I want my dinner on a plate.

Not only that Sussex I read that depending where the bottles are stored other germs can get into the necks of the bottles - including - horror of horrors - rats pee!!!

Wooden boards are the pits. I've got to the point of choosing food that I think will be on a plate. Or going somewhere where I know it will be, like a pasta restaurant.

Much as I hate normal fast food outlets complete with cardboard, we were in a fast food outlet in the City of London and if I'd been hungry I would have forgiven them the cardboard box considering what was the delicious sounding food in it

I can't abide the practice of drinking beer/cider etc. from the bottle. I always ask for a glass. I shudder to think of all those grubby hands handling the neck of the bottle.

Oh I do like a good chip Nelliemoser but sadly a lot of so called "homemade" turn out to be frozen.

I agree! Particularly eating off wooden boards.

As a vege I am not happy to eat off something someone has possibly been using for a bloody steak. It's not so much about me being a vege, as that there is probably grease and blood flavours left in the wood. Not having eaten meat for years it is not a pleasant taste.

I have a small chopping board which I keep just for chopping up onions and garlic and chillis. It is deeply impregnated with onion smells. You really would not want to cut things like cake on it.

As for chicken in a basket how greasy must those baskets have got and how cool we were eating like that with our fingers.

I dislike square plates, it is harder to keep the knives and forks resting on the sides of the plate without falling into the food.

The local pub where I go to knitting group just serve the most superb chips straight onto the plate. Why put them in a wire basket?

Exactly Christine and they are probably blissfully unaware that we customers grumble like mad,,,,perhaps we should all email them and let them know how we really feel.

Because they are all trying to outdo each other in the pretentiousness stakes gettingonabit, bit like the emperor's new clothes.

Why do restaurants use those whopping great slabs of wood? The must be much more difficult to deal with for the staff, as well as being a bit ridiculous.

Wondered what you meant Jalima, I didn't even notice the 'like' was missing! I just read it as being there and had to re-read slowly!

I quite like!

(missed the whole point there because I missed a word out)

I quite the chips served in a miniature basket and the fish on pretend newspaper and DGS was tickled pink to be served his 'Southern Fried Chicken' and chips in a bucket when we were overseas.

However, I do struggle with dinner in those large soup plates and salad in a bowl.

Don't those slate serving platters blunt the knives? I know you're not supposed to use ceramic boards for cutting on because it blunts the knives.

My mother had one of those 'Jersey creamers'.

Yes that's annoying Eloethan. Both the needing to decant onto a plate and the silly piled up food. I'm sure it's meant to be artistic but you still have to dissemble it to eat it.

I agree that the deep soup plates are awful - so difficult to cut your food on them. Ditto fish pie, macaroni cheese, etc., left in its cooking dish. I usually try and decant them onto the plate.

I also don't like the way some places pile different items of food on top of one another.

The best French onion soup I ever had was in a hollowed out sourdough loaf in San Francisco. I ate the loaf as well.

Thanks for the link Isabella

I've had steak on a slate plate and never again. A knife cutting against slate felt and sounded awful. And trying to eat a steak pie from a pudding basin was a challenge too.

So now I ask for a proper plate.

(My DS got a nice little sideline job for a while re-sanding wooden platters when they lost their surface.)

As a student I always had a summer job to keep me in funds for the rest of the year. One year I worked in a canning factory in Spalding. My landlady always made me Sunday dinner of roast beef, vegetables and gravy served in a huge Yorkshire pudding. It was absolutely delicious.

In Prague we ate goulash in pastry bowls. Also delicious, but had to lie down in a darkened room to recover. I felt like one of those pythons that have swallowed a pig!

Slate particles in your food is not good

I still have my grandmother's cow jug-her head has come off a couple of times but has been successfully glued back on. (The cow jug that is, not my grandmother) Perversely I have a milk jug that looks like a milk carton!

I have slate place mats and they are difficult to clean so I would be wary of food served on them. I quite enjoy novelty china. There was a dining pub in Yorkshire that served fish and chips on china where the pattern was newspaper print. I remember when ikea did milk jugs like cows and as a child I had a tiny milk jug like a daffodil for cream on porridge and my brother had one shaped like a thistle. Apologies to any Scots but we had sugar as well but we were skinny little kids.

I always ask for a proper plate. I know I'm old fashioned but I can't accept that the wooden blocks and slates can be totally clean /hygienic. I don't mind the chip baskets but don't really see the need for them

The last time I took my Dad out for a meal was for his 85 th birthday and I felt really sad that his salmon was served on a wooden board. That was his last meal out sadly. Surely waiters could look at their customers and think the elderly may prefer a traditional plate.

I like a plate with a shallow rim around it so that the gravy/sauce does not go everywhere - I quite like square plates or the rectangular ones and they do tend to have slightly 'bent up' edges.
Why do they make some plates so heavy they are hard to lift - especially on days the arthritis is playing up! I like bone china when possible rather than the thick stuff which chips so easily.

I'm not too keen on being served a crumbly meat pie in a separate pie dish on a bigger plate with the veg. Instead of fiddle faddling with all that, I just tip it all onto the main plate and tuck in...... much easier. I too wonder about the cleanliness of wooden boards and slates but am not averse to fries served in a basket! I eat them by hand anyway - easier to dip into the mayo!!