when will this food wankery ever end?

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Already a bit over pan fried, oven roasted, sun ripened and all that shit, but yesterday I refused to order something because I was told that it had a 'bed of vally grown gourmet spinach'. On principle. Is the customer so thick they'll think "ooh, it's gourmet spinach and it's valley grown. I better get some." Wankers. And don't get me started on painfully hip waiters...

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:49 (twenty years ago)

I'll have an e please Bob.

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:50 (twenty years ago)

AND HOW BOUT THOSE JEWS

― flea market economy (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:54 (twenty years ago)

These may be more to your liking - "ghetto lasagna"

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:55 (twenty years ago)

jody i kiss you

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:57 (twenty years ago)

Already a bit over pan fried, oven roasted, sun ripened and all that shit

Since when are these things wanky -- do you prefer your food microwaved?

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:59 (twenty years ago)

Since when did Americans start calling things "wanky" and people "wankers"?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:04 (twenty years ago)

Since they first heard about Ricky Gervais.

― Dan (It's True) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:05 (twenty years ago)

I'm Australian. I like lard. And chips.
And I'm a bit grumpy.

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:05 (twenty years ago)

also try dr. strongo's neuvo cuisine

― Aaron A, Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:12 (twenty years ago)

Now I'm hungry for batter-dipped and deep-fried iceberg lettuce.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:14 (twenty years ago)

lard is the new spinach

http://villagevoice.com/nyclife/0538,fsietsema,67988,15.html

― Renard (Renard), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:30 (twenty years ago)

"Painfully hip waiters": I'm still confused by this defensive maneuver where people get annoyed by their sense that other people are hip. "La di da, these hip waiters with their complicated shoes" -- what harm is it doing others exactly? What is it taking from others that they actually want? I dunno.

Also whenever someone describes a person as anything like "painfully hip" I tend to conclude that the person in question was only vaguely semi-hip. I'm not sure why: I guess the assumption is that people who'd unselfconsciously talk about how hip people were would tend to have a certain level of hip-perception? It gets complicated.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:32 (twenty years ago)

- My lunch was ruined.
- Wow, what happened?
- It was the waiter.
- Bad service?
- No, he was just so ... hip!
- Huh?
- He just wouldn't stop with the hipness, walking around being hip, hip, hip, it was disgusting! I couldn't eat.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:35 (twenty years ago)

what about the WORLD BANK

― gear (gear), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:40 (twenty years ago)

this thread is a hundred times funnier if you read it in a carlos mencia voice

― flea market economy (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:41 (twenty years ago)

"hmmph, i used to order that when i ate here. it's alright now, but it was better back then. wine?"

― DOQQUN (donut), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:42 (twenty years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002O66.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― phil d. (Phil D.), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:46 (twenty years ago)

I guess I'm talking about going out for a reasonably expensive meal and hoping that the service that I'm paying for will enhance my nice night out but being disappointed when I get stuck with someone whose job doesn't really warrant the obnoxious attitude, who has a face like a smacked arse and who made us felt like we were imposing on him the entire evening. Maybe he just had a bad day. (And I shouldn't have said hip as I can't stand people describing things as 'trendy'.)
Sheesh.

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

Aha, so you mean "obnoxious, ugly-faced, and unhelpful," not "hip."

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:56 (twenty years ago)

Muat . . . resist . . . cheap . . . shot . . .

― phil d. (Phil D.), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:58 (twenty years ago)

Your cheap shot would be against the concept of semantics, not hipsters!

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 27 April 2006 21:59 (twenty years ago)

But I nevertheless hope Muat can resist it.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 27 April 2006 22:00 (twenty years ago)

Sigh... not ugly at all Nabisco, just a puckered, sour expressioned turning my nose up at ya because quite frankly I have deemed you unworthy of my decent service kind of face, snooty and a bit too try hard in the fashion stakes but not really very stylish at all actually in a yoof tv presenter way. So no, not a whiff of hipness to be seen.

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Thursday, 27 April 2006 22:05 (twenty years ago)

i'm with you on the spinach, that's a bit much. I just wonder how you found something you could eat 'on principle' In places like that, pretension usually suffuses everything on the menu(and I wouldn't include sun ripened et al under pretentious, get one taste bud...).

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Thursday, 27 April 2006 22:16 (twenty years ago)

You're right, so I'm off for a chimney smoked carousel of tepid dill gerbil glazed in a vine ripened facade of czech noisettes, suggested on a bed of caramelised Tuscan chanson enrique. mmmm...

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Thursday, 27 April 2006 22:25 (twenty years ago)

and a bit too try hard in the fashion stakes but not really very stylish at all actually in a yoof tv presenter way

well, maybe it was a uniform and not his fault.

and also, maybe he was at the waiter-station going, ugh, look at that obnoxious painfully-hip couple over there at table 34. i was just reading the specials-of-the-day and he kept giving his girlfriend oh-so-superiors looks everytime i mentioned how a dish was prepared. what an asshole. i think i'll put a pube in his salad and sneer at them all night long. they deserve it.

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 27 April 2006 22:31 (twenty years ago)

There are no new tales to tell.

― Everyone Needs a Negro, Thursday, 27 April 2006 23:32 (twenty years ago)

(xpost) Ah, Phil: you've worked in restaurants, too, I see!

I could care less about attitude-y waitstaff as long as the food's good. Attitude-y waitstaff gets teeny tiny tip.

― Jay Vee's Return (Manon_69), Thursday, 27 April 2006 23:37 (twenty years ago)

Well we dont tip at all down here, so how are we supposed to indicate bad service? Ive been to some very exclusive expensive places where the waiters were lovely - either subtle and unobtrusive, or calm, friendly and helpful in the right balance. Waiters who hover constantly, who are blunt and actually rude for no reason (as in, if you innocently ask what a dish is, they snort at you derisively for not knowing - I have had this happen!) are not welcome. Esp not in Aus where wait staff are paid pretty damn well.

I dont know why everyone's landing shit on dr lulu - I mean there's good food, described well, and there's ridiculous, laughable hyperbole and non-descriptions. I dont need my food to have a fancy over the top name when I know it is simply a good steak or side of softened onion in wine juice.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 28 April 2006 00:14 (twenty years ago)

i love the menus at lupa for that. they DO have a glossary on the back but on the main part of the menu it's just, "SALTIMBOCCA" or like, "PORK SHIN" and you're like fuck one glossary gimme that.

"oven roasted" is pretty funny. as opposed to?

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 00:19 (twenty years ago)

Yeah oven roasted isn't wanky, thats true.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:08 (twenty years ago)

no i think it IS wanky, i mean what else does one roast things in???

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:12 (twenty years ago)

half of ILE: "why is traycey talking to hirself?"

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:13 (twenty years ago)

pans, tracer hand!

Results 1 - 10 of about 4,240,000 for pan roasted. (0.34 seconds)

― estela (estela), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:16 (twenty years ago)

pans pshaw

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:19 (twenty years ago)

the pans go in the oven usually anyway so mine was a dumb riposte.

― estela (estela), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:21 (twenty years ago)

man, I had the best damn pizza in Sydney

I mean who'da thought it, right, but damn that was the best pizza

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:26 (twenty years ago)

also OMG JESTER'S PIES, anyone who has not tried them is not even ALIVE

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:26 (twenty years ago)

roasted OVER AN OPEN FIYA!

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:27 (twenty years ago)

when i do homefries i dice em and put em in a pan on the stovetop with some butter that's about to burn and let it it ssssssss for a few minutes and jiggle it around and flip stuff over and then i turn down the heat and plop a cover on it... i guess this last step is SORT of roasting? i don't think i even know the definition of roasting, now that i think about it. in my mind it's like broiling but a lot slower.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:28 (twenty years ago)

homefries are fried.

― estela (estela), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:29 (twenty years ago)

Jesters pies are the best arent they Thomas!

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:35 (twenty years ago)

what are these jesters pies? and where do you get them?

― estela (estela), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:36 (twenty years ago)

I don't like them. The jingle bells from their curly-toed slippers hurt my teeth.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:37 (twenty years ago)

Or, put another way:

Jester pies?! WTF?

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:38 (twenty years ago)

Americans cannot handle the realness

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:41 (twenty years ago)

I am American but I had a realness seminar in order to better comprehend the magnificence of Jester's pies

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:42 (twenty years ago)

Oh the egg and bacon breakfast pie... nyom.

They used to only exist in perth - I guess they're in Sydney as well as Melb now.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:42 (twenty years ago)

I'll have an e please Bob.
-- dr lulu (dr.lulu66...), April 27th, 2006 10:50 PM. (dr lulu)

angry posts followed by "shameless" references deserve more cred.

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:45 (twenty years ago)

* spot the deliberate mistakje!!!!!!!!!!!!1

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:45 (twenty years ago)

I ate 'em in Perth
I ate 'em in Sydney
somehow I missed the Melbourne shop but I won't make that mistake twice

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Friday, 28 April 2006 01:45 (twenty years ago)

i like the Cornish pasties they sell in London train stations. The cheese and onion ones I really miss.

― Jay Vee's Return (Manon_69), Friday, 28 April 2006 02:09 (twenty years ago)

*makes note to mail Thomas some Jesters Pies. Maybe. Ew, actually, possibly a bad idea*

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 28 April 2006 02:23 (twenty years ago)

To be fair, I can see why the spinach thing would be annoying too. I recently had a meal that included "artisinal beans." I still can't get over that, especially since there was nothing special-tasting about them.

But the pretense is only annoying when it's pretense, and doesn't actually translate to anything taste-wise.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 28 April 2006 02:28 (twenty years ago)

there's a jesters over the road from my new work! current seasonal pie = CAJUN. NZ attempts at cajun = rofflelicious.

― etc, Friday, 28 April 2006 03:59 (twenty years ago)

wine juice?

― electric sound of jim (and why not) (electricsound), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:04 (twenty years ago)

Since when did Americans start calling things "wanky" and people "wankers"?

-- Jerry the Nipper (jerrythenippe...), April 27th, 2006 5:04 PM. (Jerrynipper) (link)

It's been happening for some time. Are you British?

Maybe somehow associated with Austin Powers? Wanker is more common than "shag" or "snog" but Americans will use these terms with tounge not entirely in cheek.

― Whispy Fandango Triphop (unclejessjess), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:21 (twenty years ago)

I've heard it used in a musical context for years, i.e. "it's such a wanky guitar solo."

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:25 (twenty years ago)

wine juice

Heh I was waiting for someone to pull me up on that mangled phrasing.

I was thinking of jus of red wine, but I figured in saying so I'd sound as wanky as the menus I was complaining about. I meant like, a wine deglaze I guess. Wine juice, wtf. I need a holiday.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:34 (twenty years ago)

i'm as disgusted as a vegan doing au jus shots at the slaughterhouse

― electric sound of jim (and why not) (electricsound), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:43 (twenty years ago)

I recently had a meal that included "artisinal beans." I still can't get over that, especially since there was nothing special-tasting about them.

i think "artisanal" is fine as long as there's some truth in the advertising. i just saw a freaking WENDY'S commercial where they were advertising a sandwich on an "artisanal" roll -- uh, no. wendy's is mass-produced, processed and refined to hell, and has absolutely zero to do with the tradition of small-batch, hand-crafted, farmer's market- style goods from little independent producers. wendy's just wants to use "artisanal" where they mean "vaguely rustic-seeming." leave it to a fast-food place to be more pretentious than the yuppies!

― flea market economy (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:47 (twenty years ago)

Well, yeah, I assumed it meant grown in small batches by small farmers in this case, but still, beans is beans.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:51 (twenty years ago)

which is to say that "artisanal" isn't a qualitative judgement about how artistic-tasting the food is, rather it's supposed to refer to the method and scale of manufacture. so even if there was nothing special-tasting about your beans, they still could have very well been artisanal. although i'm curious what was done to them (and by whom).

― flea market economy (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:52 (twenty years ago)

it could have something to do with the type of soil and growing methods. the beans were probably grown in a climate-controlled greenhouse with some nifty designer fertilizer.

― flea market economy (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 28 April 2006 04:58 (twenty years ago)

Mum: How was your day sweetheart?
Lulu: Oh not so good, all those kids have been pickin' on me again. Mum: Why don't I make you your favourite dinner eh? Roast chicken
Lulu: Is it grain fed?
Mum: Of course.
Lulu: Roasted in the oven?
Mum: Well I was gonna use the toaster but I guess I could oven roast it.
Lulu: And chips? Deep fried in a pan?
Mum: You betcha!
Lulu: Thanks Mum you're the greatest!
Mum: So what have you learnt today Lulu?
Lulu: Don't come home from work in a grumpy mood, smoke a spliff and have a random whinge about something on ILE, waiters are people too, although some of them are a little insecure and snobbery is a good thing. Still not sure why some people think I'm a boy though.
Mum: What do you mean exactly, snobbery?
Lulu: Aw Mum!!

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Friday, 28 April 2006 05:00 (twenty years ago)

http://www.barenada.com/neisha/misc/puz_jack_beanstalk.jpg

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 28 April 2006 05:02 (twenty years ago)

(xpost)

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 28 April 2006 05:02 (twenty years ago)

i also get a little ticked off when american fast-food and frozen-food companies use "bistro" to mean something really gourmet and enviable. ("ooh, get you and your exquisite bistro creations.") bistros, historically, are unfussy working-class gastropubs, and a ukrainian-born friend of mine told me that the word that bistro derives from has a "servant food" connotation in russia.

― flea market economy (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 28 April 2006 05:13 (twenty years ago)

and "rustic" is a popular thing now but sometimes among chef-types it's a condescending way of saying "this could have been made by your senile home-cook mom who doesn't have any knife skills."

i think marketing types just see this stuff on menus and decide that they can be hip and edgy by throwing it around completely randomly.

― flea market economy (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 28 April 2006 05:27 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, "rustic" has been thrown around like a rag doll. Isn't there a kind of roll at some fast food chain or other called a "rustic roll"? Subway maybe? Au Bon Pain?

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 28 April 2006 05:32 (twenty years ago)

Supposedly 'bistro' is the Russian word for 'quickly', used by them Russkies who defeated Napoleon to hurry up hip 19th century Parisian waiters by treating them like serfs. Hence its French meaning as 'gaff specialising in straightforward, decent but rapidly served food'. Of course 'restaurant' is spelt PECTOPAH in Russian, an oddly well known fact which saves English speaking visitors from starvation.

― snotty moore, Friday, 28 April 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

Well we dont tip at all down here, so how are we supposed to indicate bad service?

Wait, what? No-one told me this, and I tipped at every restaurant and coffee shop I went into in Australia and New Zealand.

Hmm, no wonder staff were always pleased to see me a second time.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Saturday, 29 April 2006 06:03 (twenty years ago)

Well I mean there's tip jars you can chuck a few dollars in, and some people do tip when the service is excellent, but yeah - unlike the US it isn't an expected thing at all. From the endless threads here on the topic I get the impression the payscale is what causes it.

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 29 April 2006 06:08 (twenty years ago)

which is to say that "artisanal" isn't a qualitative judgement about how artistic-tasting the food is, rather it's supposed to refer to the method and scale of manufacture.

i used the word in just that sense in conversation today. i was talking to someone about how a lot of the moonshine you can get now is really good stuff, because it's become this completely artisanal niche, people aren't mass producing it anymore.

then i realized i was the kind of person who talked about artisanal moonshine, and i thought, goddamit.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 29 April 2006 06:24 (twenty years ago)

artisanal bathtub gin

― flea market economy (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 29 April 2006 06:27 (twenty years ago)

http://images.homeportfolio.com/908/49892/200.jpg

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 29 April 2006 06:38 (twenty years ago)

i was talking to someone about how a lot of the moonshine you can get now is really good stuff, because it's become this completely artisanal niche, people aren't mass producing it anymore.

Erm, I kinda thought moonshine was small-batch by definition (as in made in the shack out back). Am I wrong?

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Saturday, 29 April 2006 06:57 (twenty years ago)

yeah, but during prohibition -- and for a long time afterward, in the dry counties -- it was a serious commercial operation. more quantity than quality. i'm sure there are still rotgut stills running, but not many people really make it for the market anymore. so the stuff that gets made tends to be more by hobbyists making it for themselves and friends.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 29 April 2006 07:12 (twenty years ago)

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