America, Facebook fans and Twitter-ites, you cringed. Big time. Many times, in fact, after reading the story: “The most annoying words on restaurant menus.”
You no longer want menus dominated by anyone who goes all thesaurus.com on you when they can’t think of another word for “tasty” or “delicious.”
So what got your, well, goat? Here’s a sampling of those words and comments (with a nod to my colleague Phil Vettel whose Facebook page had 80-plus comments on the topic):
Artisanal (one of the least favorite)
Deconstructed
Drenched
Echoing (“I’ve seen this on two menus.”)
Emulsion (“Send that one back to the lab.”)
Foam
Garden fresh
Geography menus (“Field lettuces from the field down the road after the blue fence.”)
Handcrafted (especially cocktails)
Home-cooked or home-style (“If I want home cooking I stay at home!”)
Melty
Reserve wine list (“Pretty much tells me I should order a beer.”)
Unctuous.
Eddie Volkman: “And just the other day I was wondering about ‘Homemade.’ Does the chef actually live in the kitchen?”
MFK’s Scott Worsham: “I would add ‘World Famous’ anything. That’s the biggest tip off that whatever it is, is going to suck. Wait, so maybe that’s a good thing?”
Big Jones’ Paul Fehribach: “I refuse to eat in any restaurant with the phrase ‘locally sourced’ on the menu. It’s ambiguous and could easily mean the deli counter at Jewel.”
Rob Kleiman: “On the other hand, my favorite menu term by the famous, Gordon Sinclair, “Yesterday’s Soup.”
