Best (aka funniest) Menu Descriptions

[Springs Branch]

I remember a local Indian where the first page of the menu had three or four 'House Specials', more expensive than the rest and described in glowing terms with the proud proclamation "These dishes are prepared under Special Supervision".

Fair enough I suppose - probably implied the chief cook (or owner's mother) either prepared these or kept a close eye on the cook. But I always felt a bit perturbed that if I ordered one of the 'normal' dishes from further down the menu, it would be cooked by someone who might need to be supervised, but wasn't.


Other descriptions which I've found off-putting are those appearing in some of those Celebrity Chef-type establishment menus which (instead of the florid & mis-spelt descriptions sometimes found in a Chinese or a curry house) give staccato lists of chef's ingredients comprising that small pile of food sitting at the centre of the enormous white plate.

• Foam: Apparently preparing a palatable, good quality culinary foam which keeps its form & texture on the plate and lasts the distance while you scoff your tea requires quite a bit of technical skill and experience.
  However despite the Michelin Star connotations it's meant to inspire, 'Foam' always gets me thinking of one of Baldrick's cappuccinos.
• Smear (of anything) . . . . Oh no, Baldrick's Kitchen again!

 

[Calthrop]

That's an interesting idea. It was in about 1975, when many Parisians would still have memories of the World War 2 occupation. But whether enough Germans would notice it and be suitably offended is perhaps questionable.

My suggestion was mostly facetious; but I reckoned it just marginally possible. It would maybe have hit the target with a very few Germans -- they'd have needed some command of English... and the thing is abstruse enough for the restaurant staff, if challenged, to act totally mortified and "we had no idea", and likely make it stick.

Topic-drifting further; but I'm reminded of a told-as-true tale from not many years ago. Recounted by en English person who had been on holiday in Belgium, and involving a type of chocolate pudding for which Bruges is supposedly famous -- named after the town. (The French for "pudding" -- mostly, a thing in British rather than continental cuisine -- is in fact, "pudding".) Our hero, dining in a restaurant in Belgium, saw among the desserts on the menu, "Pudding de Bruges"; and put a question to the waiter with the intention -- reasonable enough, one feels -- of finding out more about what manner of dessert this was. Waiter replied, in mode suggestive of addressing a not-very-bright small child: "It is pudding, Monsieur, from Bruges". Reading this anecdote prompted me to fantasise about a possible very similar scenario from a century-plus ago, with Belgium under World War I German occupation -- imperious German officer and pretending-to-be-dim Belgian waiter...

 

[eastwestdivide]

Foam: Apparently preparing a palatable, good quality culinary foam…

I’ve seen ‘scum’ as an English translation on a German menu - picking the wrong alternative for the German ‘Schaum’.

 

[Springs Branch]

. . . . put a question to the waiter with the intention -- reasonable enough, one feels -- of finding out more about what manner of dessert this was. Waiter replied, in mode suggestive of addressing a not-very-bright small child: "It is pudding, Monsieur, from Bruges". . . .

Another (true) anecdote in similar vein . . .

The scene is Manchester city centre in the late 1980s; I'm there with a business colleague. It's around lunchtime and we're both looking for a quick bite before catching a train at Manchester Oxford Road.

Just around the corner from the station, on Oxford Street, we come across a pub called the Grand Central*. It's a shabby looking joint, but conveniently located (we don't have time for searching around), and all we're after is some basic 'pub grub' - so in we go.

Inside it's the sort of interior you'd expect for a 'specialty' heavy metal / rock music venue: large empty open spaces in front of a low stage, walls painted black, somewhat sticky floor with no carpet, and only a minimal number of small tables and stools scattered around the edge of the room.

Despite being lunchtime, it's deserted except for one disinterested-looking barmaid (less charitable people than me might suppose she was working there to support some sort of habit, rather than to drive customer service to a new level of excellence in Manchester's hospitality scene).

There had been a 'Food Available' sign at the door, but apparently no menus. The conversation went:

Me: "Hello. What food are you doing?"
Bleary-eyed Barmaid: "We've got pies."
Me: "Oh. What sort of pies?"
Barmaid: "There's meat pies. And there's potato pies. And there's Grand Central pies."
Me: "OK. What's a Grand Central pie, then?"
Barmaid (clearly now getting fed up with this mithering idiot of a customer): "It's a pie. . . With meat and potato!"

As we were travelling on company expenses, we both treated ourselves to a Grand Central pie, which IIRC was 10p or 20p more expensive than the plain old basic ones.


* I see the Grand Central is still there and promotes itself on Google & Facebook as an "Alt Bar & Live Music Venue - Inclusive space, no dress code, always free to enter - Live music, Rocking DJs & our famous Jukebox". No change there then. And on Street View, it still looks like it could do with a lick of paint. https://www.google.com/maps/@53.474...vhC7A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu

 

[philthetube]

Slightly off topic but food related, I say a sign in a chippy in Bury St. Edmunds, (part time woman required)???

this would be around 1990

 

[AM9]

Slightly off topic but food related, I say a sign in a chippy in Bury St. Edmunds, (part time woman required)???

this would be around 1990

Also slightly off topic but ultimately related to restaurant food:
may years ago in a queue on the M25 I was stuck behind a small truck type of refrigerated van with the company's name written on it whose trade was purporting to be 'Meat Hole Sellers'. I wonder if they have been contrite by the I'm A Celebrity makers.