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Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I love the (rarely-found) type of restaurant where you enter, and they start serving you food where you have no choice in the matter. Like some family joint in the middle of nowhere that people go to for what they know will exactly be served, as if at home.

Of course, that's probably out the window after all this settles down. Those types of restaurants are probably highly likely to fold.

By the way, here's a funny parody of "every trendy restaurant menu": https://www.eater.com/2014/7/24/6181765/heres-what-every-tre...

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Reminds me of this one restaurant in Paris I visited a few years back. We were kinda off the main drag and see this place with a long line way out the door so we decide to walk over and check it out. Saw a tasty looking steak being served and the line seemed to be moving pretty quickly so we decided to wait it out. We quickly realized that no one there spoke any English, and we basically spoke no French. But we were determined nonetheless to see what it was all about.

So we get to the front of the line and the hostess seats us. The waitress walks up to us and quickly realized we don't know any French. So in broken English she asks "rare or well done?". After getting all of our preferences she quickly comes back with wine and steaks with a side of this delicious green sauce.

We were all throughly impressed by the steak/sauce and quickness of service. My dad made a joke that the only thing that could make this better would be another round of steak. And low and behold a second round appears and we all laugh at the irony. All in all a great expirence, though I still don't know what that place was called nor what that sauce was, but it sure was tasty and a unique & fun expirence.

Single menu item steak frites restaurants are available in NYC and London and apparently Mexico City - https://relaisdevenise.com/ They import the secret sauce from France.

These restaurants also make it easy to split the bill as everybody has the same thing!

> They import the secret sauce from France.

Do you mean virgin sauce (sauce vierge)?

It's olive oil / butter, mustard, parsley / thyme, capers, olives, often anchovies, and some other aromatic herbs.

that's what the waiters told us!

But here is someone who claims to have found the recipe: http://www.nogarlicnoonions.com/lentrecote-restaurant-famous...

* One chicken liver

* One shallot

* One sprig fresh thyme, tarragon, parsley

* 10 cl of liquid cream

* One tablespoon of Dijon mustard

* 20 g butter

* 3 cups of water

I just love restaurants that serve one or very few items even if they're small bodegas or a street cart. Being presented with a 12 page menu is off putting, and knowing a single place simply cannot serve 200 types of quality food (ingredients, cooking methods, etc.) is a significant part of that.

With a half a page menu I simply know the cook/chef specialized in that, and the ingredients have a better chance of being fresh and higher quality. One great sauce is 10 times better than a full menu of random choices.

Speaking of small restaurant: A few years ago I was visiting Vienna with my parents, where we strolled around the back alleys. There we found a small bakery[1] and across from that a small "Kaffeehaus" [2]. There we were able to literally buy some freshly baked bread/pastries from the bakery, walk 20m or so over and have breakfast with what we bought over there.

That is something you can barely ever find anywhere. It is also one of the reasons I try to avoid famous places and instead search out to the hidden parts of the city.

[1] https://www.kornradl.at/

[2] Like 3 tables and with a giant bookshelf of interesting books.

> I just love restaurants that serve one or very few items even if they're small bodegas or a street cart.

What's funny is NYC street carts, where the entire surface of the cart is covered in "menu," including hot dogs, sandwiches, burgers, gyros, salads, Philly cheese-steaks, literally anything you can imagine.

But they all _actually_ have only 3 menu items: Chicken over Rice, Lamb over Rice, and Falafel over Rice.

Similar restaurant in the DC\MD\VA area

http://www.mediumrarerestaurant.com/

I’m gonna guess it was Le Relais de L’Entrecôte, I went a number of years ago and I must admit I really enjoyed the simplicity of it all !!

I remember a similar restaurant in Genevé and apperently the sauce has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_de_Paris_sauce

Huh, as a European I wonder what other things we take for granted that is simply uncommon in other parts of the world. It’s very easy to be “home blind”

One of my favorite dining experiences when travelling around Spain was in this small coastal town, going into a restarant and asking on the off chance if they had a menu in English, which they didnt and then just set out to order me a complete 7 course dinner of pheonominal food.

Before this I didn't like salmon sashimi, and one of the dishes was like beetroot cured (i think?) salmon tartare and it was delishish and finally put me onto sashimi

Main drag in Paris? There is no such thing. Do you mean the champs élysées?

I think they mean "off the main drag" in a more metaphorical sense, something like "far away from the centre"

Le Relais de l’Entrecôte

One of my favorite meals, ever, was like this, at 'House of Nanking' in SF. The host asked if the six of us had ever eaten there before, and when we said 'No', he said he'd take care of everything. Half a dozen dishes later (+/- 1 or 2, it was 20 years ago), we were amazed, happy, and full. 10/10.

I had the exact same experience there about 20 years ago as well with my family... was fantastic.

How do you account for price in that situation? When I choose what I’m going to order at a restaurant, it’s not simply based on what I think would taste best, it’s about the ratio of price to tastiness. Whenever a waiter recommends something, it’s almost always one of the most expensive items on the menu. In fact at this point I avoid recommendations because I assume waiters are simply trying to optimize for profit and not actually what I would enjoy eating.

You take your chances, or you walk. We were comfortable enough, and intrigued enough, that we took our chances. It was a gamble that paid off.

You're at a recommended restaurant that you're assuming won't screw you but you're also not very price sensitive. So, you don't want this if you're optimizing around price.

As of ~5 years ago they have a menu, but you don't have to use it: you can just tell them to order for you.

The opposite of this is common in restaurants in China, particularly rural restaurants. You enter and are invited into the kitchen area where you discuss what ingredients they have and approve suggestions for dishes. I enjoy it, though the pressure to make fast decisions can be overwhelming with the language barrier.

Isn’t this how high end michelin restaurants work? You sit down, eat the chef’s daily menu, and drop a few hundred dollars per person. You are there for the art of it and you trust the chef’s choice.

Some types, yes, although the service is at such a high level that they are usually accommodating far beyond what you'd expect.

The restaurant might have a 7 course tasting menu with fixed items on it for example, but if you say you're allergic to shellfish, they'll often not just remove the shellfish from your dishes, but re-engineer or fully replace the dishes that contain shellfish so that what you're getting isn't any _less_ than what someone eating shellfish would be having.

It happens in some. I think I read it was more popular in the 90s (at least in France) to have a single daily menu.

Nowadays it is more likely there would be vegetarian or vegan options even if there is still a “single” menu.

Plenty of places will have some set menus and also let people order à la carte

Ideally yes, although I think they end up cooking for the guide rather than their own tastes.

There is a possibly apocryphal story that Marco Pierre White was once asked for a plate of Chips, so he hand cooked them and charged the diner something like £100 for his time.

I believe it’s pretty common for prix fixe meals, or you’ll get a very narrow set of options.

It's standard practice at good sushi spots. Omakase.

I used to do dinner parties like that at restaurants: remove choice from my friends and tell the server a list of things we'll get, and then we have a bunch of things on the table family style.

Don't worry about what can go wrong and live a little. It is an amazing experience for many.

One of my favorite places to eat growing up, and a favorite of my dads until the virus started, was a place like that that started as a halfway house.

Shared tables, food keeps being brought out in family sized bowls, serve yourself as much or as little as you like, pay when you leave. Some of the best veggies and probably the best biscuits I’ve ever had.

It was a great little egalitarian place, suits, white collar, manual labors, and ex-cons would be sitting around the table enjoying a meal.

You can do this at any non-chain restaurant, and just order whatever they think is good. It's almost always a good idea.

I would always worry that I would get whatever is in surplus rather than whatever they think is good.

On the other hand, if everything they make is good then you’re fine and if their food is hit and miss then who’s to say you’d have a better chance of getting something good through analysis of the menu

If they give you surpluus that is bad, odds are that their best isn't great either.

Why wouldn't they give you the highest margin items?

Not sure why this is downvoted, it's a fair question in the US. Tipping culture is gross, and this is coming from someone who was a bar manager for a bit.

But to answer said question...

- You make a good recommendation, you get a good tip, that simple. Helping your table explore the menu + what they're into translates to happy customers and better $$$ for you later

- A lot of the high end items are loss leaders[1], part of the decoy effect[2], or are there just to round out the menu, e.g. how a seafood joint will have a steak or burger option for the spouse or kid or kosher person who doesn't do seafood.

- Front of house staff get told to push things depending on what's in stock or what is in season. Like, we have another shipment of meat arriving on Monday, so let's sell off as many braised spare ribs as possible to make space. A lot of our daily or weekly specials were based on what had to be tossed out in a week.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoy_effect

Servers are paid based on how much the customer tips, not based on the restaurant's profit margin. The fact that tips are done as a percent of the bill means that they're incentivized to point you at the more expensive side of the menu, but it's much more important to pick something that'll impress the patron than to maximize the size of the bill. The restaurant's margin doesn't directly factor into this at all.

Servers also get told to push the "specials" which many times are only "special" in the eyes of the owner.

If you think the specials at a restaurant are just designed to clean out the back of the walk-in, you shouldn't be eating anything there. By all means, though, order off the menu. Letting the server pick is a good play if you're optimistic about the restaurant.

For starters, in a lot of restaurants, (1) there's a set of dishes that are patron favorites, and (2) the servers make substantial amounts of money on tips. Their incentive is to make you happy with the experience.

In India, we have something called 'Bhojnalaya' that comes close to your definition. The options are fixed for the day, the food is prepared in the kitchen and served right outside their house.

I just visited a restaurant like this in Calabria a few days ago - you turn up and they just bring you food, most of which is produced by them or nearby. It was awesome. :)

This works well for me if the price is known in the beginning, but it probably necessarily varies. Perhaps itdoesn't matter in fine dining contects tho.

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