Well I love "fine dining" but there is fine dining that also serves real food. I am so not a fan of dribbles and squiggles on a plate, nor cutsie little carved thingies as a garnish that you are hesitant to eat because they look very well "handled"....and I also have eaten at some fancy-dancy-schmancy places. I usually find that the food at places like that is not nearly as good as the presentation.
Fine dining is table cloths and cloth napkins,, no ketchup bottle on the tables, a knowlagable waiter and a wine list....and perhaps even a sommielier.

Me either, Linda. I like a plate of real food, attractively garnished but without squiggles of sauce on the plate. And yes, fine dining is cloth tablecloths and napkins and silver is not rolled in the napkin but set properly. I've never liked the pictures of food from those nouveau plates.

I wholly agree, just give me good food in a clean environment, service that is at least slightly attentive and I'm satisfied. I think they do all this artsy-phartsy stuff to justify the high prices. I love to watch some of the cooking competition shows on TV but presentation is always 1/3 of the total score and that's where I would fail miserably. Many years ago we rarely celebrated something special at a "fine dining" place and it was never worth the price, we never go to those places anymore.

There is a line between an attractively served meal and one that is pretentiously "decorated". I certainly don't want my meal plopped on a plate like it might have at one time been in an Army mess hall, but I don't need all the preciousness.

I don't however, object to some shaved truffles or a drizzle of truffle oil!!! Ambrosia!

In college (many years ago), I read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. The only thing I retained from that story about fine dining in Paris in the 1920's was that the higher the price, the more handling the food. The sole phrase I recalled was 'brilliantined hair' and with only that and the help of GOOGLE I found:

In the kitchen the dirt was worse. It is not a figure of speech, it is

a mere statement of fact to say that a French cook will spit in the soup--

that is, if he is not going to drink it himself. He is an artist, but his

art is not cleanliness. To a certain extent he is even dirty because he is

an artist, for food, to look smart, needs dirty treatment. When a steak,

for instance, is brought up for the head cook's inspection, he does not

handle it with a fork. He picks it up in his fingers and slaps it down,

runs his thumb round the dish and licks it to taste the gravy, runs it

round and licks again, then steps back and contemplates the piece of meat

like an artist judging a picture, then presses it lovingly into place with

his fat, pink fingers, every one of which he has licked a hundred times

that morning. When he is satisfied, he takes a cloth and wipes his

fingerprints from the dish, and hands it to the waiter. And the waiter, of

course, dips HIS fingers into the gravy--his nasty, greasy fingers which

he is for ever running through his brilliantined hair. Whenever one pays

more than, say, ten francs for a dish of meat in Paris, one may be certain

that it has been fingered in this manner. In very cheap restaurants it is

different; there, the same trouble is not taken over the food, and it is

just forked out of the pan and flung on to a plate, without handling.

Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle

one is obliged to eat with it.

Yikes!

Ai-yi-yi...

Or, as Ricky said: Feh.

To be clear, I read the whole well respected book, but the only section I even slightly retained was the above. 'brilliantined hair' is apparently lodged somewhere in my brain stem.

haha. Did they actually bring you 6 giant plates? I can see wanting to taste a few different apps on a plate not wanting to pig out on one thing...but they should take a request and put all 6 bites on one if that is what you want.

Had a hard time seeing on my screen. A bit pathetic plating.

I do some precious plating at times but usually I'm using that first ripe garden tomato or the first few fresh picked peas. Or a gorgeous seasonal fruit or veg that has been missing all winter....

Fortunately, the table next to us was empty... until they started bring our food. We had a total of 17 appetizers and 14 entrees. We were a party of four. The table next to us was constantly filled with plates from ours and other tables. We weren't the only ones who were working hard to get a full meal!

Most people who eat there only get one or two appetizers and an entree. Last Friday night, everyone saw us pigging out and joined in. I heard they ran out of a couple of appetizers for the late seatings.

Chas, I'm showing that to the some of my guys -- they will love it!

Ricky, that's too funny!!!! My husband and I actually went to a foo-foo restaurant on our honeymoon eons ago, and we ended up going to the buffet after:)! I'll never forget my husband's face when they served this eloquent, drizzled, sprinkled, garnished, very, very, very, tiny portion of food. His look was priceless.

Cathy in SWPA

We also have gone to the restaurant on a resort and then to the buffet cause we were still hungry on St Maarten. The resort we stay at in Aruba the restaurants give you real amounts of foods.

Ricky, that IS just pitiful. (sigh) Unfortunately I remember an extremely expensive tapas place where Elery and I ate, then we went through a drive through on the way home because he was still hungry. Maybe it's because I'm just too pragmatic, but I just don't "get" it.

Annie

Expected with tapas or a dim sum place - lots and lots of different things to eat, but in the end, one is often still hungry!

functionthenlook -- We were staying on St. John when we needed the buffet to bolster our fine dining experience. HA!

Cathy in SWPA

Cathyinpa, I don't know why some places are so skimpy. We are not big eaters at all and the hotel makes out on us anyway since we aren't , but we do appreciate a average serving. I guess we make up for it in drinks lol

functionthenlook -- "I guess we make up for it in drinks lol" My laugh for the night:)

Cathy in SWPA

Well that explains the drinks. We are both from SWPA. Booze, stick to your rib food and sports are requirement to live here. lol

We spent just a bit less than $500 a night for the all-inclusive resort in Jamaica and we don't drink. So, we're getting a great room, an amazing beach, and massive amounts of food, as long as we stay out of the fancy restaurant. If you figure a full breakfast for two at around $25, lunch for $35, and dinner for $65, you've got $125 worth of food for the day and the balance for the room and toilet paper.

Ricky, I wasn't referring to you, I was responding to the assumption that if you went to certain establishments, you were going to leave hungry and should expect it. It seemed a condescending statement, a bit like "of course, that's to be expected, but you would know that if you weren't such a hick".

I have deleted my somewhat annoyed post and extend my heartfelt apologies if I caused any misunderstanding or offended you. I would never consider doing that and am truly sorry if I did.

Annie

functionthenlook, -- yinz' guys near the 'burgh? HA! We should have asked them for some Isaly's chipped chopped ham. They'd probably still be scratching their heads:)

That's great!

Cathy in SWPA

annie - no worries, mon. I didn't even think about your comment in that light. I was just extrapolating what I felt we were actually paying for food versus the rest of the resort.

"Most people who eat there only get one or two appetizers and an entree. Last Friday night, everyone saw us pigging out and joined in."

I love that. I guess most people are too intimidated or shy to just order a bunch of food but if it's all inclusive, why not? They probably depend on people just ordering a tiny bit because they don't want to appear to be pigging out. I bet if everyone did what y'all did, they'd just go ahead and make the portions bigger.

We dine out quite a bit. We are not big fans of the prix fixe-only, top-level Michelin-starred restaurants. There's a couple of them we like, and a few more I want to try. But for the most part we stick to the one-starred or Bib Gourmand type places. Basically moderate to upper-moderate cost restaurants (but note that where we live, "moderate" runs a lot higher than many areas).

Very occasionally we are in the mood for a prix fixe only, and in those restaurants a meal usually runs from eight to 20 courses, not including amuse bouches and after-dinner mignardises. So a one- or two-bite plate within that context, actually makes a lot of sense.

Like a true Chinese banquet, or a Japanese kaiseki, in a good prix fixe restaurant you aren't hungry at the end of it, but neither do you get that overloaded, uncomfortable feeling you would get from eating too much at the local diner, LOL.

At the fine dining level you pay for precision. There is a very real dividing line between the best restaurants and the moderate level restaurants. Much of it has to do with consistency, both in ingredients and labor skill. When we go to mid-level restaurants, the knife skills in the kitchens are often all over the place. Food is unevenly cut, with ingredients in differing sizes (when they're not supposed to be). The sauces, gravies and dressings are not always balanced, and often take quality shortcuts.

One of the more popular menu styles has become the multi-category type. It combines the current fashion for small plates/appetizers with a standard menu, like this:

http://www.montrio.com/menu/

(Montrio Restaurant, Monterey, CA - chef Tony Baker)

One segment the website doesn't show is the dessert menu. Montrio is the only restaurant we know of that has two sizes of desserts available every night. There is a 'regular' list of three desserts, standard sized, changing weekly. Then there is a "Bites" menu, of three different desserts, all half-sized.

It's a clever idea that we wish other restaurants would pick up. Sometimes all you want is just a couple of bites of something sweet to finish, not a humongous towering super-sized sugar bomb!

I like restaurants that serve small portions, as long as they are priced accordingly. My favorites serve tapas or izakaya style food, but there used to be a Peruvian restaurant in Marina Del Rey that served fushion Japanese-Peruvian food izakaya style. Unfortunately it is no longer open.

We seldom eat out because I prefer to cook most of the time, but of course we do have to eat out when we are on vacation. We had particularly good food in Costa Rica, Italy, and Brazil, but in Fiji it was hit or miss, although the seafood was always good. On the island we visited (Mana), there were very few choices for dining, and the main restaurant had buffet style for breakfast and dinner, which was okay for breakfast, but I did not want that for dinner. The resort we went to was high end, but their restaurants were not.

I've toyed with the idea of visiting Jamaica, but I think there might be other Caribbean islands that I might like better. I would like to go to another island for snorkeling, but many of the Caribbean islands are fairly expensive, especially compared to Fiji. I like small islands because there is less chance of my allergies acting up. They were the worst in Costa Rica (hence I will not go back there), but surprisingly they were not bad in Brazil. It's something I would consider, and I'm afraid Jamaica might also be bad for my allergies. I do like Jamaican food.

May/lowspark!!! Welcome back!!!

I don't think the restaurants would change, they'd keep serving those little appetizers because that way they could get you to pay far too much for 6 of them, instead of just one. They'd make a heck of a profit on that...

Annie

Thanks Annie!!

I guess my point was that if it's all inclusive, in other words, it's no extra charge whether they order one or 12, then if everyone ordered multiple, it would be more cost effective to make the portion size bigger. Fewer plates!!

But, yeah, if they are charging per plate, as is normal, of course they are going to keep them smaller.

I'm not one who is swayed by the cachet of $$$$ restaurants which serve tiny portions for high prices because they were prepared by a pretentious chef. I just want a reasonable amount of good food at a fair price.

There's no question that serving portions this small costs more if the patron orders multiples. Start with the time required to plate the appetizer. Add in the time to serve it and remove the dirty dish. Even if we're talking seconds, they will eventually add up. And most important: each of those flying saucers has to be washed and dried. There's time and money here. If they served a large enough appetizer that made a diner only need to eat one, they would quickly notice the savings.

Here's another suggestion, one that I'm going to pass along to the resort, why not offer the appetizers as sampler dishes? The menu would read "Appetizers - choose up to 3 per plate" or something like that. The diner chooses three, knowing that they will be small portions, but in total, enough for a complete appetizer course. Plate it up fancy and serve it. Gotta cost less than the one above.

>>why not offer the appetizers as sampler dishes? >>

In our neck of the woods a lot of restaurants do just that.

As for upper-end fine dining, I think some restaurants are worth it. Don't knock it till you've tried it, etc. I have never felt we wasted our money dining at Farmhouse Inn/Forestville CA or Aubergine/Carmel CA, or even Modernist-style Michael Warring/Vallejo CA.

Sometimes you want a big steak. Sometimes you don't. There's enough room in the world for both.