Prolix menus

I got to eat out at a fancy-pants place tonight because my smaller half took me out to celebrate Willie Nelson's birthday, as she does every year. The food was great! But I started to get really annoyed with the menu. You know how dishes these days don't have names, they are just lists of ingredients. For example, if Chicken Kiev was invented now it would be called Boned Chicken Leg Filled With Runny Yellow Stuff That You Hope Was Put There By The Chef. It caters to the cowardly diner who is then too easily able to avoid the bizarre and/or unpleasant dish and frankly, it takes all the fun out of it.

Worse still, this place had dish descriptions that were ridiculously redundant. You've probably seen Oven Baked Bread before, it's a pretty common one. I'm not claiming that all bread is invariably baked in an oven, I'm just saying it's often enough the case that perhaps they should just list only the exceptions, like Manifold Baked Bread, or Armpit Warmed Rolls.

And have you noticed that only some types of food preparation get mentioned? Have you ever seen Boiled Pasta on a menu? Boiling seems to be the type of thing that we aren't prepared to pay other people to do for us, so they just keep it quiet and hope we don't notice. And no-one ever boasts of their Washed Lettuce.

Anyway, this place I ate at tonight had the most ridiculous description I have yet seen:

Knife Cut Italian Sausage

If they had offered Axe Cut Sausage I would have ordered it, on the proviso that I was allowed to go into the kitchen to watch the preparation. Scalpel Cut Sausage would have implied some degree of surgical precision from the chef which perhaps those more refined than myself could appreciate. Even Chainsaw Cut Sausage might be worthwhile if they started with a really large sausage. But has anyone, anywhere, ever thought to themselves, "These sausages have so much potential, if only they'd been cut with a knife." No, they have not.

I ask that you, the fine diners of the world, rise up with me and boycott menu items with foolish, redundant, or downright wanky descriptions. Chicken Kiev all round.