Wetherspoons - The Great Wood

BabysCoffee

Is all the food reheated in Bain Marie's?

January

BabysCoffee wrote: »

Is all the food reheated in Bain Marie's?

Not all the food but a good chunk of it is yeah.

BabysCoffee

Is it Gordon Ramsay who cooks this way in some of his restaurants?

L1011

RasTa wrote: »

Of course they do, it's cheaper to eat dinner there then cook at home. I didn't see the same level of obesity when I was living in Ranelagh

Dealz also helping.

Ah, lovely snobbery. Opposition to cheaper restaurants because they might stop people eating at home. Do you want a centre full of family owned, 50 quid a head trattoria?

Plenty of the restaurants in Ranelagh are 'chains' also, as in someone owns more than one.

Zaph

OK folks, could we please have less of the digs at one another. Thanks very much.

rawn

BabysCoffee wrote:

Is it Gordon Ramsay who cooks this way in some of his restaurants?

No that's a cooking process called sous vide, it's really precise and and tricky and the result is some of the juiciest, tenderest meat you could ever taste lots of high end restaurants use this process!

Spoons fry their eggs the way most breakfast, on a clam grill. It's a lot easier than frying pans. My cousin worked in TGW, when i asked him how he liked being a chef he laughed and said "put it this way they don't have a single frying pan or put but a wall of microwaves.

Personally the only food i would order there are foods cooked freshly/to order. Their fish and chips are lovely, had a lovely steak there once then a terrible steak the next day, guess it depends who is working the grills on the day you're there

rubadub

BabysCoffee wrote: »

Is it Gordon Ramsay who cooks this way in some of his restaurants?

rawn wrote: »

No that's a cooking process called sous vide

Ramsay cooks at different locations than some of his restaurants, just like spoons, i.e. cooks in advance, transports and reheats later. Some ramsay stuff might be described as sous vide, just as I expect some of spoons precooked stuff could be called sous vide. You could have described some boil in the bag currys in the 80s as sous vide. I have read up a fair bit about it and saw many doing ready meals did it at the lower temps like you would see on masterchef, as its very energy efficient.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/18/gordon-ramsay-preprepared-meals-offsite-kitchen

Lidl have sous vide products now, well some are labelled as such, and probably could have been labelled it long before it became fashionable to name it that.

rawn

rubadub wrote:

Some ramsay stuff might be described as sous vide, just as I expect some of spoons precooked stuff could be called sous vide. You could have described some boil in the bag currys in the 80s as sous vide.

I'm at a loss of why this comparison is being made. Nothing in Spoons can be called sous vide because it's not sous vide. It's food that has been precooked and then frozen that is brought in to be defrosted, microwaved/deep-fat fried to reheat it prior to service. Sous vide and reheating (like boil in the bag curries) are vastly different processes suitable for very different menus.

rubadub

rawn wrote: »

I'm at a loss of why this comparison is being made.

its really very simple. A poster mentioned about Ramsay doing similar, which I took to mean cooking in another location for consistency and then delivering it to his various restaurants.

I was guessing you wrongly thought that person was referring to Ramsay cooking sous vide in his actual restaurants, and was guessing you did not know that he did in fact do a very similar production method as spoons.

rawn wrote: »

Nothing in Spoons can be called sous vide because it's not sous vide..

I expect many are done sous vide. Unless you have a very specific definition of it? care to share it. If its frozen do you say it is no longer sous vide? I have frozen steaks cooked with sous vide methods on purpose. Also are you certain spoons do freeze all their stuff?

I was just saying it is likely they are doing some which might qualify as sous vide, and some which do not (depending on your rules), just like Ramsay, I doubt it is all cooked in bags in vacuum.

rawn wrote: »

Sous vide and reheating (like boil in the bag curries) are vastly different processes.

I think they are extremely similar processes, this is why I would like to hear your definition or rules. Maybe you have maximum permissible temperatures or something.

The main point is michelin star winning chefs do precook food off site and transport it to be reheated/cooked further later on.

rawn

Sous vide is vac packing food (usually meat) and cooking it in a water bath in varying degrees of temperature for specific lengths of time. The fact that they aren't always prepped on site is of little significance imo as long as it's fresh. I would not call it sous vide if the prep part of the process involved freezing or precooking.

Most of Spoons foods are cooked fully off site and frozen. Spoons then defrosts the food and reheats it. This includes the roast chicken, baked potatoes, poached eggs and all curries (I don't know what else, that's all that came up in conversation, in fact it was a server there that told me the curries were all brought in frozen and microwaved). My cousin worked there and told me that everything was frozen and already fully cooked before it arrives. So i would not call what Spoons do sous vide. Not sure what is call it tbh! But the price of the food reflects the quality i think, as nice as it can be when the staff does it right.

RasTa

Yeah sous vide and boil in a bag curries and rice are completely different cooking processes.

The curry would be made in a pot then vacuum packed and frozen. Sous vide is when you cook something at a low temperature for 36 hours etc

Subcomandante Marcos

rawn wrote: »

I'm at a loss of why this comparison is being made. Nothing in Spoons can be called sous vide because it's not sous vide. It's food that has been precooked and then frozen that is brought in to be defrosted, microwaved/deep-fat fried to reheat it prior to service. Sous vide and reheating (like boil in the bag curries) are vastly different processes suitable for very different menus.

Ramsey has admitted that he used a central kitchen to service most of his kitchens in London, it wasn't sous vide, he was making sauces, stocks, deserts, anything that took more than an hour to make was made off site and reheated. This is nothing like sous vide, it's just reheating.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/18/gordon-ramsay-preprepared-meals-offsite-kitchen

rawn

Subcomandante Marcos wrote:

Ramsey has admitted that he used a central kitchen to service most of his kitchens in London, it wasn't sous vide, he was making sauces, stocks, deserts, anything that took more than an hour to make was made off site and reheated. This is nothing like sous vide, it's just reheating.

I must be blind cos i don't see him admitting it in the article. Anyways, this is a conversation for a different thread.

My sister was drinking with her friends in Spoons on Saturday, they ordered sundaes and didn't get them for over an hour. If it takes an hour to make 4 sundaes then obviously they definitely need to have food premade for them cos they fall apart when busy.

Seve OB

Went here a few weeks ago for lunch with the wife and 2 kids.
Place was pretty quiet, just before schools broke up, but there couldn't have been more than 20 people in the place.

Myself and the wife got the Fish and Chips as did daughter one while the other Daughter got a burger.

I could say the chips were nice and leave it at that, but I would be doing it an unjustice. This needs to be said.

When daughter one said she didn't like the fish I thought, ah here we go, she is messing again, but she normally does like fish.... Then mine came out. To compare the fish all 3 of us got with a bit of spare carpet thrown out of Des Kellys up the road would be a very fair comparison. It was god damn awful and not at all edible. Without question, the worst food I have ever been presented with. The burger was only marginally better.

We swore we would never go back.

I gave them another chance though last week as I had to go to the bank one morning. I got a small breakfast and to be honest, it was grand. a half decent cheap breakfast, but then, how hard is it to cook a sausage.

I'll have a breakfast there another time (maybe, if I am on my own... no chance of getting the other half to go again). I'll never eat anything else in there though. It is not on my radar for going for a pint either.

dodzy

Seve OB wrote: »

Went here a few weeks ago for lunch with the wife and 2 kids.
Place was pretty quiet, just before schools broke up, but there couldn't have been more than 20 people in the place.

Myself and the wife got the Fish and Chips as did daughter one while the other Daughter got a burger.

I could say the chips were nice and leave it at that, but I would be doing it an unjustice. This needs to be said.

When daughter one said she didn't like the fish I thought, ah here we go, she is messing again, but she normally does like fish.... Then mine came out. To compare the fish all 3 of us got with a bit of spare carpet thrown out of Des Kellys up the road would be a very fair comparison. It was god damn awful and not at all edible. Without question, the worst food I have ever been presented with. The burger was only marginally better.

We swore we would never go back.

I gave them another chance though last week as I had to go to the bank one morning. I got a small breakfast and to be honest, it was grand. a half decent cheap breakfast, but then, how hard is it to cook a sausage.

I'll have a breakfast there another time (maybe, if I am on my own... no chance of getting the other half to go again). I'll never eat anything else in there though. It is not on my radar for going for a pint either.

It's been well established that the food quality is poor. Bud @ €1.95/pint cannot be dismissed though:cool:

A Shaved Duck?

dodzy wrote: »

It's been well established that the food quality is poor. Bud @ €1.95/pint cannot be dismissed though:cool:

You will spend twice that on gaviscon for all the heartburn bud gives you!

Seve OB

dodzy wrote: »

It's been well established that the food quality is poor. Bud @ €1.95/pint cannot be dismissed though:cool:

I read that at first it said Bud at 1.95 is piss.

Was going to agree with you. But to pay 1.95 for a pint of piss........ No thanks

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

daymobrew

Seve OB wrote: »

I could say the chips were nice and leave it at that, but I would be doing it an unjustice. This needs to be said.

Did you pass on your comments to a member of staff?

uck51js9zml2yt

Went there for first time last week.
Had a lovely korma with rice and wife had salmon salad which she enjoyed.
Junior had sausage mash and peas.

Personally I enjoyed the curry.

ciaran76

I go up for the great range of beers not available in any pub in D.15 area.
I go about once a month and for the prices of these beers I cannot complain.

Subcomandante Marcos

Mira Hallowed Fullback wrote: »

Went there for first time last week.
Had a lovely korma with rice and wife had salmon salad which she enjoyed.
Junior had sausage mash and peas.

Personally I enjoyed the curry.

I agree. As far as chains go, their curries aren't bad. I recommend the madras which is very much like a decent tamil curry and the bombay spuds.

py2006

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

I agree. As far as chains go, their curries aren't bad. I recommend the madras which is very much like a decent tamil curry and the bombay spuds.

Is the madras as hot as it would normally be or milder?

Subcomandante Marcos

py2006 wrote: »

Is the madras as hot as it would normally be or milder?

I'm half Indian and Madras in the UK and Ireland would be a fairly close approximation of Kozhi Kulambu (or chicken gravy) which is the most common curry in the south of the country, where my family are from. We like it pretty hot and the madras in Wetherspoons wouldn't leave me wanting for spice to be honest. Their balti is actually a lot hotter than it usually is in restaurants so I think they might up the spice from what most restaurants would to encourage you to drink your pint quicker and order another one!

If I could just get some good layer parotta to eat it with instead of naan, that would be great

uck51js9zml2yt

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

I agree. As far as chains go, their curries aren't bad. I recommend the madras which is very much like a decent tamil curry and the bombay spuds.

The korma was on offer at 4.95. hard to pass on.

beer enigma

Stella & Greene King Abbott ale both €1.95 tonight (Thursday)

Bunny Colvin

RasTa wrote: »

What? Where did I say that, I'd love to hear the healthy meals from the places I listed. Spoons as an example doesn't even have frying pans in their kitchen and can have poached eggs run out but not fried. Love to know what magic eggs they are using.

I could eat three footlong subways a day and not put on a pound. So take Subway off your little list good sir and that will be the end of it!

RasTa

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

I could eat three footlong subways a day and not put on a pound. So take Subway off your little list good sir and that will be the end of it!

You wouldn't be very healthy....

Bunny Colvin

RasTa wrote: »

You wouldn't be very healthy....

I said I could, not that I do You can get a healthy enough sub is the point!

py2006

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

I said I could, not that I do You can get a healthy enough sub is the point!

Nothing healthy about a sub