side salad

[petrefax]

what is it with salad? its usually pubs or greasy spoons who do this, but a lot of places are guilty of it...when you order a specific dish, and it comes with that lame bit of green salad on the side of the plate which serves no purpose whatsoever

nobody eats it, it hardly adds to the presentation of the dish cos its just been plonked there & not arranged in any way...and if i were that concerned about the presentation of my dish i wouldn't be eating in a pub or greasy spoon

you didn't order it....you can't un-order it - beleive me, i've tried often enough,
me - "can i not have any salad please"
them - "certainly sir"

and still turns up with salad


as a good friend of mine once said once, when a pub gave him salad after he specifically asked them not to

mate - "do you serve salad on its own?"
waiter - "yes sir, we do"
mate - "why?"

[Rave]

I quite like a bit of salad, it helps to salve my conscience a bit when I've stuffed down an enormous quantity of meat, sausages, chips etc. At least one tiny part of my meal was vaguely healthy. I know what you mean about them never taking any notice of what you order. It's a blimmin nightmare trying to get my local pub not to put mayonaise on my wife's burger (she's on a diet). It doesn't help that a lot of the staff are Polish- nice people and perfectly efficient at pouring drinks, but the complexities of a food order tends to defeat them.

What really annoys me is when the lettuce has all gone brown. Throw it away and cut some fresh you gits

Rich :¬)

[stytagm]

I had a temp job in a pub kitchen once and my biggest job was to make the individual salads and the sandwiches. And I don't think I once saw a note on the order reciept for 'no something-or-other' So either the waitresses didn't bother, no-one was fussy or I was such a dozy twonk that I simply didn't notice or care (quite likely).


Never used to serve brown lettuce though. And I allways put more prawns in the prawn coctails and prawn salads 'cos the official measure was really mizerly and the prawns had such a short shelf life anyway that we often ended up throwing them away.

Weird job all in all, paid well and we did get to make our own sarnies for luch, (cue the beef, bacon, brie, ham, horseradish and chutney toasted mega-baguette)

Also I never once managed to make garlic bread without leaving under the grill and forgetting about it until the smoke arrived! In the end the chef started doing it for me.

[petrefax]

Weird job all in all, paid well and we did get to make our own sarnies for luch, (cue the beef, bacon, brie, ham, horseradish and chutney toasted mega-baguette)

damn, that sounds nice! i want one of those

[Honoop]

Hehe! The pub I work in does this!!
Our Lasagne meals and Scampi all come with side salad. It should consist of mixed lettuce, onion, cherry tomatoes and cucumber - but often, like you say its just a bit of green stuff dumped on the side of the plate. I do believe it is to put a bit of variety into the menu so that not everything is served with chips and peas or mash and mixed veg!!
However, we do tend to take notice when customers swap things on their orders. Occasionally we mess up, no-one is perfect - but most of the time we are able to serve up exactly what the customer has asked for! (I think!)

Oh and as a side note - the only time your salad would ever be brown and limp is because your meal has probably sat out in the kitchen on the gantry for a while, under the hot lamps!! Always send it back when that happens because all salad should be fresh when you eat in a restaurant, they arent allowed to serve you any different. And in most pub/restaurant chains you'll find that the lettuce comes in a bag, pre-chopped!!!

[stytagm]

in most pub/restaurant chains you'll find that the lettuce comes in a bag, pre-chopped!!!

One of the best bits of my job was the lettuce, used to buy them whole and the chef taught me the easiest way to take the core out is to hold the lettuce with the stem poking downwards and slam in hard onto the table, The core sort of wrenches up and can the be easily picked out. Then just tear the lettuce into shreds or whatever.

If done with enough enthusiasm it makes a start on the presentation too

[petrefax]

One of the best bits of my job was the lettuce, used to buy them whole and the chef taught me the easiest way to take the core out is to hold the lettuce with the stem poking downwards and slam in hard onto the table, The core sort of wrenches up and can the be easily picked out. Then just tear the lettuce into shreds or whatever.

If done with enough enthusiasm it makes a start on the presentation too

lol - i saw this on some tv show & thought "i gotta try that"

guess who was cleaning lettuce from every part of the kitchen for the ensuing 30 mins