Menu descriptions to be taken with a pinch of salt

From ‘garden fresh’ to ‘catch of the day': Menus descriptions to be taken with a pinch of salt

Restaurant menus are famous for overwriting and exaggeration. Wannabes are especially guilty of this, pitching mediocre fare as freshly made, exotic or extra special. Here are some menu listings and descriptions you would do well to be wary of:

Garden fresh

Read this and you could be forgiven for thinking the lettuce has been picked just hours before in a little kitchen garden behind the restaurant and will arrive in your salad crisp and green, possibly still wet from the morning dew. In reality, the ‘garden fresh’ greens on your plate would have spent a lot of time on a supermarket shelf.

Hand-cut fries

Makes you imagine that some diligent cook has been peeling potatoes, cutting them into chunky fingers and double-frying them, right? Be assured they’ve come from a big bag of frozen chips in the deep freezer and given a quick plunge in hot oil.

Homemade mayo

Don’t believe for a moment someone’s been patiently whisking eggs, olive oil and vinegar together. It’s come out of a jumbo jar of commercial mayonnaise. This is true of most condiments and dipping sauces on the table in a lot of restaurants.

Wild mushroom

Really? Where do Indian restaurants go foraging for their wild mushrooms? Plain old button mushrooms are what’s in your risotto, cream of ‘wild’ mushroom soup and crostini.

Three-hour braised lamb

If it’s falling-off-the-bone tender, chances are the chef knows a trick or two about tenderizing those lamb shanks. He hasn’t been slaving over a hot stove for three hours.

Catch of the day

A favourite with fish restaurants, they’d like you to believe the chef has been waiting for the fishing boats to come in to pick his tuna, mackerel and pomfret. Most likely, the seafood has travelled at least overnight. The lazier restaurants will simply buy from the cold storage of hyper markets.

Panko-crusted

While high-end restaurants do use the Japanese breadcrumbs for crunchy deep-fried dishes, now it’s fashionable for other restaurants to simply say ‘panko-crusted’. Regular breadcrumbs are what they use.

Fresh berry coulis

Fresh raspberries and blackberries are a rarity in India. Canned purees or frozen fruit is what’s accompanying your panacotta, to be sure.

Corn-fed chicken:

Seriously?