Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Good advice Loathsome Menu Words
Posted by Nicki Wood on Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 9:02 AM
We all have our pet peeves involving the English language. It gets mangled so often now that you hardly notice the odd comma splice or unfortunate word choice. Even the gratuitous (or is it superfluous?) apostrophes begin to run together.
Menu English is a special offender. My pet peeve is "cooked to perfection." Really, is cooking what it takes to achieve perfection?
Here are some offenders taken from a survey on Chowhound.com. The quoted material was taken from a Chowhounder's comment.
* "World-famous"--one person from somewhere else likes your food, you [become] world famous, like when an airport adds one flight to Canada and calls itself international. Hmm. We wouldn't know about that here at the home of Nashville International.
* Misuse of a la, like "shrimp a la scampi" and "eggplant a la melanzane"--which mean "shrimp in the style of shrimp" and "eggplant in the style of eggplant."
* "Zesty" or "Southwestern-style" are two examples of broad terms that fail to pinpont the flavor or effect.
* "Kobe burger." "Kobe" is a very specific type of beef, and is applied to a lot of high-end burgers that aren't Kobe.
* "Infusing." "We used to season things and now we infuse them," said one commenter.
* Is everything alright? "It does imply a certain universal 'all's right with the world.'"
* "Homemade" -- "If I wanted to eat at home I wouldn't be here. And whose home was it made in?"
* "Death By..." and "decadent" -- both are always used with chocolate.
* The phrases "mouth-watering" and "melt in your mouth" were too anatomical for some people. There are less descriptive words, like "tempting" and "tender."
* Oven-roasted. "As opposed to what?"
From mouth-watering Kobe to a decadent yet zesty tongue-tingler, which transgressive menu word or phrase has you reaching for the Tums?
Comments (19)
Showing 1-19 of 19
This was easy -- I just pulled up the menu for Macaroni Grill. Liberally larded throughout the menu were the following unnecessary words: "succulent", "juicy", and "tender". I have a problem with the word succulent in general, as it seems to my brain to be the adjectival version of the lamprey or hagfish, latching onto unsuspecting nouns and sucking the life out of them. Juicy is not as bad, but the MG menu uses it to describe chicken throughout. While I'm not a fan of dry, tasteless chicken, I'm not sure that I want it to be described as juicy either. And tender was just overused, even applied to the mushrooms filling a ravioli. Blech...
like
dislike
I hate when restaurants list ingredients with no indication of how they're prepared: chicken, prosciutto, asparagus, fontina.
One menu in this town announced that the place has beef "with au jus." Which is, I guess, au-some.
A little biased here...
"Fresh" & "Homemade" Spaghetti, Linguine, whatever noodle you coin. It almost always is ejected from a rectangular box.
Lum's (Lit's?) on Harding at the 70/100 split used to have Roast Beef "with au juice."
I effing hate "Bleu Cheese"
Don't know why, but it angers me as much as the song Come on Eileen
The thing that really gets me is "chicken fried chicken". Now "chicken fried steak" is allowable, as it implies you are frying a piece of steak just like you fry chicken. But if everyone understands that, then won't everyone know that their chicken will be fried, well, like chicken???
McCabe Pub is another offender
Chargrilled, Charbroiled, fresh, authentic, "our" Homemade, all the trimmings, an American classic, a Nashville favorite, loaded baked potato.
"Authentic Southern BBQ" referring to Whitt's.
Two very overused words: ultimate and signature. If it's your "signature" dish, put your name on it, like Zola's Paella. Hey, I think that might be Zola's signature dish, though they did not have to point that out. Also, I think only one dish can be the signature dish. Just like only one item can be the "ultimate." And I can guarantee you that a plate of three appetizers from Applebees does not even come close.
Incidentally, I don't care for blue or bleu cheese, but I love "Come On Eileen."
I don't want to die for your (insert dish) here. One of the reasons I came to the establishment was for sustenance so that I can avoid death. Thank you.
When something is "topped" with a sauce. I also don't like the word "chunks" when talking about food.
Any "funny" or clever names for dishes - the Faison joints used to be really bad about this but there are a LOT of offenders out there. I didn't come for the jokes, I came for the food.
Another offernder, the cafe at Davis Kidd
Sserved on a bed of, southwestern, toast points, a scoop of chicken/tuna salad, grilled between.
and if I ever see the words tossed salad again on a menu I think I’ll throw up
El zorro, I second the loathing for bleu cheese, which is pretentious at the same time as sounding like a dry heave.
what's wrong with bleu ? Do you not like the cheese itself or is it the spelling? do you want them to use ROKEFORT instead ? Do you not order Chicken Cordon Bleu for the same reason ? Chicken Cordon Blue would just be weird. wouldn't it ? My simple rule, if it's Stilton it's blue, otherwise it's bleu. I applaud the effort.
as for pet peeves, I think anything 'famous' or 'favorite' on a brand new venture's menu is absurd.
To me, it's only "bleu" if it's French cheese and you're in France, speaking French. The Danish blues like Saga are blue, not blå. Chicken Cordon Bleu is okay because cordon and bleu are both French. But there's no blue cheese in it -- only the efforts of a Cordon Bleu trained chef.
The problem with Bleu Cheese is that, aside from sounding like a Mad Magazine sound effect, the name says nothing about what it is. Imagine seeing "yellow cheese" on a menu. Plus, if you're gonna use a French name, go all the way; why bother doing a 1/2 ass job
Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Stilton.. All legit blue-veined stinky cheeses.
I am bothered by the many varieties of "bread with a topping" that are called bruschetta (usually mispronunced by the servers). I noticed the other night that my box of saltines had a recipe for "bruschetta" on a saltine cracker. I'm prety sure some Italian guy is rolling over in his grave over that one.
Also---the worst---"craveable."
