There are lots of places in Galicia, where people sit on long wooden tables and eat what is available on the day.

Nobody gets a choice, the food is good and value for money, the only way they can do this is to cook in bulk, and not cater to personal taste.

These places are usually packed, because although some posters on here "object" to the "arrogant" chefs imposing their will on customers, the people who eat there are obviously pleased.

Also there is not need to object to a chef dictating what you eat, you can always go elsewhere. Simples. These places are for people who don´t mind taking pot luck, horses for courses.

sounds just like my house - I decide what I am going to cook and the rest of the house have to eat it.

if the menu says X then that is what you get, seems quite democratic to me, and I am sure that it can keep the price low.
but if you aren't happy then go elsewhere, no one will miss you

I don't think we are speaking of the same kind of restaurants. I wouldn't mind at all (and often have) been to ones offering set menus of 2 or 3 courses, even if there is no choice of dishes, provided I liked the sound of all the dishes available. The prices tend to be reasonable too.

But what do you think of restaurants like the ones featured here, with multiple courses (which for me increases the likelihood that I'm not going to like some of them)? Some don't even publicise in advance what the menus are going to be, it's up to the chef to decide what he is going to cook on the day and you wouldn't discover what that may be until you arrived. And some don't even offer an a la carte option instead. If I'm going to pay a lot of money for a meal, then I want to make sure that I will be able to eat and enjoy all of it.


http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/restaura...t-list-60.html

And a couple of examples from Spain - Jose Carlos Garcia's restaurant on the Muelle Uno development in Malaga port (€85 per head last time I looked for the menu de degustacion, no details of what it consisted of were displayed). On a visit to Palma de Mallorca we spotted this Indian restaurant and thought it looked a nice place, but turned out to offer only a menu de degustacion, no a la carte option available:-
http://www.baisakhi.es/

Yes, they're fine for people who are prepared to take pot luck. But if any of the course featured, say, oysters, quail or anything containing mustard, I couldn't eat them if THEY paid ME.

as you probably remember, I regularly go to a small restaurant in Granada that does a menu del dia for €5, there is no choice although there seems to be some rotation week by week on a 6 or 7 day basis.
TBH I find large menus horrendous, too much choice spoils the opportunity to get down and eat a good meal.

locally we have a number of places that offer you a choice of 6, 7 or even 8 tapas with a lunchtime drink - rather than you being at the mercy of the barkeep. Especially as I won't touch pulpi and similar items, although I will eat ordinary fish. One place made a point of serving garlic snails in their shells - just the sort of thing the starving olive pickers want.

The Spanish would love. They´d soon set up a car boot sale flogging off second hand alarm clocks!

I think choosing from the menu is part of the occasion. I often look on their website first. Not keen on really large menus,(like Chinese places) suggests the food is not freshly cooked.

I doubt if it is - although if you dissect the menu you will find there are many options based on a small number of base products

Its those who go to a Pizza parlour and don't want pizza that I can't fathom

me too, me too, me too, infact if there is no cars outside or people inside I wont bother either. Tapas yes because its just heated in the microwave but not a sit down meal, Woks especially, personally cant stand them but when all the friends love it, the uncultured ones that is !

I will say that Gordon Ramsey Kitchen nightmares has also had some influence on my own business, and he says keep the menu small, don't have too much variation, hundreds of dishes is not going to work well as he has shown on such programmes.

I implemented that in my own business of buying the same old crap every day and you know it off by heart, rather than give variation and get yourself in a mess.

watching Robert Irvine saying the same thing as GR last night,
there is a need to have some variation in the menu - not everyone wants a 1kilo Tbone, but some of these resto's have tons of unused, going off, food sighting in a fridge because someone had a desire to fill the menu out.

as with oh so many things
Keep
It
Simple
Stupid
!!

Same here. I generally find the best places offer no more than about six options per course - I can always find something I like amongst that number, and I too distrust places with too long menus. It's good if you can see the menu on a website first, saves trailing all the way there to find that what's on offer doesn't really appeal.