40 Times People Would’ve Rather Got Plates And Glasses Instead Of These Disasters (New Pics)
Dear bars and restaurants, we do genuinely appreciate how hard you try to impress us. After the pandemic hit, it has been a continuous struggle to save your business and attract both workers and clients. So it's only normal to put that extra bit of effort into everything, from the thoughtful playlist to premium Marseille soap in the bathroom.
Some restaurant owners and chefs take the dining experience up to the next level and come up with very ingenious ways to serve their food. Think of starters served straight on the table, croquettes served in an iron mask and no, I am not kidding.
Thanks to the internet's beloved We Want Plates project founded by Ross McGinnes back in 2015, we now have a crazy collection of absurd food servings to scroll through. “It’s the global crusade against serving food on bits of wood and roof slates, chips in mugs and drinks in jam jars,” says its description and hey, thanks for the public service, you guys.
Psst! More hilarious food servings from We Want Plates can be found in our previous posts here, here and here.
More info: wewantplates.com | Reddit | Facebook | Instagram |Twitter
This post may include affiliate links.
Quality Postmodernism
The Juices Dripped Onto My Legs Through That Nice Crack In The Board
This Rose Flavored Chocolate Dessert That You Have To Lick Off Your Hands! (Miami)
Previously Bored Panda spoke with Ross McGinnes, the founder of the ‘We Want Plates’ community. Ross started the campaign in 2015 after a friend posted a picture of an average-sized steak on Facebook, which had been served to him on a large chopping board.
“It was captioned, unironically, 'That is a big meal!' It wasn't a big meal—he'd fallen for all this style-over-content hipster gastropub nonsense,” he recounted. Then, Ross searched Twitter for an account which would allow him to vent his spleen with like-minded people, but he found nothing. That’s how We Want Plates was created. Today, the project has 900,000 followers across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Reddit.
Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition
Multi-Flavor Pizza Served In A Tire
You Could Order Barbie Meat At A Chinese Hot Pot Restaurant My Sis-In-Law Went To Last Night
McGinnes also noted that some restaurants put food on strange things because they want to try to impress their customers. Sometimes, that turns against them. “My local pub used to do a great Sunday roast: twelve quid, piled high, tasted great and yes, it came on a plate. One weekend they added a quirky offering to the menu: little sandwiches, pies, dainty cakes and mini milkshakes served on a miniature picnic bench. The benches, painted bright pink and yellow, sat on top of tables seating actual grown adults. And what was the first thing these infantilized diners did? It wasn't to try the food—it was to whip out their phones and take a picture.”
So I Went To Alinea This Weekend
Pasta, Sauce, Bread. In A Wire Cone
Breakfast In A Egg Carton
“Over the following months the picnic benches became increasingly popular, coinciding with the specials board becoming progressively smaller, before it eventually disappeared altogether,” Ross told us. He remembered sitting there one Sunday, watching bench after garish bench emerge from the kitchen like a technicolor carnival of idiocy, before his usual roast arrived.
Dinner With A Side Of Tetanus Anyone?
A Friend Ordered Tiramisu In Scotland. Why Sugar The Lid?
Friend Of Mine Went To A Restaurant And Their Starter Came In A Book
“The meat was cold and the potatoes were burnt. It was once their main Sunday trade, but the traditional roast had died an unpalatable death. But that’s OK because they were doing a roaring trade with the benches, right? Sure, until the pub down the road started doing them too. Then the one around the corner.”
Ross recounted that before you know it, everyone’s doing the same ‘quirky’ thing. “Except it’s not ‘quirky’ anymore because you can’t move for mini picnic benches and now all their roast dinners are rubbish to boot,” he told us.
Plates Shouldn’t Fall Over When You Stab Them With A Fork
Uhm.. How Do I Drink It..?
Our Corn Chips Came In A Rusty Bucket
The Croquette In The Iron Mask
Lunch Served On A Heavy Stone? I Felt Bad For My Server Who Had To Carry It
Crepes Served As Babushka Barbe
My Meal Was Served In A Folded License Plate. I Mean I Guess It Is A Plate In A Way
Friend's Mother Went To A Restaurant And Got A Glass Of Pasta! Upside Down!
A Bottle Of Fish
On A Cleaver...
My Boyfriends Ice-Cream Came In A Little Metal Tub, But Mine Came In A Little Plastic Wheelbarrow
Twigs And Moss
I’d Send This Back. This Replaced An Amazing Restaurant In My Town That Was Killed By Covid
Spaghetti-No
Pasta Flight, Ended Up Everywhere
Ridiculously unnecessary, not practical for guests and too much idiotic work for the kitchen. The chef here is a jerk.
My “Flying“ Noodles. They Where Cold Within A Minute
There are a reasonable number of things I want from my food. Flying isn't one of them.
Steak Pie In A Jar…
Kids Food On Dvd-Case (Photo From Restaurants Own Page)
Soup In A Burnt Cabbage
Removing Splinters With Greasy Fingers
We Want Tables?
I actually was planning to do my garden table somewhat like this, with left over 'green roof' materials. I hate mowing and grass, so it would be Sedums; the problem it it's either boring or very uneven.
I Swear, It's A Chocolate Mousse And Pop-Corn On A Wooden Board....
Is there a conspiracy against chocolate mousse I haven't heard about?
Flattened Chips Due To The Weight
I Guess We Are Serving Fish On Fish Bones?!
Aah Yes, I Finally Experienced The Classic Shovel Plate
An Actual Non Stick Pan, Instead Of A Plate
Well, that's bowel cancer waiting to happen. Never use metal on non-stick cookware, kids.
Ugh. That's blatant BULLSH*T. PTFE is INERT to your body, it goes out exactly as it goes in. The cancer risk ONLY happens if you overheat the pan severely: fluorocarbonates start forming at 202°C, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment states that a relevant toxicity only even starts to show up at temperatures above 360°C (that's 680 degrees in freedom units).
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Remind me of being a broke college student, no need for a plate just eat out of the pan.😆
"the OLD Monica would remind you to scrub that pan with a PLASTIC brush"
Back in the day there was a restaurant in Times Square that served all of their meals in the pan they were cooked in. I think it was a Horn & Hardart.
I've eaten a lot of breakfast skillets, but served in cast iron, not non-stick. Cast iron looks more appetizing for some reason.
That'll be the non-stick you're not supposed to use metal utensils with by any chance? So you can scrape a nice slither of cancer to go with your meal?
Not a good idea at all. Cutlery would scratch the nonstick coating off and that stuff is bad for you
This Would Be Embarrassing
So This Is Supposed To Be The Best Way To Eat Caviar...
Note: this post originally had 100 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
I just feel like if you're going to serve me in a mini wheelbarrow, hat, trash bin, or throw a skeleton model on my food, that I should be able to keep it as a prize.
Like a souvenir ice cream baseball helmet at a stadium.
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I've almost never seen well-executed "quirky" serving ideas. If you want to stand out, let the quality of your cuisine speak for itself.
Exactly. The king of quirky cuisine is Heston Blumenthal - he does things like make apple purée in the shape of a pork chop and makes the pork chop look like potato wedges or whatever, and other random taste combinations and "feasts for the eyes", but from what I've seen on the internet, his restaurant serves quirky food on actual *plates*. There are some things served on breadboards, but they appear to have been specifically designed for this use and able to be properly cleaned after, and not some random driftwood. (He did do some weird serving stuff for his TV programs, but that was kinda the point - they were usually experiments and definitely one-offs as part of the wider experience)
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Half of this isn't even quirky or cute, it's just pretentious. AND unhygienic.
I didn't see even one that was quirky or cute, let alone half. The ice cream in the wheelbarrow was borderline cute. The rest were all terrible.
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I wonder if these people knew what they were getting into. If they served me these, I’d send them back and leave. It’s ridiculous and unhygienic.
I would not go to one of these joints and if it did happen I would send it back too! I stopped reading after a few posts.
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As what l’m now guessing is a “boomer” cook (50, don’t do it professionally anymore) every single one of these irritated me immensely, and honestly I quit around #12. I made very good food, presented quite well, served on nice plates. Plates are about the best thing ever for food to be put on, imho.
As a boomer, I say you are too young to be a boomer. We are in our 70s. Baby boom after WWII, 1945-1950.
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I would send every one of these back & leave the restaurant. This is stupid.
Two comments: One - if you pay for the meal after you have finished eating, I would send it back (before eating) and ask for a proper portion, properly served; two - why do people go to these places? It is pure pretentiousness.
Most of these are so unhygienic that if I was served them I would leave the restaurant and I wouldn't pay. Most of those "plates" can't be cleaned properly and would be hiding bacteria, fungus/mold and uneaten food from previous uses. The rusty bucket, the nest, the untreated wood, the barbies, the f***ing tire!! All are extremely unsanitary and would be enough for me nope right out of there!
Come on Bored Panda, please remove the picture of the caviar. That is the classic way to have it.
Urm...no thanks. I don't play with my food, and I don't want the restaurant to play with it either.
Aside from the ridiculous, my biggest concern is the hygiene in the accessories they use.
UGH. Hipsters should NOT be allowed to keep opening pretentious restaurants. You're not an iconoclast, you're a moron.
I have this new innovative idea ... let's just make round pieces of ceramic, like, kinda flat, but the outside, kinda bowed up, so that eventually expectable liquids won't spill over ... but, the center part has to be really flat, and make up around 80 % of the diameter or so ... and, you know, for differently sized portionage, differently sized eating flat pieces may be made ... and the upbowed outside, for soups and such, my be upbowed a little more, so that you can, like, fill these ... and then, let's sell them! Although they do not serve any other purpose than being eaten from, I have a feeling that founding a startup to promote and make these might be a bigtime winning operation, hahaha, although it sounds so scary and weird and frightening even, this will totally work out! I even already have a name for these things: Eat bottoms. Or potato coasters. Or ... whatever we name this fanciest of the fancy fancieties, they'll, like, practically sell themselves with any name.
Ngl a bunch of these aren't even that bad. For this to be an art website, some of y'all lame asf
Oh I so don't get this. Years ago I was responsible for creating a children's menu and the chef wanted to serve it in the back of a toy pickup truck. Not
Hmmm, I'm terrible at cooking but want to be a chef...I know I'll serve terrible food on weird stuff and hope the novelty brings me income!
I can hear my father say "Waiter, I think you've made a mistake. I wanted food, you served me your cooks nervous breakdown. If you can't serve me food on a plate like it's been the custom in civilisation for centuries, I well politely decline, step out and find a real restaurant."
I'd be calling the health department on most of these. You can't serve food to the public on "plates" that aren't made from food safe materials, or "plates" that can't be sanitized between uses. Don't even get me started on the rusty, peeling paint vessels.
If someone put this crap in front of me, I would get up and walk away. So many of these are completely unhygienic.
I'm very glad the only two restaurants I can eat in (severe allergies, so don't go out to eat much) serve everything normally, on clean plates and bowls, with flatware, cups, etc. Nothing weird or "quirky."
I love to cook, love to go out to eat. But I'm just old...I want a clean plate that looks like a plate.
We need more of these for influencers! Me? I wouldn't go inside a place like that, or I would it send back to the kitchen to serve properly. Disgusting. Yuk!
This is honestly upsetting. Who would ever go back to a place like this? First of all, I wouldn't just accept it. I'd say I wasn't going to eat it, make them take it back, then I'd go to a real restaurant. I'd go out of my way to find every place I could to give them one star review. They only stay open if there are people who actually accept this nonsense. That there are such people is what is upsetting.
I actually think most of these were really awesome! But even I have to admit some were extremely unpractical and a few even a little disgusting. I happen to like getting weird plates and glasses. It makes the food more memorable. As for eating caviar off your hand: that’s very common! We learned that here too (in the Netherlands)
I really don't understand this modern day pretentious presentation bull s**t! Id rather have my food served on a polystyrene plate rather than any of these dumb ideas!
There's a tv show over here the the UK called 'Great British Menu' and every year they have a theme for the banquet, in the past it's been to celebrate the NHS, The Women's Institute and the celebrate Children's Literature, and the chefs competing have to come up with a menu fitting the brief so they'll often use props to serve the food. They do tie in with whatever the theme of the banquet is, but as it's for a banquet, it's not so bad.
I love that show! As for weird servingware, I reckon Michael O'Hare had the cookiest when he was a contestant.
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So f**k my clothes and me apparently, right? Who wants to eat like a pig, god damn. I'm upset, they ruined perfectly delicious food, presented it in an unappealing way... God damnit.
This is what happen when some idiots believe that a banana attached to a wall with adhesive tape is a piece of art...
I just feel like if you're going to serve me in a mini wheelbarrow, hat, trash bin, or throw a skeleton model on my food, that I should be able to keep it as a prize.
Like a souvenir ice cream baseball helmet at a stadium.
Load More Replies... I've almost never seen well-executed "quirky" serving ideas. If you want to stand out, let the quality of your cuisine speak for itself.
Exactly. The king of quirky cuisine is Heston Blumenthal - he does things like make apple purée in the shape of a pork chop and makes the pork chop look like potato wedges or whatever, and other random taste combinations and "feasts for the eyes", but from what I've seen on the internet, his restaurant serves quirky food on actual *plates*. There are some things served on breadboards, but they appear to have been specifically designed for this use and able to be properly cleaned after, and not some random driftwood. (He did do some weird serving stuff for his TV programs, but that was kinda the point - they were usually experiments and definitely one-offs as part of the wider experience)
Load More Replies... Half of this isn't even quirky or cute, it's just pretentious. AND unhygienic.
I didn't see even one that was quirky or cute, let alone half. The ice cream in the wheelbarrow was borderline cute. The rest were all terrible.
Load More Replies... I wonder if these people knew what they were getting into. If they served me these, I’d send them back and leave. It’s ridiculous and unhygienic.
I would not go to one of these joints and if it did happen I would send it back too! I stopped reading after a few posts.
Load More Replies... As what l’m now guessing is a “boomer” cook (50, don’t do it professionally anymore) every single one of these irritated me immensely, and honestly I quit around #12. I made very good food, presented quite well, served on nice plates. Plates are about the best thing ever for food to be put on, imho.
As a boomer, I say you are too young to be a boomer. We are in our 70s. Baby boom after WWII, 1945-1950.
Load More Replies... I would send every one of these back & leave the restaurant. This is stupid.
Two comments: One - if you pay for the meal after you have finished eating, I would send it back (before eating) and ask for a proper portion, properly served; two - why do people go to these places? It is pure pretentiousness.
Most of these are so unhygienic that if I was served them I would leave the restaurant and I wouldn't pay. Most of those "plates" can't be cleaned properly and would be hiding bacteria, fungus/mold and uneaten food from previous uses. The rusty bucket, the nest, the untreated wood, the barbies, the f***ing tire!! All are extremely unsanitary and would be enough for me nope right out of there!
Come on Bored Panda, please remove the picture of the caviar. That is the classic way to have it.
Urm...no thanks. I don't play with my food, and I don't want the restaurant to play with it either.
Aside from the ridiculous, my biggest concern is the hygiene in the accessories they use.
UGH. Hipsters should NOT be allowed to keep opening pretentious restaurants. You're not an iconoclast, you're a moron.
I have this new innovative idea ... let's just make round pieces of ceramic, like, kinda flat, but the outside, kinda bowed up, so that eventually expectable liquids won't spill over ... but, the center part has to be really flat, and make up around 80 % of the diameter or so ... and, you know, for differently sized portionage, differently sized eating flat pieces may be made ... and the upbowed outside, for soups and such, my be upbowed a little more, so that you can, like, fill these ... and then, let's sell them! Although they do not serve any other purpose than being eaten from, I have a feeling that founding a startup to promote and make these might be a bigtime winning operation, hahaha, although it sounds so scary and weird and frightening even, this will totally work out! I even already have a name for these things: Eat bottoms. Or potato coasters. Or ... whatever we name this fanciest of the fancy fancieties, they'll, like, practically sell themselves with any name.
Ngl a bunch of these aren't even that bad. For this to be an art website, some of y'all lame asf
Oh I so don't get this. Years ago I was responsible for creating a children's menu and the chef wanted to serve it in the back of a toy pickup truck. Not
Hmmm, I'm terrible at cooking but want to be a chef...I know I'll serve terrible food on weird stuff and hope the novelty brings me income!
I can hear my father say "Waiter, I think you've made a mistake. I wanted food, you served me your cooks nervous breakdown. If you can't serve me food on a plate like it's been the custom in civilisation for centuries, I well politely decline, step out and find a real restaurant."
I'd be calling the health department on most of these. You can't serve food to the public on "plates" that aren't made from food safe materials, or "plates" that can't be sanitized between uses. Don't even get me started on the rusty, peeling paint vessels.
If someone put this crap in front of me, I would get up and walk away. So many of these are completely unhygienic.
I'm very glad the only two restaurants I can eat in (severe allergies, so don't go out to eat much) serve everything normally, on clean plates and bowls, with flatware, cups, etc. Nothing weird or "quirky."
I love to cook, love to go out to eat. But I'm just old...I want a clean plate that looks like a plate.
We need more of these for influencers! Me? I wouldn't go inside a place like that, or I would it send back to the kitchen to serve properly. Disgusting. Yuk!
This is honestly upsetting. Who would ever go back to a place like this? First of all, I wouldn't just accept it. I'd say I wasn't going to eat it, make them take it back, then I'd go to a real restaurant. I'd go out of my way to find every place I could to give them one star review. They only stay open if there are people who actually accept this nonsense. That there are such people is what is upsetting.
I actually think most of these were really awesome! But even I have to admit some were extremely unpractical and a few even a little disgusting. I happen to like getting weird plates and glasses. It makes the food more memorable. As for eating caviar off your hand: that’s very common! We learned that here too (in the Netherlands)
I really don't understand this modern day pretentious presentation bull s**t! Id rather have my food served on a polystyrene plate rather than any of these dumb ideas!
There's a tv show over here the the UK called 'Great British Menu' and every year they have a theme for the banquet, in the past it's been to celebrate the NHS, The Women's Institute and the celebrate Children's Literature, and the chefs competing have to come up with a menu fitting the brief so they'll often use props to serve the food. They do tie in with whatever the theme of the banquet is, but as it's for a banquet, it's not so bad.
I love that show! As for weird servingware, I reckon Michael O'Hare had the cookiest when he was a contestant.
Load More Replies... So f**k my clothes and me apparently, right? Who wants to eat like a pig, god damn. I'm upset, they ruined perfectly delicious food, presented it in an unappealing way... God damnit.
This is what happen when some idiots believe that a banana attached to a wall with adhesive tape is a piece of art...
