Factory prepared "home cooked" pub food - what a con!

[MontyVeda]

I'm under no illusion that when I spend a tenner or less on a pub meal that any expectation that it has been fully prepared and cooked on the premises is going to be unfulfilled.
...

It depends where you eat... there's plenty of country pubs where you can get two courses for £7 or £8... definitely 'home' cooked. In town though... probably not.

 

[PK99]

I like the story about one of Gordon Ramsey's Restaurants having its prepared meals delivered by van, he replied "At least it had 4 Michelin tyres"

Sous vide preparations pre-prepared raw in vacuum pouches and cooked in a Sous Vide water bath in the restaurant - just like the one i have in my kitchen, which produces the best meat i have ever tasted anywhere

If you have eaten in anywhere above basic in recent years, it is more than likely you have eaten food cookes Sou Vide

 

[dellzeqq]

people go to a pub for lunch expecting a certain kind of meal. Brakes provide that meal. That may not be your kind of thing (and it is absolutely not my kind of thing) but, credit where credit is due, Brakes are selling a lot of meals, and, given how fickle the lunchtime market is, that suggests a lot of people like their stuff.

And there is worse than Brakes. What really put (past tense) me off going to pubs for lunch is the roast beef and yorkshire that had plainly been cooked in the pub, albeit not within living memory. Then there was the baguettes smeared with prawn cocktail or the soup that was saltier than Lot's wife. It may be that there is not such a vast well-spring of talent available, and, for a lot of pubs, Brakes is the best bet they've got.

But, then again, I don't eat the stuff.......

 

[Globalti]

You're right Dell, there isn't much pride taken in food in Britain; anybody over sixty will still be cooking the stuff they learned from Fanny Craddock in the 60s and 70s and since we've never had a tradition of love of the ingredients like they do in other countries, Brakes probably represents a huge improvement for the majority and will explain why, when you read up on Tripadvisor, 80% of patrons report that the place was "excellent" - they merely lack taste and discrimination as you will see when you read the 20% who rate the pub as "poor" or "terrible".

 

[dellzeqq]

I don't know about pride, but I've got to pre-prepare the bolognese sauce that I'll place in front AH and TC tonight, and if I get it wrong I'm toast. Brakes! Where are you when I need you?

 

[Globalti]

Just buy a jar of ready-made sauce from the supermarket....er.... oops!

 

[Maz]

I learned a big lesson once when entertaining visitors from the Middle East. I had to find an Indian restaurant where we could get halal food; after a lot of phone calls we turned up at a place at 3 pm and the chef stayed on to cook for us. After over an hour the food came and it was absolutely stunning, like nothing I had ever tasted. When we thanked the chef and complimented him, he replied "Aha, it was because I couldn't use the sauces; I had to cook everything from fresh to guarantee it was halal."

A lot of these 'halal' places have a bar area, too.

 

[Globalti]

Not nonsense; the majority of people in Britain are complete philistines with no appreciation of good quality food or cooking and are still obsessed with the kind of crap that Fanny and John were promoting, which is why melon boat, prawn cocktail in marie rose sauce and gammon steaks with pineapple are still on pub menus. My MIL, who was brought up on a farm where they raised and grew all their own food, is obsessed with Vesta curries, cakes, biscuits and pies because in the sixties they were the new taste sensation and you didn't have to labour for hours on the farm to enjoy them.

Admittedly there is now a new vogue for fresh, home grown ingredients, which smaller retailers most notably Booths here in the NW are promoting but for the vast majority Iceland or Asda still equals culinary contentment.

 

[ceepeebee]

This isn't just gastropubs though is it? Most restaurant chains where you spend about 8 quid for a main? It's not cooked, it's put together, using pictures and flowcharts as a guide for how it should look and not by chefs either.

Last job but one I worked for a company that supplied 3 of the 5 mid range main pizza chains and all their food was interchangeable (they were pretty much all derived from PE anyway), and 4 of the chains' dough was made in the same factory in Uxbridge (now Oxford).

 

[CopperCyclist]

Ha, see I'm different from most here - its quantity over quality for me (to a degree of course). I'd rather have a very large (or even better all you can eat!) helping of an average meal, than a small or 'normal' helping of an exquisite one.

I've never yet found somewhere that does large helpings of exquisite food!

 

[Cheddar George]

The supermarkets could man their cafes with teams of trained chefs cooking from scratch, but you wouldn't be able to eat a cooked breakfast for £ 2.75.

 

[perplexed]

Trouble is, gone are the days when you could get a reasonable Sunday roast in a pub for £5. Haut Cuisine it wasn't, but it was usually ok. Around that time, perhaps 10 years ago, if you went to a posh pub you could get a really nice quality meal for around £10.

The cheaper places spotted this. Then started charging "gastro pub" prices without improving the quality.

The gastro pubs then took advantage of this situation, and realised that they could then charge £15 or £18 for a meal that a few months previously would have been £10...

 

[snapper_37]

I went to a brand spanking (and cost 1/2 a mill quid apparently), new pub by us last night. It was very christmassy, with all the trees in the grounds decked out with 100s of lights.

Part of the Hungry Horse chain and both meals were really nice.

Convenient, clean and tidy, decent food and drink, good atmospere and doesn't break the bank. Fine by me - I'll keep 'home cooking' for exactly that - me, cooking at home.

 

[Doseone]

The only food you can't cheat on is Lebanese, it has to be made by a proper Lebanese chef from the freshest ingredients.

When I used to live in London about twenty years ago there was a Lebanese restaurant in a railway arch in Kilburn. It was tiny and was run by a Lebanese family, who more often than not would also be sitting in the restaurant having their dinner at the same time. It was a BYO and we just used to go there and spend the evening ordering meze style dishes. As you ordered something, one of the family would get up from their extended meal and go and cook it for you. To this day it is the best restaurant I have ever been to, the food was stunning and it was cheap. I loved the atmosphere, it was one of those places where you would just start chatting to the other people eating in there.

 

[ceepeebee]

you can cheat on any food (it's what previous work specialised in), what you can't cheat is well and freshly cooked food.

If you want an amazing bit of Lebanese btw - there used to be a shop in Park royal that had a lean-to covered in corrugated plastic out front that did the most incredible mezze. Just up towards the A40 from the most depressing supermarket in the world (Park Royal Asda)