Have you ever eaten one of those fancy, gourmet food dishes (you know, with the small portion and the design)?

This question is adorable.

Yes. It was some weird snail thingy with a sprig of parsley and some weird mustard/soy/other weird shit sauce.

I was so hungry afterwards. It wasn’t even good. How do rich people do it? Such hard lives they have.

All the time. My parents were (are, they haven’t lost money) rich, so that was just part of growing up. And I worked in a gourmet restaurant that did that. Actually, they fired me for making the salads too big – I kept putting 5 or 6 bites on the plate because it was so damn expensive, instead of the 3 I was supposed to. They kept telling me that the customer’s complained about how their salad was too big, so then they were too full when dinner came about. I think that either they were lying to me, or these customers were whiners who should suck it up. Assuming hunger isn’t an issue (and you can solve hunger cheaply), I’d often rather spend the same amount of money for less food quantity, but higher food quality than get a ton of really crappy, icky, not tasty food. And you can cut down on the bill quite a bit if you just get entrees, no appetizers, drinks, or deserts.

Any number of times. I’ve had tuna steak that way, and pork medallions and the thin strands of gently curled vegetables with a thin drizzle of sauce. It was fine. It’s all about flavours and not portion size. It’s probably just the right amount of food, too, except, as a former Midwesterner, I have been more used to heaping helpings of starchy, heavy food.

Having food prepared by a bona fide trained chef does kind of spoil you.

One time, I had a piece of cheesecake served in an odd way. It was a normal sized piece, but it was served on a warm slab of black marble. It wasn’t even a uniform shape. It looked more like someone had broken off a piece of a marble countertop and then plopped the cheesecake on it. It was very odd.

@aprilsimnel I had no idea tuna could taste that good when I had the steak for the first time. It was topped with pieces of mango and some fresh spices.

@KatawaGrey Wtf lol? I wonder if they wash it like a regular dish.

Yeah, I was just bored and thinking about the good food I’ve had in the past, so I figured I would ask a question.

No. When I eat, which happens once a month, I want to get full.

Yes. One of my treats is a local gourmet cafe www.cafemahjaic.com down the road. They make this little plate of Prawns in some sort of AMAZING sauce.
Not filling, but, I get a loaf of bread and a salad too….mmmm good!

I once went to a gourmet restaurant on a date. My first thought was I could live like this. The food was fantastic. My main course was poached trout filet with carrots and asparagus, and it had some kind of melon balls in it with a very light sauce that was very tastey. I didn’t mind the portions since they served about 5 courses and than dessert. Yumm!

Oh, many times! Last time was quite memorable, I was working on a roadshow and one of the venues was a horse racecourse, once a year it had a very high-brow royal standard event and so the hotel had a decent restaurant.

There were a over a dozen of us sat on this table and we were certainly not royal standard, just a bunch of small business exhibitors, the conversation often went towards the strange gourmet dishes we were served. I ordered the burger, I was aiming for good honest food after a hard days work, it was in the menu as some ‘prime, heavier than usual, special elite super meat from angus-topia featuring jesus’ or something. I had to order chips (fries, usa) as a side. The burger looked like this except with slightly better bread that wasn’t as greasy, it wasn’t special really. The chips looked like this, nice and rustic, tasty! However there were only nine chips! Nine! they were served in a potato sized pot, and it looked like a potato had just been cut into a grid of ninthes, it looked neat, but in England we need more chips than just nine!

Gourmet steak and gourmet chicken (oh god the herbs) are the best, also soup and creme brulee.

Yes, many times. I would say half the time the food is amazing. The rest of the time it is good, not great, and so then it feels overpriced. Of course sometimes it is just the particular dish you might have ordered. There have been a few times where the meal was extremely dissappointing, one of those times was around two years ago, everyone raved about this restaurant in the Memphis metro area, so we tried it. My husband and I swore we would never go back after the first time. It went out of business about a year ago.

I live my food to be pretty, but I don’t like when the artwork makes it difficult to eat.

Yes. One time that stands out is when we were served pretty much a square of meat and a couple of peas with some sort of sauce beautifully sprayed on the plate. Nobody was terribly impressed and I have never seen my husband eat so much cake. He doesn’t normally eat dessert but he was starving.

Yes, once. Years ago, my partner took me to one of the fancy restaurants in our city (fancy to me anyways – I’m sure there much more fancier ones). We were so amused that we took pictures of our dishes. I don’t have them on the PC (they were on 35mm) or I would share them.
They were the weirdest dishes of food I’ve ever seen in person. The plates themselves looked like flat bedpans. Mine was a vegetarian pasta thingy inside a baseball sized mushroom, with green pointy leaves placed around it to fill up space. It was not very good at all. My partner’s was a chicken um thing with some rice jammed into it and, what looked like, a tree sticking out the centre (this tree thing was about 6 inches tall). She didn’t enjoy hers either.
We enjoyed the place but not the food. We never went back. I don’t feel comfortable in fancy places (I always feel I don’t belong). For food, I’m fine with delivery and/or small family owned places. However, I don’t mind places like Boston Pizza, Denny’s, Subway and the like.

Yeah. I once went to this place where they served a 10 course meal (3 appetizer, 4 main course, 3 dessert) and each course was… “different.” It was an amazing (but expensive) meal.

@trickface I once went to a place where my buddy ordered a sandwich and fries. There were 3 or 4 skinny fries on top of the sandwich and that’s it. We spent 10 minutes wondering where the rest of the fries were.

Yes, sometimes. I remember once in particular. It was a beef dish with some kind of vegetable. The plate was huge, but the portion was tiny. The food was incredible, but there weren’t more than a couple of mouthfuls. I think we ended up stopping at some fast food place on the way home.

Food as art….No….sigh…
WAIT! Does drawing a smiley face with mustard on a hamburger count?

Many times. With my business travel, I’m often exposed to fine dining establishments with very creative chefs. Probably the most notable event of this type was a “chef’s tasting” dinner (probably 12 courses), and it got a little too over the top for my taste. A deconstructed cheesecake closed out the evening, and it looked like someone had already eaten the booger ;-) Lots of raw meats and foie gras. Many beautiful plates and serving pieces with tiny bits of food, carefully crafted embellishments, colorful and intricately designed sauce smears.

Many, many times. We have some amazing chefs here and I cannot say no to their delectables.

Most of the chefs near us use only Wisconsin grown items. So much better is the food when it’s fresh, local & beautiful to eat.

I took my wife to a very fancy restaurant on our 20th anniversary. I had to make reservations a couple of weeks in advance to get a table by the window overlooking the river. We ordered and when the main course arrived, I actually stopped the waiter and asked him if that was all there was. It was a small cube of tuna, some greens a couple of pieces of asparagus and some strangely colored sauce drizzled across it. it was only about 5 inches across! After dinner, we went to burger king.

@majorrich champ

I remember this one shrimp and grits small plate thing I had on a nice date. It was so gd tasty I wanted to be like ‘ill have a pile of those’ Haha I’m so outta my element in nice places. I’m awkward and clumsy and on dates with people I really like I get all spastic. Pretty much a disaster. The food was so good. Luckily for me he still talks to me. :) Sadly, the restaurant closed. I dream about that tasty and beautiful dish. It was such a pretty lil arrangement too – like a blob but not ugly like ‘blob’ sounds like.