Deceptive Menu Items
 

Some things are standard, right? We all know what buffalo wings are. There may be different flavors, but we know what the "standard" is -- buffalo sauce. French onion soup, cheeseburger, French dip -- some things should be trustworthy just because of the name, no?

At a fairly nice place (at least, expensive) out in Colorado, Tabernash Tavern near Winter Park ski resort, my wife ordered a Caesar salad. Caesar salad is a specific thing, right? Romaine lettuce. Caesar dressing. With or without anchovies. With or without croutons. Pretty basic.

What she got was...a half head of green leaf lettuce, not romaine. Wilted or blanched or somehow else partially cooked. A salsa-like concoction of black beans, corn and tomatoes on top. Tortilla strips on the side. Some kind of spicy-hot southwestern dressing. How is that a "Caesar salad"?

Can a restaurant just take a standard food label and slap it on something else? "Well, around here our cheeseburgers are served on white bread, and the only ingredients are peanut butter and jelly. Cheeseburger is just what we call it."

Any other experiences like this?

The menu description seems to indicate it's not a normal Caesar salad...

Tequila Flamed Caesar Salad

Watermelon, bbcs, chipotle vinaigrette, pecans, cotija, tortilla rajas, tomatoes, sweet onion and jalapeno relish, anchovy and avocado crema.

http://tabernashtavern.com/dinner/

You need to spend some time reading the comments on various recipe blogs. They're full of things like:

I loved the recipe for Spicy Sausage Lasagna, my entire family raved about it. We find sausage too spicy, so I substituted ground turkey, and making bechamel seemed hard so I used some sour cream and just opened a jar of Ragu instead of starting from scratch. Assembling lasagna is a lot of work, so I just stirred everything together and served it over egg noodles with some pre-grated parmesan on top...Five stars.

Except for the anchovies, nothing about that is a Caesar salad. I agree with the OP...there should at least be some sort of basics.

Short answer... yes.

Long answer... if what you receive is completely different than what was
detailed on the menu or what the staff described to you then there is an
issue with deceptiveness. Sometimes the kitchen does not communicate
effectively with the front of the house.

Must have been the Augustus Caesar as opposed to the Julius Caesar.

I agree that this is a case of abuse of the salad term "Caesar".

I'm not sure about this.

On one hand a cheeseburger should definitely involve a burger patty, cheese and some kind of roll. But the roll, cheese and other fillings could all vary considerably and yet the thing would still reasonably be described as a cheese burger.

I would say that a caeser salad might be made with lettuce other than Romaine and requires grated parmesan in addition to the dressing and croutons. That said, I would agree that the object described above is not a caeser salad - I don't know where the line is, but that is way over it.

In general I think you have to be a bit wary of regional/national differences. If you tell a German and a Brit that something comes with potato salad they will not have the same substance in mind.

And i've never even heard of French dip. However the wikipedia entry for it does suggest there is some variation in how it is served. Sounds good anyway

My wife loves Caesar salad's and is amazed how much variety there is - even at renowned hotels who should know better - the Mandarin Oriental in Singapore had a chef's Caesar salad that had tomato's in it!

In a different hotel, on night 1 she ordered a Caesar salad, wonderful. On night 2 she ordered it again, completely different, when she queried this she was told chef had run out of the ingredients so had improvised. :(

So, in this case the restaurant did a reasonable job of describing its dish. Yes, it's amusing how little this dish has in common with its supposed namesake, but they at least they did document it. It seems the patron who didn't read the menu shares a lot of the blame here.

LOL!!! Thanks for making my day.

I've seen faux caviar passed of as genuine caviar and many experts seem to actually prefer it in taste tests.

I have also seen surimi lobster tails passed off as real lobster when served sliced and out of shell and particularly when "sauced". Sadly they get away with it and few seem to be able to tell the difference. I have even seen the specific description of "Maine Lobster".

Surimi is the same process as crab sticks and turns cheap and by-product fish into other things and Japan is the main producer....



http://www.thalassa-seafoods.com/pic...obstertail.JPG

Millefeuille.

A true millefeuille is a wonderful thing - three layers of pricked, dense puff pastry, two layers of thick creme patissiere and icing with the traditional lattice design on the top.

And I get that there are variations on a theme, much as that may disturb your average maitre patissier, going over to the savoury side, producing some delicious dishes.

However, when I get presented with a so-called millefeuille desert that is three discs of greasy pastry with dollops of whipped cream inbetween - and these are everywhere - it makes me feel very sad.

(See also profiteroles, which should contain ice cream, and be covered with a chocolate sauce. But I fear too many countries are way too far down the road of whipped cream and chocolate icing for me to resist...)

Just now in my work canteen they had a "Thai Pad Thai" which despite the double pointlessness of saying that a dish called Pad Thai and only from Thailand was Thai, it was actually completely different from what you would get in Thailand.

On a happier note, I recently had a taster course which started with a "Pisco Sour" which instead of a cocktail ended up being a nitro-frozen sorbet.

Fancy restaurants often like playing with familiar concepts. Occasionally they are successful, often they are not (especially the whole lazy "deconstruction" concept).

Wonderful!

Heh, my work canteen has a habit of making some odd inventions, and overblowing some other things (not complaining, the quality of food is really good).

Sachertorte = Chocolate Sponge
Arabian Chilli = Chilli con Carne but with butter beans instead of kidney
Salmon Coulibiac = Salmon and Rice Pie