Menus are driving me nuts.
Menus exist to sell. The study of menu engineering is fascinating and it's said that a properly designed and engineered menu can add as much as 20% to a restaurant's profits.
But what's this over-fanciful language all about? Why do restaurants do that? I really don't need to know every damned ingredient. If I did (if for example I had a dietary restriction) then I am capable of asking.
Fancy a large tender ground beef patty expertly fashioned from grass-fed 100% beef nestling atop our freshly house-made poppy seed bun with farm-fresh salad leaves, juicy American tomatoes and imported pickle served with sauteed potatoes and a choice of our chef's selection of relishes?
Burger and chips.
Have you noticed that there's no such thing as a roast potato these days? They are roasted. Gravy, or as it's more likely to be called, jus - or indeed anything liquid, is always drizzled. Things are served on beds of this or compotes of that. However, the once-popular fusion seems to be on the wane, thank goodness.
Every vegetable you come across is farm-fresh and newly-harvested. Foods are blended, oven-baked and pan-fried. (I may be showing my culinary ignorance here but I don't know any way to bake something that DOESN'T feature an oven.) Everything else is char-grilled to perfection, sun-ripened or vine-grown. And just about everything includes a caramelized something or other. Meat is prime-aged, grain-fed, double-cut and succulent.
Desserts are swirled, glazed, nestled, fluffed and of course, are always sinful.
Even bread is fire-toasted.
And they really trip over themselves with those seemingly endless hyphens - hand-rubbed, EVOO-coated, honey-banana, mango-promegranate...
Being English, what I really want is some locally-harvested, ocean-fresh prime cod, lightly tossed in our chef's own speciality batter, pan-fried and lovingly served with sliced and sauteed house-made farm-fresh premium King Edward potatoes and traditional, homestyle vintage malt vinegar.
Served en papillote for you to enjoy in the comfort of your own home, no doubt.
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