The ridiculousness of restaurant plates.....

We had new plates delivered at work last week. The previous set were suddenly deemed uncool or something and now languish in old wine boxes at the foot of the back stairs. Their fate is uncertain much like my arms. After one weekend using them I felt like I had spent 48 hours on the rack being pulled and stretched and not in a good way. I was glad when Sunday was over and I could literally drag, like an orangutan, my achy breaky arms home.

and that's just to serve the bread.....
...for one person

The new plates are heavier than the old plates actually they are heavier than a box of the old plates. Why must the plates be so heavy?

Why?

Why?

Why?

It's a never ending cycle of heaviness. These plates are heavier than the last plates which were heavier than the plates before them. Give it five years or so and it will take two or three waiters to carry your plate to the table, and that'll just be the starter. Special hoists will drop and pick up your main dishes.

There really is no need. It's not like the AC is so strong that it's likely to lift the plate from your table. Not only are the plates heavy they are big. Why must the plates be so big? Why? Does food taste better on a plate the size of a bin lid? I really don't think so. No it's a plan to cripple me. What else can it be? At first I was quite pleased with the new plates and their off whiteness and their large lip which means they could probably double as bowls except we put soup in cups now and coffee comes in a vase and flowers are displayed in shoes and we wear gloves on out feet. Okay maybe not but you know what I mean. It's all gone mental in the world of food service.

It really has.

Tiny salads are served on huge satellite dish sized plates whilst steaks are perched precariously on top of huge towers of fries that rest on a bowl that used to serve soup. If I wanted my soup in a cup I would have stayed at home and put the kettle on and opened a packet. What's going on? Is it all smoke and mirrors to hide from the averageness of the food? Chefs and restrauteurs have got us believing that our food will taste better if the crockery is as interesting as the food. Why just the other day I had some stew served in bowl that looked like a football (soccer) that had just been hollowed out at a ridiculous angle by a blind Welshman with a rusty blade. It was ludicrous, the stew was nice but it was lost on me as I tried to navigate my way around the bowl to the side that was less steep. But it was like a trick of the mind as no matter what way you spun the bowl the less steep side was always at the furtherest point from your mouth.

Frustrating stuff.

I remember the old days, being old that's no surprise. Plates came in one colour, white and were always round except when they were oval but that was okay as it made sense to put fish on an oval plate. Soup came in a bowl with a satisfactory lip making them both easy to serve and collect again. I'm no fan of square bowls and rectangular plates. I fucking abhor, with a passion equal to that of the most rabid Nazi, the glass plate. Oh what is that all about? They are detestable in the extreme and serve no earthly purpose other than to give chefs something to fucking whinge about when you touch it with your less than sterile fingers and you have the audacity to leave a fingerprint on the glass. It's fucking glass what the fuckity fuck do you expect?

You know what gets on my man boobs the most though? It's that they have us doing it at home now too. No more is sausage and mash served on a plate in my house, oh no that wouldn't do. I insist on it being served in a bowl, just like they do in gastro pubs. It's ridiculous.

Obviously all our protests were waved away and we were advised to toughen up. Toughen up is it? Give it a week or two of lifting these round stone slabs covered in turkey and fixins' and even the smallest of the waiting staff will have the arms of Geoff Capes. I made that remark numerous times over the weekend only to be met with blank stares. Geoff Capes for fucks sake, who doesn't know Geoff Capes? He was the worlds strongest man, twice and he keeps budgies.

Bleurgh, I need a smoke today.