rant: fine dining

[haltz]

Nothing wrong with ala carte courses, but Morton's-style ala carte sides can kiss my ass. Hopefully that nonsense is dying its slow painful death.

[jim]

Cajun sausage. I'm not saying that everyone knows that, but it's pretty common.

You also had monkfish, not tilapia, which makes more sense. Also called poor man's lobster. The flavor may have been bland, but you can rest easy knowing that at least you ate something that looks like it swam out of a nightmare:

[SHOW]

I love andouille sausage and chorizo sausage.

Now chorizo I know. I order Huevos con chorizo every Sunday morning at El Paraiso restaurant in Elgin. Good stuff.

So Andouille is like Chorizo? Wish I would have known that. The problem with the menu isn't that there was one or two questions, I basically would have had to have the waiter go through the entire thing line by line. I think making a simpler menu is a good idea, I think there are more people like me who just want something that tastes good and aren't too worried or impressed by the other stuff. The chef probably likes to show off and I'm sure there is pride in that. But nobody wants to hear about the labor pains, they just want to see the baby.

[haltz]

Similar. French-Cajun for andouille (always smoked.. I think), Spanish/Portuguese/Mexican (smoked, cured or raw.. I think) for chorizo. Both spicy pork sausages. Andouille is the sausage in gumbo.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Cajun sausage. I'm not saying that everyone knows that, but it's pretty common.

You also had monkfish, not tilapia, which makes more sense. Also called poor man's lobster. The flavor may have been bland, but you can rest easy knowing that at least you ate something that looks like it swam out of a nightmare:

[SHOW]

I love andouille sausage and chorizo sausage.

Now chorizo I know. I order Huevos con chorizo every Sunday morning at El Paraiso restaurant in Elgin. Good stuff.

So Andouille is like Chorizo? Wish I would have known that. The problem with the menu isn't that there was one or two questions, I basically would have had to have the waiter go through the entire thing line by line. I think making a simpler menu is a good idea, I think there are more people like me who just want something that tastes good and aren't too worried or impressed by the other stuff. The chef probably likes to show off and I'm sure there is pride in that. But nobody wants to hear about the labor pains, they just want to see the baby.

And, conversely, there are food snobs that if they went somewhere and the menu said:
Pork Tenderloin-$25
Chicken Breast-$15
Ribeye-$23
Filet-Small-$21 Large-$30
Whitefish-$20

They would complain of the simplicity.

It's a tough job, I'd guess, setting up a menu catered to your clientele. If you're in the nicer suburbs of Chicago, you've likely got to cater to pretentious fake people who think they know all about the finer things related to food because they have taken a class one Monday night while drinking 2 bottles of wine in some chef's kitchen...kind of like they think they know baseball becasue they have been to Wrigley field 'so many times I can't even count'

[lukethedrifter]

I call [expletive] on jim not knowing what andouille is. Maybe in 1992 but not now.

[jim]

Never heard of the word luke.

And haltz - I SWEAR the Saturday menu was Tiplapia, not Monkfish. Everything was the same except they replaced the Tilapia with that other creature.

[jim]

btw - the ultimate in simplicity for a fancy place I was at once was in Geneva, Switzerland at a place called Cafe de Paris. There was no menu - well there was but only for wine and desert and that. You ate what the guy cooked, and it was the same damn thing every night of the week. And of the most delicious things I have ever eaten in my life.

http://www.cafe-de-paris.ch/

[haltz]

I bet they ran out of something and used the tilapia that they have on hand for the (you guessed it...) fish tacos with the same setup. They should've just sacked up and said they were out of the fish special. Restaurants are so scared of running out of something or not taking a reservation or putting someone on a wait. If you have to do those things it may be annoying, but it actually impresses the customer on a subconscious level. It gives them the impression that you must be doing something right. Always a pet peeve of mine - it's actually a great advertisement.

[haltz]

It's a tough job, I'd guess, setting up a menu catered to your clientele. If you're in the nicer suburbs of Chicago, you've likely got to cater to pretentious fake people who think they know all about the finer things related to food because they have taken a class one Monday night while drinking 2 bottles of wine in some chef's kitchen...kind of like they think they know baseball becasue they have been to Wrigley field 'so many times I can't even count'

There's upscale food, and then there's pretentious nonsense. It's hard to define, but Truffles' menu annoys me, while I love Farmhaus. It's not even approachability as much as honesty, I guess.

[lukethedrifter]

I love farmhaus but hate their stupid plate/bowl things.