a very pretentious pub/restaurant in Combinteignhead in Devon and decided to brave trying "lamb five ways" - which included a funny little rissole type thing, a mini shepherds pie, some 'pulled' lamb, a teeny chop and a virtually raw piece of lamb rump. It was served with nettles as one of the vegetables. So continuing to feel brave I tried a couple of mouthfuls. Yuk. As well as tasting disgusting, seriously my mouth felt like it had been stung for 3 days. Presumably it had. Never again.

Hope none of you ever encounter 'deconstructed ' food .

I've had a deconstructed Black Forest Gateau!
It all gets reconstructed when it goes down.

I would have to know and trust the person who picked my wild mushrooms, otherwise I'm happy with the food - but perhaps the descriptions are pretentious

Wondering which pub it was in Combeinteignhead ChrisCross

Ah, just sussed it
I will go to the Coombe Cellars then next time I'm down that way

I retrained as a chef, we were taught the french way with the french name. Fair enough. But nowhere did it ever mention wilted lettuce, burnt butter or any other made up pretenious name, and my other pet hate, I was served a hot coffee in a glass, no handles, in some trendy little place in the country. When I asked why I had a glass instead of a cup or something with a handle on I was told this is how they serve it in London. Well said me, we are not in London and I doubt you have run out of cups so a cup of coffee please...now.

I used to smile when my late father used to turn his nose up at things like Chinese or Indian dishes calling it in his words muckment then would tuck into pigs trotters and pig cheek or tripe with onions which I couldn't stand . I say each to their own I don't like rare cooked meat but appreciate others do .

the best ever I love it.

Maggiemaybe your skate was stale.... you should have sent it back. Fresh skate should be sweet, preferably served with a caper, brown butter sauce and new potatoes. The ammonia smell is a dead give away that the fish has been deceased for some time! (A la Monty Python's parrot)

the best ever I love it.

“As for food in France forget it” claims @kathyd. Frankly, I couldn’t disagree more. Don’t know where you go in France to eat, but there are still lots of places to be found where you get wonderful food for so much less than in this country.

Don’t know either where you buy your bread? None of the bakeries we go to when we visit France use frozen dough. The bakers are hard at work at 2 or 3 in the morning preparing their batches of freshly made dough.

“They aren’t nearly as adventurous in their tastes as the Brits” you also state. Seriously? What a load of nonsense.

“Interesting menu and much cheaper and more varied than it would be in an equivalent restaurant in France!”, you also assert. Funny how my husband & I say the exact opposite every time we have a most wonderful meal in a little brasserie on one of our visits to France.

I certainly think wines from Chile are very good indeed, but to actually assume they are all much better than French wine and that you can’t find a good bottle of French wine anywhere are a complete falsehood and just a tad prejudiced YET AGAIN against anything French.

Honestly all your complaining just make you sound like you’ve got a serious amount of French xenophobia. To not be able to find any good restaurants/brasseries, freshly baked-from-scratch bread and not a single bottle of good wine in France really beggars belief frankly...!!

I thought as much, willsmadnan, though some sources say it's all down to the preparation, or the way that skate, like sharks, get rid of their urine through their skin. Apparently in South Korea they love the urine taste - the more of it the better (that's me feeling bilious btw, not envious!).

Think the clue is in your posting petitfilou.... you visit. Try 15 years of the SW cuisine and you'd be as 'ducked up' as I was. Good French eating places are as rare as hen's (or duck's) teeth. I've even had 'up their bum' chefs in quite mediocre bistros give me the famous Gallic snort because I prefer my magret de canard cooked through. I don't actually like blood oozing into my pommes frites.That's a real treat (not). I actually ordered grilled tuna in a very 'ordinaire' eaterie to be told it would served rare.... obviously the chef couldn't care less about his customers preferences. ! I had the boring chicken...weĺl it was either that or more quaking meat. Never graced his establishment again!
Maison cooked bread's pretty rare too... and unless you are willing to pay 20- 30 euros a bottle
for wine you are going to be knocking back some pretty rot-gut stuff. So, word of advice.... next time you visit France, don't go 'dahn sarf'.

We did have a holiday in France when everything we ate seemed to have been served with a raw egg. We reckoned it was an anti British plot! We always ate very well in truck stops in France though.

There is good and bad eating in every country but this is more about the naming and description of the food

Still on the subject of restaurants but deviating slightly is anyone else fed up of having the meal served up on an old chopping board/plank/slate or tile instead of a plate? We were recently served steak, chips & vegetables with a small jug of gravy, on a manky old chopping board. It had a large split in the board so all the juices from the steak ran through, onto the table and down into my lap. I didn't risk the gravy. So when did style over practicality become "a thing"?

I blame masterchef, I've been watching the Aussie version and they seemed big on burnt butter, chocolate soil and pudding with fennell or thyme in it. Last night they had something with icecream and goats cheese...ugh!

Crisscross, had they cooked the nettles or were they raw? Sounds horrible!

I will give experimental fine dining a go but I draw the line at dessert with herbs such as white chocollate mousse with basil and lavender (yuk) . I did like whipped donut with crunchy custard which I had recently.

Just seen an advert for a local restaurant, a nice piece of pork on the plate a whole cooked apple in its skin but with core removed next to it and six chips standing up in a tiny wire basket Shan't be going there

chewbacca this is for you , from the Oldie

Catherine Tate obviously feels the same way as many in this thread
m.youtube.com/watch?v=KCYU2mJJuwA

Love it janea and the clip which follows.
Made me think, Blue belle, if having the word "burnt" in the name of a dish - I wouldn't ever buy anything with burnt in the title - would put you off, I imagine "dried shit-ache mushrooms" would have you running screaming for the hills?

What I can't stand is the use of boards, slate or marble blocks to serve food on. I hate eating from something with no rim, especially if it is salad or similar. Quite often oil runs off the edges of inappropriate 'crockery'. It seems so pretentious and I know that servers dislike carrying the boards which tend to be heavier and more cumbersome than traditional plates.

www.gransnet.com/forums/food/1233444-I-want-my-dinner-on-a-plate

You might like to read through this recent thread!

londonist.com/london/food/london-s-poshest-dishes?utm_source=Today%27s+posts+from+Londonist&utm_campaign=6d39499512-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_acfd22879f-6d39499512-218155145