10 worst contemporary restaurant trends

From the Village Voice. Couldn't agree more. Discuss.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2011/08/bad_restaurant_trends.php

LOL! Very funny. Thanks, for the link.

I agreed with about half of it and thought the other half was an overly-generous portion of raw, self-indulgent bitchiness smothered with a heaping ladelful of over-reduced affectation. Basically, the writer was far more annoying than most of the trends he cited in the piece.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:I agreed with about half of it and thought the other half was an overly-generous portion of raw, self-indulgent bitchiness smothered with a heaping ladelful of over-reduced affectation. Basically, the writer was far more annoying than most of the trends he cited in the piece.

=R=

Agreed.

I'm not even sure if I agreed with half of it, because the writing got in my way so much. I'm not a prude, and I've been known to use some colorful language, but at a certain point it just becomes an excuse for poor writing, the lazy way to think you are adding color and character, along with plenty of other in-your-face insults. This guy didn't invent the style, but he's taken it to what I hope is it's logical and absurd conclusion. The piece is a perfect exemplar of "The Ten Worst Contemporary Trends in Food Writing."

He'll probably get the show he wants on the Food Network.

Thank goodness someone said it. It was some of the worst writing I've seen in a long time. I agree with number 10, though. What, do restaurants think we can't handle a whole meal? "Let's see if you can be a big girl and finish all your meat, and then maybe we can have some peas."

Pie Lady wrote:Thank goodness someone said it. It was some of the worst writing I've seen in a long time. I agree with number 10, though. What, do restaurants think we can't handle a whole meal? "Let's see if you can be a big girl and finish all your meat, and then maybe we can have some peas."

Is it any worse than all the HIP WRITING that you find in those free weekly newspapers (St. Louis's Riverfront Times, its Minneapolis knock off, and the like ...)? These papers try to knock off the Village Voice with grade B and C writers.

And the content is so predictable ...

I haven't read any of those, but thanks for telling me what to avoid!

Come on, it's The Village Voice! Haven't you guys read VV before? This is meant to be taken lightly. Anyway, the writing isn't so distracting that you can't nod along in agreement with the writer at various times. I mostly agree with them all in some respects, though some seem nitpicky, such as food-in-jars. I get that serving food in jars is pervasive, and seems trendy (especially when drinks are served out of them), but there's a utility in quality pickling and jamming that mostly results in tasty items for the diner. I shrugged at the eco-design nit, because I don't see too many Chicago restaurants shouting about eco-design (though one restaurant's attempt to use reclaimed wood seems to have backfired slightly).

And as for slacker service, I know people who I cannot talk into going back to Longman & Eagle, because they're so fed up with that type of service (which is sort of epitomized there).

Call me crazy, but nearly everything that's been denigrated as hip, trendy and pretentious, tabulated in the linked article or any of its ilk, has made dining out these days better than at any time in my memory.

Judy H wrote:He'll probably get the show he wants on the Food Network.

No way this person ends up on Food Network. For better or for worse, he has actual opinions, which seem to be frowned upon there. Most everyone on Food Network is annoying and so too, is this writer but they're annoying in very different ways.

aschie30 wrote:Come on, it's The Village Voice! Haven't you guys read VV before? This is meant to be taken lightly. Anyway, the writing isn't so distracting that you can't nod along in agreement with the writer at various times. I mostly agree with them all in some respects, though some seem nitpicky, such as food-in-jars. I get that serving food in jars is pervasive, and seems trendy (especially when drinks are served out of them), but there's a utility in quality pickling and jamming that mostly results in tasty items for the diner. I shrugged at the eco-design nit, because I don't see too many Chicago restaurants shouting about eco-design (though one restaurant's attempt to use reclaimed wood seems to have backfired slightly).

And as for slacker service, I know people who I cannot talk into going back to Longman & Eagle, because they're so fed up with that type of service (which is sort of epitomized there).

Oh, I lol'd at the piece but the irony of hipster writing critiquing hipster anything, was the funniest part for me. I guess it works on the 'it takes one to know one' principle.

Vital Information wrote:Call me crazy, but nearly everything that's been denigrated as hip. trendy and pretentious, tabulated in the linked article or any of its ilk, has made dining out these days better than at any time in my memory.

I have to agree, which is what ultimately made the piece pretty much dismissable beyond its intended and unintended humor.

=R=

I think Zagat did a far better job on the same topic in June:

The 10 Most Annoying Restaurant Trends

as well as in their follow-up article that appeared about the same time as the one in the Voice:

8 Food and Drink Trends That Are Totally Played Out

I agree, Zagat did a better job. However, while all three articles make some valid points, the tone in all of them is incredibly annoying.

I too liked Zagat's better, although I didn't find it annoying like theskinnyduck did.
I agree with the sliders—oh, how I hate sliders—and the communal tables. Worst seating idea ever. Why not just sit in each others' laps while we feast on elbow? But I thought mustaches were in.

Sorry, but that was completely unreadable. Forget tone or attitude. This person simply doesn't know what words mean, or how to put them together. "And I mean it."

Brooklyn Bar name and menu generator:
http://www.brooklynbarmenus.com/

Tyrgyzistan wrote:Brooklyn Bar name and menu generator:
http://www.brooklynbarmenus.com/

After a number of clicks I got this, which looks scarily reasonable, like, print and put on the bar at Sepia or Acadia and I would not blink:

Small Borinquen

chorizo & salt croquettes 15
awakened shell bean 13
spicy sardine waffle 11

sheltered gravlax with fig toast 17
expanded anchovy with booze drizzle 12
cider ramp & farm-to-table pork belly 14
late-summer peach puree with lamb crumble 8

oyster 16
marrow bun with free-range artichoke 13
pressed farfalle extract 13

A10 in Hyde Park actually has worse prices and combinations; they should try this out.

Those enjoying this might also chuckle at the Chicago Suburb generator:

http://www.dunakin.com/projects/suburb-generator/

I went to school in Downersburg and did stumble into Deer Park once late at night. What I love is that practically every fifth thing is a real name - inevitable with the lack of creativity of the founders in this area.

Santander wrote:Those enjoying this might also chuckle at the Chicago Suburb generator:

http://www.dunakin.com/projects/suburb-generator/

I went to school in Downersburg and did stumble into Deer Park once late at night. What I love is that practically every fifth thing is a real name - inevitable with the lack of creativity of the founders in this area.

It's not the names per se that bother me. Just Arlington HEIGHTS...Prospect HEIGHTS...MT Prospect...Vernon HILLS...Barrington HILLS

Vital Information wrote:

Santander wrote:Those enjoying this might also chuckle at the Chicago Suburb generator:

http://www.dunakin.com/projects/suburb-generator/

I went to school in Downersburg and did stumble into Deer Park once late at night. What I love is that practically every fifth thing is a real name - inevitable with the lack of creativity of the founders in this area.

It's not the names per se that bother me. Just Arlington HEIGHTS...Prospect HEIGHTS...MT Prospect...Vernon HILLS...Barrington HILLS

Mount Prospect was named that to get people to come out to a relative high spot in what was otherwise swampy Chicago.
The mount, so far as I can tell, is the northwest train track crossing at Rt 83.

Santander wrote:

Tyrgyzistan wrote:Brooklyn Bar name and menu generator:
http://www.brooklynbarmenus.com/

After a number of clicks I got this, which looks scarily reasonable, like, print and put on the bar at Sepia or Acadia and I would not blink:

I got one that I'm sure must be on a menu out there someplace:

"Seasonal salt"

My personal favorite in the ridiculous category (after spending a fairly embarrassing amount of time generating more and more menus LOL!!): "crafted pork belly surprise & distressed sungold balls".

And then there was this one which from the name to the menu seemed eerily familiar...

Weldon & Polhemus

artichoke spread & invigorated rice 17

fermented ham puree with watercress & sheltered sunflower 18

lamb 15

lime with seasonal acorn tartare & farfalle 16

artisanal salt 13

kraut, marrow salad & beer-braised gravlax 11

plum toss with arugula 14

country fennel 9

late-summer pork belly with distressed shell bean & peach 17

butter 12


Too funny...

And then I saw this...http://charleston.eater.com/2015/9/22/9370777/stems-skins-wine-bar-park-circle.

Yes, this is a wine and small plates bar from two guys in Charleston named Tunstall and Croxall. Not making this up. Worried that somehow my internet search history was punking me...

Jamie Lee Curtis was on The Chew today. She said she would punch the lights out of anybody who used the word 'paleo'.

I like her.

Vital Information wrote: It's not the names per se that bother me. Just Arlington HEIGHTS...Prospect HEIGHTS...MT Prospect...Vernon HILLS...Barrington HILLS

Hmmm...
Merrionette Park, Evergreen Park, Tinley Park, Orland Park, Palos Park, Indian Head Park, La Grange Park, Villa Park, Forest Park, Melrose Park, Franklin Park, Elmwood Park, Stone Park, Schiller Park, Hanover Park, Park Ridge, Round Lake Park, Park City, Beach Park.
Seems a lot of other community founders had no access to a thesaurus.

Well, true, many are just silly --- for example, there's not a single hill in Vernon Hills, unless the park district has some little kiddie sledding hill somewhere. But having grown up in the apparently unimaginatively named Highland Park, I can clarify that there is some logic to some of these names. For example, Highland Park and Highwood straddle Green Bay Road, which is a watershed: rainfall to the east drains to Lake Michigan and rainfall to the west drains to the Des Plaines River system. As a result, the closer you live to Green Bay Road, the less likely your basement is to ever flood. No on wants to live in Flood Plain Park and no one's insurance company wants them to either. Still, HP's original name, Port Clinton, was better.

Des Plaines, well, that's practically French for flood plain. Arlington Heights makes no sense to me, except that the highest thing around is the roof of the Arlington Park grandstand. Deerfield, well, that makes sense; there might be more deer than there are squirrels in Deerfield. I always wondered what glen Glenview offered a view of.

As I implied earlier, the naming of the NW suburbs with "Mount", "Heights" etc. was a marketing ploy to get folks to move out from swampy Chicago.

But it could be worse.
There's a Livermore subdivision called "The Los Altos Heights"

Redundant place names using synonyms from different languages is common enough. Glendale is "valleyvalley" (Scottish/OE from what I've read), for example. I'd assume Glenview referenced a view of some ditch with a piddling creek at the bottom, or something like that.

Edit: probably Glenview Creek, which flows through Glenview. Albeit mostly underground through metal drainage pipe now. As Wikipedia notes: "Plans to bury Glenview Creek emerge as soon as 1933."

JeffB wrote:Redundant place names using synonyms from different languages is common enough. Glendale is "valleyvalley" (Scottish/OE from what I've read), for example. I'd assume Glenview referenced a view of some ditch with a piddling creek at the bottom, or something like that.

Edit: probably Glenview Creek, which flows through Glenview. Albeit underground through metal drainage pipe now. As Wikipedia notes: "Plans to bury Glenview Creek emerge as soon as 1933."

From what I read on Al Gore's internet, Glenview was originally going to be called South Northfield. I guess it's a case of pick your poison.

Can we get back on topic. please?

Sorry, you're right. Who looked better in a dress in their prime: Jamie Lee Curtis or her dad?

Just catching up with this thread. "Seasonal salt" -- LOL x 3

The menu generator needs to be installed in its own thread for days when we all need a good laugh.

The "make everything bacon-flavored" fad can go away any day now.