I got a hoot out of that image. I don't think I know anyone who could eat all of that in one sitting.....................................I call the onion rings!
Well, many haute cuisine restaurants have tasting menus, where the focus is on many small portions of food rather than one large one. Added up in the end it may equal the amount a normal restaurant would give you, but you've sampled many creative "art" dishes instead.
The only truly fancy restaurant I've been to was The French Laundry and I really enjoyed it as a new and interesting experience, but would I choose a chile verde burrito over that if given the choice? Of course. I think "high cuisine" can be an interesting experience to have every now and then but people won't want to (and wouldn't be expected to) eat that way regularly.
That question has been asked by many people, I assume. The conventional answer is that you pay for the whole dining experience. To me that means you get to get dressed appropriately, eat from possibly dirty dishes food that may or may not be prepared in a clean kitchen, listen to music not of your own choosing, pay way too much money for the bites you are served, and sit in chairs and eat from a table that hundreds have used before you. Eating at an average value restaurant means all of the same things sans the amount of money you pay and you get to leave satisfied.
Fancy doesn't interest me. I spent many years where fancy was part of life but now if I can't wear capris, flip flops, and a T-shirt I usually politely pass on the invite.
Le Beouf Sur Le Toit, somewhere in Paris. Great toilets, mind. Something equally ostentatious in Venice. But I remember my Dad nearly throwing a punch at a waiter in Athens when the bill for two coffees and two Cokes came to £25, and that was in 1982.
I didn't like it, no. The Haussman architcture is quite oppressive, I guess. And I remember everything being brownish. I couldn't connect, aesthetically. I prefer Spanish and Italian cities. I like the Latinness
Benedict Arnold 