TBD Menus: Are You Sure You Want It YOUR Way?

TBD Menus: Are You Sure You Want It YOUR Way?

Before ordering dinner at Francesca's Fiore in Forest Park last week, I chatted with Jodie, the nice lady at the host station. Jodie casually mentioned that at all the Francesca's restaurants, you can have the kitchen prepare whatever meal you want, whether or not it’s on the menu. You’ve heard about secret menus; this is more of a TBD menu, and you’re the decider.

Jodie explained, “If they have the ingredients in the kitchen, they can prepare whatever you want.”

In other words, if the ingredients are in stock because they’re included in dishes on the regular menu, you can have the people in the kitchen mash up those ingredients in whichever way you want. Kind of like your own personalized off-menu item, which at first sounded kind of cool.



“People like to have food their way. It makes them feel special,” said Jodie. Always having wanted to feel special, I decided to take the plunge. I ordered the ravioli with asparagus in cream sauce AND marinara sauce. Woo, hoo, I was wild, out of control; felt a little like Danny DeVito in “Get Shorty” when he makes the server put in some complicated order for a dish that wasn’t on the menu…and then leaves before it arrives. Except…I stayed.

Now I could have, and maybe should have, gone off the deep-end and ordered a caprese salad with mussels in mushroom sauce or a pizza topped with fried calamari in a vinaigrette, but I didn’t. Probably a good thing.

The question: are you sure you want it your way? Fooditor editor Mike Gebert commented in response to the Instragram post of my two-sauced ravioli, “I hate that. I want the chef's advice on what to eat, not my own.”

I agree with Gebert’s opinion to a point, but this is an era of customization. People want to feel not just that they’re special but that they can get drink and food however they want it. Coke Freestyle machines let consumers make whatever whacky combination of Coca-Cola-owned beverages they choose. Places like Olive Theory Pizzeria in Oak Brook allow extensive customization of your meal, boasting their pies are “Made One Way: Your Way.” At this pizza place, however, it isn’t hard to dream up some likely inedible combinations, like, say, an olive/pineapple/chicken pizza or a BBQ sauce/feta/pepperoni sandwich. The combinations are endless, and some are good but some would be terrible.

At Francesca's Fiore, my dining companion, Steve Gevinson, ordered veal off the regular menu. It looked great: not medallions but rather thick hunks, nicely caramelized on the outside, just a little red on the inside, tender and flavorful. He gave me some. Exceptional.

And my customized dish? It was okay. Maybe I should just have had it the way the kitchen conceptualized it. Or maybe you should only have your dish customized if you know what you’re doing.

For many, being able to ask the kitchen to make exactly what you want can be a huge plus. When Carolyn and I were at Olive Theory, a bunch of guys from a local tech store were chowing down. They had a special item, made just for them, which the manager told me they ordered every night. It was a sandwich with something like five different kinds of meat, hold the vegetables. It’s what they liked. Good for them. The menu at Olive Theory warns “Caution: Build at Your Own Risk.” Solid advice.

For me, next time at Francesca's Fiore, make mine veal. Just the way it’s described on the menu.

I think this is particularly true of Francesca's menus. Sometimes there's a dish they often have but not today, or a dish where you want it made with chicken instead of shrimp.

David Hammond wrote:TBD Menus: Are You Sure You Want It YOUR Way?
The question: are you sure you want it your way? Fooditor editor Mike Gebert commented in response to the Instragram post of my two-sauced ravioli, “I hate that. I want the chef's advice on what to eat, not my own.”

I agree with Gebert’s opinion to a point, but this is an era of customization. People want to feel not just that they’re special but that they can get drink and food however they want it.

My Dad would agree on this notion of not having food customized. His sad experience was going to a Chinese buffet which had a pick-your-ingredients-hand-it-over-to-the-cook-to-figure-it-out.

It was singularly one of the worst dishes in a restaurant environment. He soldiered through eating this awful concoction, which he has nobody to blame but himself. He picked it!

He would rather have what the chef (or in this case, the buffet) offered, because he knows his skills don't approach theirs.

At home, he won't season a dish I make. If I fail to adjust the seasoning's he will eat it as-is. Whereas my grandparents seasoned everything without tasting first. I once caused a riot by hiding the salt and pepper.

***

I recall there is a post on this board where Evil Ronnie asked for Spaghetti Carbonara, which was not on the menu at an Italian restaurant. He was declined. He could not imagine the kitchen did not have eggs, bacon, pepper and pasta available to make this dish. Either the kitchen didn't want to be inconvenienced or didn't know or were not allowed to customize.

Regards,
Cathy2

Cathy2 wrote:I recall there is a post on this board where Evil Ronnie asked for Spaghetti Carbonara, which was not on the menu at an Italian restaurant. He was declined. He could not imagine the kitchen did not have eggs, bacon, pepper and pasta available to make this dish. Either the kitchen didn't want to be inconvenienced or didn't know or were not allowed to customize.

Regards,
Cathy2

I was once at an Italian restaurant that didn't have Spaghetti Carbonara on the menu but I asked if they could please make it for me. They said sure. I really wish they had declined - it was the worst preparation of SC I'd ever had. The odd thing is that everything else there was pretty good. While I like having the option of being able to request customization here was definitely a case of the menu being better than the off-menu.

Cathy2 wrote:I recall there is a post on this board where Evil Ronnie asked for Spaghetti Carbonara, which was not on the menu at an Italian restaurant. He was declined. He could not imagine the kitchen did not have eggs, bacon, pepper and pasta available to make this dish. Either the kitchen didn't want to be inconvenienced or didn't know or were not allowed to customize.

Regards,
Cathy2

I wonder if part of that refusal to serve SC could be due to the chef's reluctance to serve uncooked eggs.

As I recall, the restaurant was La Scarola and the reason given for not making it was lack of ingredients. I suspect they just didn't want to accommodate ER, but doubt it was because of un/undercooked eggs. Not always the most accommodating place, although have not been in years.

David Hammond wrote:“People like to have food their way. It makes them feel special,” said Jodie. Always having wanted to feel special...

Ha ha ha! Nicely put.

This has got me thinking. So far, I think it's a personal preference thing, and I don't think it's always the same all the time. I just mean I would agree with MikeG sometimes but not other times.

I love cooking, and I eat at home much more than I eat out. But sometimes I just run out of ideas and get tired of putting everything together from scratch and just feel like spending some extra money to get away from it for an evening. For those times (::waving goodbye, see you again after Lent::), one option is carryout/delivery, pizza or Chinese or Indian or whatever, which offers plenty of opportunities to have it your way.

I can also identify with the desire to just go to a "sit-down" restaurant and pick from some options someone else has already carefully thought out and constructed, so all I have to do is drink some wine and eat some bread and talk to a friend and wait for the food to come out. And I guess I can't think of a time when I've been at a restaurant with so few menu options that I wished I could ask them to make something else for me ad hoc. So, all in all, I don't hate it like MikeG says he does, but I personally don't need it. I view eating out as an occasional treat, and that makes me feel special enough.

I see where both sides are coming from however coming as a former chef from an upscale Italian restaurant we would try to accommodate requests but at a certain point you are no longer cooking the food that is at the heart of the restaurant. In particular I remember a request being sent back to the kitchen several time because the "pink" sauce the customer asked for "was not like the one I (he) gets from Olive Garden". We did not take this as a bad thing. Where do you draw the line? I think it begs the common question of who are you cooking for the restaurant or the customer?

Busghetti wrote:I see where both sides are coming from however coming as a former chef from an upscale Italian restaurant we would try to accommodate requests but at a certain point you are no longer cooking the food that is at the heart of the restaurant. In particular I remember a request being sent back to the kitchen several time because the "pink" sauce the customer asked for "was not like the one I (he) gets from Olive Garden". We did not take this as a bad thing. Where do you draw the line? I think it begs the common question of who are you cooking for the restaurant or the customer?

Francesca's restaurants, however, seem to welcome this kind of customization. The higher up the restaurant, though, I'm guessing the less likely you're going to see customers asking for this kind of personalized cooking...or maybe not, as the diners at, say, Alinea or Grace perhaps feel a bit more entitled than others and so may be more likely to ask for something special.