Person Wanted To Know What Are The Menu Items Chefs Hate Making And Got These 30 Answers
Interview
Even if you have your dream job and enjoy it thoroughly, it is normal that there are parts of it that are less exciting than others and maybe even insufferable. Most jobs involve more than just doing the task you like.
For example, if you’re a chef, that means you like cooking, but the downside is that you don’t cook what you want to, but what the customer wants instead, and they may ask for something that you would rather skip.
Chefs, cooks and amateurs came to this Reddit thread to vent about the dishes that they hate seeing ordered but have to suck it up and just do it. This is not their first therapy session and Bored Panda has another article you can find here if you would like to know what not to order to not burden your chef.
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Our German Apple pancake.
First you sauté Granny Smiths in clarified butter.
Then add three ladles of our German batter into sauté pan.
Throw in oven for 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and add clarified butter and cinnamon sugar.
Flip delicate pancake with spatula and a dash of learning curve.
Return to oven and cook 5 more minutes.
Flip pancake onto plate and insure it makes it to the table in less than a minute as it deflates rapidly.
Bonus points for when it’s ordered 10 minutes before we close.
Edit: those who are apologizing for ordering it, don’t it’s our job. Kitchen staff are gluttons for punishment.
Bored Panda got in touch with Reddit user ALiteralPotatooooo who contributed to the thread and their most hated item on the menu was charcuterie boards as they are so messy and everything is falling off.
As you may have noticed charcuterie boards aren’t the most complicated things to make and many of the chefs who answered the question had a variety of reasons they didn’t like cooking one dish or another besides it just being complicated.
Not a chef, but when I worked for a Chinese restaurant, the chef there hated Moo Shoo anything, he always had to cut up the cabbage to order. So as a server, whenever they pissed me off at the front, I go ahead & tell the customers how great our moo shoo is that day, & we get practically every one trying it. Then I would hear the kitchen people cursing everyone out & their mother lol
So the kitchen didn't have a food processor or shred cabbage in batches for the day??
Worked in a sandwich shop for a bot in college. Not fine dining by any stretch of the imagination, but a couple steps above Subway.
Every time someone ordered a PB&J off the kids menu we had to clear off both lines, change our gloves, wipe down every surface the peanut butter got close to, and wash the knife we used to cut it. Like, I get it. But having to treat peanut butter like nuclear waste in the middle of a lunch rush was never fun.
Plus, the peanut butter was too thick for the bread we used for the PB&J, so the bread ended up tearing half the time
Someone with allergy could get in serious trouble if those precautions were not followed. Perhaps, if it's a strain during rush hour, it could be taken off the menu during certain hours? Just thinking aloud here
The chef we got in contact with told us that actually, they enjoy making more complicated dishes that could scare amateurs because not only it shows off the skills of the chef, but “also because the end product is usually delicious like you can't get anywhere else.”
They enjoy cooking in general as “It makes [them] feel human. Most people think that when you're rich and powerful you can hire someone to do your laundry and cook and clean for you but eventually those become the things you want to make time for. [They] also love to have company while cooking.”
Pastry chef here. I HATE making marshmallows (just the worst texture for touching, tasting, preparing and cleaning) and tempering chocolate (fickle, frustrating & expensive).
I’ll happily flambé you a goddamn bananas foster if it means I don’t have to make marshmallows or filled chocolates.
Ok, now I'm craving a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich. yeah-baby-...fb3b57.jpg 
Soufflés. We make the creme pate in advance but when it’s ordered the process is:
Warm creme pate over a double boiler, while that is warming you need to hand whip a fresh meringue. Once the creme pate is warm, you have about 3 minutes to fold in the whites, fill your molds to make sure you don’t touch the edges(as it makes them rise crooked). Into the oven for 3 minutes, open oven and rotate for 2 minutes. In those 5 minutes you have to plate the rest of the tables desserts, which all have 8-10 components. Soufflé comes out to a waiting waiter, has to go to the table immediately or deflates.
While it’s not the most difficult thing in the world, when you’re busy and have 4-6 on order and each one needs to pass a 3 finger test(height above rim of mold or it gets sent back and you need to restart), it can get quite hard and demoralizing when they don’t work.
And then you send out 4 at once and someone at the table gets up to go to the bathroom or have a cigarette and the tray comes back and you start again and cry inside.
There was an amazing restaurant in San Francisco that served nothing BUT soufflés. Starter soufflés, entrée soufflés, dessert soufflés... it's called Cafe Jacqueline, and it's worth every penny.
When I briefly worked as a waitress in a restaurant the chef would always scream at me when someone ordered that one meal we served. It was a type of schnitzel but in a very special dough that would burn very quickly when fried, so he had to watch it very carefully and couldn't work on anything else for a few minutes.
(Sorry if I butchered some words, english is not my first language)
But the Redditor admits that shills are way more important than passion and to make something delicious passion isn’t needed. However, “the experience wouldn't be as gratifying without it. Skills are way more important, though.”
As the chef enjoys their job themselves, they have a suggestion for those who would like to enjoy it more as well, “Forget the recipe. Just imagine what something would be like to eat to make something great. Also, just extensive experience helps prevent the hassles and mistakes that disappoint younger cooks. Just keep learning and maybe even read a cookbook in your free time.”
Worked at a kitchen after high school. Some guy orders f*****g lobster on Valentine's Day and we were this low-midrange fish and chips chain where high school kids hung out and the most fancy thing most people ordered was probably swordfish collar. We didn't even know we had lobster in the menu. I remember the head chef swearing and actually taking out the restaurant's recipe book to see what was needed. We actually didn't have some of the ingredients and we had to send one of the cooks out to take a cab to the next outlet a few streets down to pick up the stuff. The rest of us dug through the freezer and actually found lobster that we didn't know we had. Cooking it was pretty much referencing the recipe book all the way. On hindsight it was hilarious. Why you would you order lobster at a restaurant like this? The head chef was pissed as hell the rest of the day.
I used to work at McDonalds. Years ago we had this promotional burger we called the ‘lean beef burger’. It was aimed at people who wanted to be more healthy - haha.
Normally the meat patties are cooked on the grill, but this one was nuked in the microwave. When it was heated, it looked grey, and it smelled so putrid no one wanted to work near the microwave so they wouldn’t have to smell it.
When someone is just “big” enough to be able to get away ordering off the menu
There's a pizza that's discontinued at a beloved eatery, my dad loves this pizza. We ask very politely if the chef would make us one even though it's no longer on menu and they always do. Can't hurt to ask kindly! Worst they can say is no.
Do you like cooking? Why do you enjoy it? Are you good at cooking? Maybe you don’t like cooking but every dish you make is both beautiful and delicious? Let us know in the comments!
People ordering fillet steak cooked well done. ☹️ They will always send it back because its like a 'rubber boot' or 'too tough' well DUH what do you expect, fillet is not the right cut to be served well done in the first place. Takes a good 30-45 minutes to butcher the steak without burning the outside, order a thinner cut if you would like well done. It's my job so I still fulfil the requests as that's what I am paid to do but I do die inside when I see that on the ticket 🤣
Sorry to say this but I think medium is the last possible level that a steak should be cooked. Anything beyond that will make it seem like you are trying to consume a piece of leather (spoken from experience, sorry)...
I worked as a chef for a long time, I worked in a cafe in a really sort of rich area. We had a few people who were CEOs of big companies in my city, my boss treated this one guy like royalty even though he was a slimy piece of s**t. He would always make him an egg white omelette with various vegetables. Something that was absolutely not on the menu, we only offered fried, scrambled or poached eggs.
One day the boss didn't work in the kitchen anymore and low and behold, that a*****e guy came back asking for his omlette and the manager asked me to make it.
It was in the midst of a very busy rush on a Saturday. F**k that guy.
He owns cotton on and even though I know it doesn't impact anything, I refuse to buy from them.
This would have been a huge pain to do during a rush if your restaurant doesn't have omelets on the menu. The cook probably had to dice the vegetables as well as separating the egg whites from the yolk in a separate bowl (you can't just dump the whites one at a time on the grill if it's an omelet). During a rush, that would absolutely throw a wrench into the rhythm of the kitchen.
I'm not really a chief, just a Taco Bell line cook. Think what I've got to say is relevant though.
I hate making quesadillas. Especially multiple in a row. First off, because of their shape they need to go in the largest bag on the bottom, meaning that if it's ordered last I have to let food pile up taking up space so that I can put it in the bag first. It requires two scoops of cheese, being the only item that does, taking up extra time. It then has to be melted inside a hot steam machine that's finicky and doesn't want to work sometimes. Then it is carefully removed, folded, and plopped onto the grill where the jalapeno sauce likes to leak and make a mess on the grill. After grilling it has to be slipped into a sleeve, put in an open space and cut, and finally put into the bag. Having more than one makes it harder, as there is a limited number of steam machine and grill spaces so they end up backing up and taking up space. Finding the space to cut a quesadilla when you have many items taking up space is really frustrating. People hate how expensive they are here, but I think it's justified.
Thanks for reading my rant.
Taco bell there needs to put you all some more space and an extra one those things to make it easier on you all. I know how that goes though they never do the things they ought to just like every place to make it easier. I'm sorry this sounds like it is annoying to make and I like what you said about the price. I'm glad they did that so people may not order as much I know that may be rude to say to some people to say. However fastfood is not a joke. You get paid to get treated bad sometimes and work your self to the bone. It more then just making food. Please treat fast food workers good they work real hard.
Not a chef but a butcher, and i can't even begin to express how much i loathe c**p like ham salad and chicken salad.
I love when new customers come in for the first time, but my heart always sinks when they say "i heard this place has great ham salad!"
Sorry but if you like ham salad it's all gonna be great, because what you actually like is an obscene amount of mayonnaise and sweet relish.
Not all chicken salads are the same, they very so much, I assume ham salad is too, I just don’t eat much of it. I have places I will get chicken salad from and places I will never get it from again. And I absolutely hate making it so I will buy it sometimes when out. Sorry lol
I used to work at a grocery store and I was the person who made all those pre-cut fruit boxes. I didn’t particularly mind any of them all that much except clementines. We had to peel clementines and put them in a box. First, it was a huge waste because no one ever bought them (why would you pay $5 for 6 peeled clementines when you could buy a whole bag unpeeled for the same price) except for old people who couldn’t peel the fruit themselves, and secondly because the acid would eat through our gloves and then destroy our nails and leave orange smell on your fingers for days.
The only other thing I hated making was 5 mix. We have a mixture called “six mix” which is just 6 different kinds of fruit together, but this one guy would come in and ask for six mix without the cantaloupe in it. We actually started calling him 5 mix. When he walked in someone from a different department would ring us and let us know 5 mix was there and to start making some 5 mix. I hated it because when he asked we’d have to go get a whole watermelon, a whole honeydew, and 3 other fruits and cut them all up just so he could have like 5 cut up pieces of each instead of just eating around the cantaloupe. And he always showed up right as our department was starting to close down for the night too. So we had to them rewatch all our surfaces after five mix came in
If it makes you feel better, he was probably on lifetime meds for his kidneys or heart. Some of them, if you eat cantaloupe, it can land you in the hospital or worse. Other melons no probable but grapefruit and cantaloupe could kill. But it never would have occurred to me to special order the six mix versus just making it at home myself.
Baker here...cinnamon buns are the majority of our business but so f*****g time intensive and while the finished product comes out SO good they take 3 days to make between dough, proofing, and baking by the time the customer gets them (warm) I swear they owe me much more than $5 a bun lol. Exhausting
Charcuterie boards. Stuff falling off all over the place.
Slightly different take, but I was a chef at a nursing home and anything puréed for people who are on that dietary restriction was gross to me. I literally had to take whatever meal I made, throw in a blender and put it in a bowl. I always felt so bad.
I was on a soft diet for a while following gsatric surgery and blended foods tasted foul to me unless it was a dish that 'ought' to be quite mushy and all the elements eaten together (a cottage pie, for example.) The texture of foods really affects the taste.
When I was working as a waiter, we had one customer who we called "The Spaghetti Lady".
She came in 1-2 times per week for lunch. She always ordered spaghetti with sauce on the side. Salad with Pepperoncini and ranch on the side, Coke/no ice, breadsticks/no butter. She camped for 1.5 hours, then stiffed the tip.
Lunch was always a nothing shift, so tying up one 4 top for all of lunch killed the whole shift.
Most of it was side work, but the breadsticks were a huge pain. Chain restaurants aren't really built for special orders, they break the rhythm like a car slamming on the brakes on a highway.
Making crepes .. and boning quail for pate’ .. things young chefs do in training .. mind numbing .. yeah, about those crepes, so many of you mention the finished product (filled, etc) or using a crepe maker .. I’m talking about making them in a pan, in large amounts , like a big catered event where you have hours pouring and flipping .. beyond boring ..
They are served on every fest, fair or Christmas market. They prepare everything and make them in minutes. My sister, who lives in France, often made them, too. Can't be that hard to make.
I’m a chef working in a lunch cafe. I absolutely hate it when someone wants a panini.
Not because it would be a hassle to make one, as they’re all premade, store bought, but because that is exactly why I hate them. All I do is open the packet, slide the bread into the bag it’s served in, pop it onto the grill for three minutes and serve.
If I could make them myself, I probably wouldn’t hate them at all.
I jink your hand made paninis would taste so much better and definitely more enjoyable!
Fondue, it’s a ball ache to make well even if it is just melted cheese, customers rarely eat everything before it burns if using a chafing dish and it’s hell to clean. Also it’s dated and not that nice.
Any order with a genuine allergy concern. (Not because it’s difficult but rather it’s added stress and responsibility for one guest that’s potentially life threatening in a job that’s all about speed and stress already) kitchens are usually very small and while they have adequate measures in place for allergens, the kitchen as an environment is easily contaminated meaning that an allergen order needs to have that section cleaned down and all the equipment cleaned before it’s used for this one guest, even if there is dedicated equipment for allergens, it’s not worth someone having a reaction. I wish there were better ways to do it but the truth is, if you have allergies your food is going to be slow and not as good as the main menu because of this delay. It’d be great if there were more restaurants that were operating as “free from” certain foods specifically for these guests so everyone can have a great time with out the worry. Like a nut free place, or gluten-free place as we are seeing more vegetarian and vegan places being setup.
Source: chef for independent restaurants for 17 years.
The wing flight. Yeah, awesome, try out 4 different wing flavors on 12 wings. It's only 3-4x the effort and dramatically different plating. Oh and we offer a discount during all football games and are letting people order them to go? Completely negating the purpose of a flight so they can try our beers?
Tl;Dr: wing flights can get f****d
I can feel the stress of this post. It would suck. Bet you get slammed with those kinda orders too during football time. 😔
Not a chef but I worked at subway, whenever people wanted guacamole, we always spread it on one side of the bread before adding the rest of the veggies but the way the counter was designed the avocado was the last ingredient so people would always add all their veggies and then want avocado on top. This was a nightmare to spread across the uneven veggie surface and would generally just stick in clumps :( some vegetarian customers also wanted us to change our gloves to serve them but everytime we change gloves we have to wash our hands which makes the gloves near impossible to wear - this would grind our whole production line to a halt while all staff members struggled to change their gloves. I mean I’m vegetarian too so I kinda understand but like if you’re so strict about it you want fresh gloves then you shouldn’t work at subway because the “contaminated” gloves from before still went in all the veggie boxes 🤷🏼♀️
The "gloves are more hygienic" logic is a lot of window dressing. If you don't keep changing them constantly they're no better than skin. Often worse, actually, because I can feel my skin being all sticky/dirty. It's irritating so I wash my hands several times when preparing food. (Rings and icky long fingernails are a kitchen no-go anyway)
I work at Dairy Queen. We have to cook some things to order, because we don’t get enough ordered to make in bulk. Most of these aren’t too bad, such as the cheese curds, or the onion rings, or the pretzel. But the one I can’t stand, the bane of my very existence, is the BBQ pork sandwich. It’s our only BBQ product. It starts with a plastic bucket of frozen meat. We have to scoop some out, into another container, and pop it into the booster oven for a minute. Now this wouldn’t be too bad, if we didn’t have to boost the bun separately. And that wouldn’t be so bad either, if people didn’t order it exclusively when we are absolutely slammed.
At my old job they had a thing called a fry sampler. It was 4 10 oz fries that couldn't be cooked together and took up either half the fryer or the entire thing depending on how many were ordered at the same time. It would suck even more when people ordered more than one during a rush because they would take forever to plate.
I thought a "fry sampler" was when you got that bonus stray onion ring or tater tot in your regular order of fries.
Chef in my own pizza restaurant. It brings me immense pleasure to serve my customers, each and everyone of them. However, when someone orders something entirely veggie I have to spend time cleaning all my surfaces and equipment. Takes a bit of time, but hey.
If it's a dietary preference as opposed to an allergy (ie, vegetarian vs celiac) you don't need to do the intensive cross-contamination avoidance routine. At least according to food code in my US state.
When I worked for Applebee's we had the "endless ribs" promotion. Apart from the colossal pain in the a*s portioning those ribs were, making them was even worse.
You'd grab a portion baggy and dump it into a bag of flour and shake it up, then throw it in the deep fryer for about 2 mins. When the timer dings, you throw it in a plastic container with whatever sauce, shake it around and plate it along with fries or whatever.
So that wasn't the awful part. The awful part was whilst in the middle of a rush, having someone order the endless ribs where they get it as an all-u-can-eat style and when a "refill" came up you had to stop everything to make them another serving. Those portions were smaller and we didn't have as many as the large portions, so if I ran out, I had to go back to the larger portions and portion them down into smaller ones before continuing on with the flour, deep fryer and sauce.
I absolutely hated that promotion
Not working in a traditional restaurant anymore but the f*****g ringmold stacked beet salad. It took like 3 minutes to make just one and if a table of four all ordered them it slowed down the entire salad line.
I waited tables when I was in college. I absolutely hated when certain foods were ordered because I knew it was going to take a long time. One of the worst offenders was a charbroiled oyster appetizer that had butter, breadcrumbs, and cheese on top. It took about 12-15 minutes to hit the table and that is an eternity for an appetizer.
Edit: The restaurant I was working in at the time usually had apps on the table in less than 10 minutes so this app was longer than most but different restaurants are going to have different appetizer timing and may take longer.
Just an occational cook. In our place, it's called 'bata'. Bata is finely ground spices and veggies to make it a smooth paste. Also, a similar dish with mutton called Halim. Very time consuming to make.
Note: this post originally had 34 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
So, most of these are not really chefs but people working at fast food/chain restaurants. The complaints seem more of the corporations fault, like small kitchens and inadequate machines, pre-made/frozen food.
Have been a vegetarian for 30+ years but it never occurred to me that you should ask the kitchen to change gloves, clean all surfaces, etc... I mean, WHY???? If a kitchen works in a hygienic way there will not be any blood or meat on my food. I feel that it's a bit much to ask, unless you have a severe allergy to something, and if I had that problem I would not feel safe to eat out at all. Also, where do you draw the line? Should they have a sort of kosher kitchen system with separate fridges and all that?
Aww it's a little bit unfair. Totally agree when you get paid for a job then you have to suck it up, but sometimes companies don't realise how fiddly or annoying some things can be, or they don't consider the overall flow of the operation and of one menu item puts you off, you can start to lose your focus.
Load More Replies... So, most of these are not really chefs but people working at fast food/chain restaurants. The complaints seem more of the corporations fault, like small kitchens and inadequate machines, pre-made/frozen food.
Have been a vegetarian for 30+ years but it never occurred to me that you should ask the kitchen to change gloves, clean all surfaces, etc... I mean, WHY???? If a kitchen works in a hygienic way there will not be any blood or meat on my food. I feel that it's a bit much to ask, unless you have a severe allergy to something, and if I had that problem I would not feel safe to eat out at all. Also, where do you draw the line? Should they have a sort of kosher kitchen system with separate fridges and all that?
Aww it's a little bit unfair. Totally agree when you get paid for a job then you have to suck it up, but sometimes companies don't realise how fiddly or annoying some things can be, or they don't consider the overall flow of the operation and of one menu item puts you off, you can start to lose your focus.
Load More Replies...