"Overs"

[designdog]

For the past few years, but accelerating rapidly, I have noticed a trend in restaurants to place the main component of the entree on top of the vegetable and starch component. Frequently this becomes a mishmash of stuff, probably very nice independently, but almost indistinguishable as a mash. All matter of restaurants are guilty of this.

Why? In French cooking, the accompaniment was always carefully chosen, prepared, and plated. In cooking school one learned where and how to plate these items. It was an art.

Frankly, I find this trend abhorrent. When possible, I request just one item, at the chef's discretion, to be placed on the side. I can do without the others. If it looks like it will be a problem, I just eat the main component and leave the mash alone.

Is this supposed to be "moderne" or is it just laziness? Does anyone actually prefer this?

 

[WildBoar]

Reminds me of a dinner in Las Vegas over 15 years ago at one of Emeril's places. The food was excellent, but the plating was very much stacked/ vertical. There was a 75+ year old woman at the table next to us -- part of a big family birthday group -- who was appalled when her dinner plate was set down in front of her. When the waiter came back to see how things were going she asked him to please take back her still-untouched plate, as she refused to eat anything that was piled up like that :biggrin:

 

[Dardeau]

Plating should cause the diner to intuit how to eat a dish. If you want the diner to pick it up and eat it, put it on a cracker. If you want them to put a fork through two items and eat them together, then stack them. I try to use some common sense and together with putting myself in the position of the diner figure out what makes sense.

On the other hand there are people that don't like their food to touch. They are weird. We accommodate them. They are common enough that it has a name: Tiger Paw.

 

[CutFingers]

like fried stuff on top of a steak...annoying and a nuisance...

 

[designdog]

I don't have any problem with one item touching another. I just think it more attractive to have a veg here, a protein there, and a starch over there. Sure, put the protein on some salad greens, some vinegar or whatever, but to pile them all together? Nope.

 

[Dardeau]

So on a dish (random example from the past) of a grit cake, with mushroom and pork ragu spooned over the top, and a poached egg on top, you would roll the egg off and eat it apart rather than cut it on top of the cake and let the yolk flavor the rest of the dish. The egg is on top because it functions best on top.

A dish that was run at the same time was a simple grilled sausage and a warm tomato and tarragon salad. They were plates side by side, because the tomato salad was not being called to function as a sauce, but as an accompaniment.

A third example would be the fish dish that ran yesterday. Braised kohlrabi greens, grilled cobia, shaved crimini mushrooms. Plated in a bowl so the braising liquid can moisten and favor the fish, the greens slightly off center so the place where the fish and the greens meet is the center of the plate. The fish sits next to the greens, but in the pot liquor so you get a sauce there. Now place the shaved mushroom salad at the center of the plate, falling fishwards. The things that are intended to be eaten together (fish and mushroom) are adjacent to and flavored by their support: the greens.

If the foods that are piled together at the places you eat don't go together the restaurant needs to rethink what it is doing.

For visual examples of really well thought out, if a bit fussy, plating check out the Huw's food thread. He's very good with food, at least in pictures, Merimbula is a long way away.

 

[JDA_NC]

[video=youtube;ilJto4VBjRc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilJto4VBjRc[/video]

Tower of soup :biggrin:

 

[Jordanp]

lol that video is hilarious

 

[Dardeau]

You should hear Susan Spicer rage about food that is stacked in ways that don't make sense. "Does your salad look like a penis?"

 

[designdog]

So on a dish (random example from the past) of a grit cake, with mushroom and pork ragu spooned over the top, and a poached egg on top, you would roll the egg off and eat it apart rather than cut it on top of the cake and let the yolk flavor the rest of the dish. The egg is on top because it functions best on top.

A dish that was run at the same time was a simple grilled sausage and a warm tomato and tarragon salad. They were plates side by side, because the tomato salad was not being called to function as a sauce, but as an accompaniment.

A third example would be the fish dish that ran yesterday. Braised kohlrabi greens, grilled cobia, shaved crimini mushrooms. Plated in a bowl so the braising liquid can moisten and favor the fish, the greens slightly off center so the place where the fish and the greens meet is the center of the plate. The fish sits next to the greens, but in the pot liquor so you get a sauce there. Now place the shaved mushroom salad at the center of the plate, falling fishwards. The things that are intended to be eaten together (fish and mushroom) are adjacent to and flavored by their support: the greens.

If the foods that are piled together at the places you eat don't go together the restaurant needs to rethink what it is doing.

For visual examples of really well thought out, if a bit fussy, plating check out the Huw's food thread. He's very good with food, at least in pictures, Merimbula is a long way away.

Again, i agree with all you say here. But you are making examples of dishes where the synergy of the ingredients, separate or apart, make sense. What I am referring to. Here are two from our favorite restaurant in town, which unfortunately, subscribes to the mishmash plating principle:

Beef Bourguignon
braised beef paleron with red wine jus, potato purée, baby bok choy with ginger caramel butter, honey roasted parsnips, roasted carrots & mushrooms, oven dried tomatoes, haricot vert

Pan Seared Salmon
warm cranberry beans, bacon lardons, oven dried tomatoes, spinach, crispy potatoes, watermelon radishes, parsnips, onion purée, warm pickled mustard seeds

In each case, the protein is plated on top of a mound of everything else. Perhaps there is an attempt to separate the components, where it makes sense, but there are so many, and the textures are so diverse, that it all falls together (and falls apart.)

I would love to check out Huw's food thread. Where is it?

 

[daveb]

A good starting point would be to google:

site:kitchenknifeforums.com Huws Food

I've saved the google search syntax as the search engine within the site software does not like to work for me.

 

[Dardeau]

You are totally right. Those examples need to have the excess trimmed pretty badly. The can both almost be split into two complete and cohesive dishes.