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

[dellzeqq]

We live in an area that is absolutely spoilt for choice. If we want New English - it's there. If we want Spanish, Italian or French - it's there. If we want Lebanese or really, really good Indian - it's there. And if I want to go out and have a pastry and coffee for breakfast then the Moroccan coffee shop can do that for £1.60.

But all these places have passing trade. If I were setting up in a pub out of town, or even in a small town I'd say to myself -'Brakes have done the research, they know what sells, they'll save me a fortune on stock and cooking, not to mention cutting the preparation time - that's for me'.

 

[Marshmallow_Fluff]

I was trained as a chef, it baffles me how these food outlets get away with serving the Shiite that they do. All I can think of is it's a bit like crap telly. They serve up cheap crap and they all say oh look people are watching / eating this crap! They must like it, lets make more crap, so they serve up crap, and we all say this is crap, but there's nothing else, so we'll eat/ watch the crap, and they all say look they are all eating/ watching the crap, let's make more crap, and on it goes...


The answer of course is if you don't like crap telly, switch of the telly, and it you don't like crap food boycott the crap food outlets. When everyone stops accepting mediocrity maybe things will improve.

Yours naively

Carlp

Do you want to adopt me?

 

[Fab Foodie]

I once worked in a factory owned by a major egg producer which specialised in making products containing eggs. They used to make omelettes with a conveyor belt oven, and a conveyor belt liquid nitrogen freezer. The finished omelettes were then packaged, boxed and sent to cold storage. Another of their lines was scrambled egg on muffin. The scrambled egg was actually finely diced omelette, and they used a gun type device to squirt some 'scrambled egg' onto each muffin. These were then frozen, packaged, boxed and sent to cold storage. One time my job was to rip open the boxes of products removed from cold storage so that they could be re-boxed in new boxes with a revised use by date.

Would that happen tohave been in Bilsthorpe and did they also make pea-sized frozen liquid egg balls perchance?

 

[ceepeebee]

We live in an area that is absolutely spoilt for choice. If we want New English - it's there. If we want Spanish, Italian or French - it's there. If we want Lebanese or really, really good Indian - it's there. And if I want to go out and have a pastry and coffee for breakfast then the Moroccan coffee shop can do that for £1.60.

But all these places have passing trade. If I were setting up in a pub out of town, or even in a small town I'd say to myself -'Brakes have done the research, they know what sells, they'll save me a fortune on stock and cooking, not to mention cutting the preparation time - that's for me'.

Have you ventured out to Brixton Market much DZ? There's a few restaurants in there that are absolutely cracking - wishbone just opened up in there doing proper US style fried chicken and it's well worth a stop by (and handily it's a couple of shops down from a really really good butchers - Dombey's)

 

[Fab Foodie]

[QUOTE 2168967, member: 259"]I bet you mean D****y (name changed to protect the innocent). I had a summer job there and lasted one day. Yuck.[/quote]
Correct!
I worked on the development of the egg pellet machine, which was a vey elegant idea but with all things cryogenic quite hard to make work, but we did eventually.
I think the factory closed some years ago.
I spent a lot of very frustrating time there ....

 

[Fab Foodie]

[QUOTE 2168992, member: 259"]Ah I see. I was in the egg-laying bit. Not quite as technical and a lot smellier.[/quote]
eeeeew.
That makes sense because the further processing plant was small but top-notch as I recall.

 

[Smurfy]

Would that happen tohave been in Bilsthorpe and did they also make pea-sized frozen liquid egg balls perchance?

No, they didn't make frozen pea-sized liquid egg balls, but they did make frozen portions of all manner of sauces. The idea being that the food outlet buying them would just defrost a portion of sauce, presumably at the same time they defrosted and heated the rest of the pre-cooked frozen meal.

 

[Fab Foodie]

No, they didn't make frozen pea-sized liquid egg balls, but they did make frozen portions of all manner of sauces. The idea being that the food outlet buying them would just defrost a portion of sauce, presumably at the same time they defrosted and heated the rest of the pre-cooked frozen meal.

... I've done some bad things in my career ...
Where was this?

 

[swee'pea99]

When I lived in Tooting, a sort of curry hut opened up at the bottom of the road. No real signage, no seatage at all - the entire establishment would have fitted in a reasonable-sized living room - just a woman behind the counter on a stool taking orders and complaining to anyone who would listen about her swollen legs while in the backroom, behind one of those swishy curtains made of multi-coloured plastic strips, her husband - one of those wiry, very dark, 5' 3" Bangladeshis - worked like a veritable dervish, swirling half a dozen pans and woks at over big blue gas jet flares, tossing in handfuls of spices from a row of plastic buckets on the shelf behind him. Everything fresh and cooked to order, twenty minutes give or take, cheap as chips, and the best Indian food I've ever tasted.

 

[lukesdad]

I drink in a pub I eat at home I cook for a living

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I drink in a pub I eat at home I cook for a living

Is your comma key broken?

Let's see - I drink, in a pub I eat, at home I cook for a living.

 

[dellzeqq]

apropos of nothing at all

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7PIYQSHtWI

the sting is in the caption at the end.......

 

[User482]

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".

My mother is over sixty and is an outstanding cook. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with traditional cooking when done with good quality fresh ingredients.

 

[Black Sheep]

I can only think of two where I am certain real cooking is being done, the Red Pump in Bashall Eves and Ramsons in Ramsbottom, both places run by "characters" with strong convictions about food. I think it's a disgraceful lie and I think pubs and restaurants ought to be obliged to make it clear whether they cook or simply reheat. Even Indian restaurants don't cook, they buy huge plastic tubs of factory-made sauces and heat up bits of chicken or lamb with a few extras like onions or some chillis, FFS.

Rant over.

I believe the Major in Rammy is proper food. Not sure where the Ramsons is?

 

[Globalti]

Ramson's is almost opposite the big urn in the middle of Ramsbottom. It's downstairs.

Try this: http://goo.gl/maps/2OzIv

(Almost opposite Ramson's is the workshop of Cyril Formby, one of the foremost restorers of Victorian bibles in Britain. It's amazing what's on your doorstep and you don't realise it!)

And yes, The Major has excellent reviews, I'm looking for a reason to try it. I need an overseas customer to entertain!