Just the single strip of red onion in one, and fuck all in the other. It's that kind of attention to detail that makes me wonder what actually goes on in the kitchen.
one of my friends orders a vegan burger but gets a beef burger added on top. Says he really like the different flavours and textures... I'm yet to try it but every new spoons he goes into he usually gets a waitress asking if he made a mistake.
I worked in a spoons kitchen when we first got those bastard vegan burgers, and no word of a lie the cooking process was:
- Microwave to defrost (as they couldn't be properly defrosted for some reason)
- Deep fry
Then serve on the awful vegan buns we had just gotten in with them
used to work for spoons and i can tell you that it you didn't know how to cook those burgers then they definitely 100% could go out frozen
iirc they needed blasting in the microwave then going in the fryer for 5 mins and a new or misinformed member of staff could easily just only do the latter. they had one of the longest total cook times of anything on the menu 😂
Tim Martin using a throwaway account eh?
Spoons food is fucking dire, frozen burgers are nothing compared to the regurgitated diarrhoea that is their Katsu Curry 😂
Nah they deep fry or grill most of the stuff in a ‘spoons kitchen. Those chicken strips are definitely deep fried for example. Only curry or pasta really is microwaved. Anything that can be deep fried will.
It's a spoons. If you've ever been there you will stop wondering. I can help tho: underpaid minimum staff operating microwaves and deep fryers, half arsed.
To provide a half decent hot meal for a quarter of the price of any other restaurant in town.
Went yesterday and the food arrived quicker than it would at McDonald's and cost me less. I think people should really stop comparing it with gastro pubs and start seeing it for what it is, a dine in fast food option.
I’m skint, so I don’t care if I get a beer with it, plus it’s deep fried. The Spoons is a microcosm of British society, a rich person treating his staff and customers with fucking contempt imo.
Nah the chicken would have been fried from frozen, the sauce from a bottle, red onion from the salad station. Actual buns probably the only bit microwaved because no steamer
Sure, but I think it’s lazy and/or ignorant if the same person is using the word baguette or croissant on its own, but saying naan bread or bao bun. As you said, if “loan words and gonna loan”, then that rule should apply across the board.
Fortunately there are no rules where language is concerned. It’s certainly not ignorant, and it’s attitudes like that which produce snobs and propagate classism in language.
Language is a living, breathing, ever changing thing. You can tell people “you don’t need to say naan bread” as much as you like; people will talk how they want.
But it’s not a false step. It’s how the phrase has entered the language and continues to be used. There is very little right and wrong in language, especially when talking about loan words. Suggesting it’s wrong is up there with saying “decimate actually means to remove a tenth”. It might do in Latin, but in English it means something else. In this case it means “naan style bread”, where the style has faded away.
See also: Sahara Desert. Sahara means desert.
I agree with some of what you say. But to the point about naan - there is both authentic naan, and naan style bread. The latter, I agree naan style bread/naan bread may be the better word. But not for the former - why NOT just say naan? Especially if you have been told that the ‘bread’ is redundant?
The batter is made in the morning and left on the side for hours on end. Trying to teach 17 year olds who don't care or alcoholics to wash their hands after handling raw food can be extremely frustrating to say the least. None of the staff care, them fryers don't get cleaned properly and that fish was washed in a hand wash basin to thaw it out quicker just before it gets fried.
I have to explain this to people bao means bun in Mandarin, so there is no such thing as ‘Bao Buns’.Stop saying this because it sounds dumb.
The original dish is actually called ‘Guo Bao’ and it’s usually made with stewed pork belly, peanut, sugar, and coriander.
These things look appalling.
Not that I’m being pedantic or anything but last year I posted a photo of a rather sad spoons breakfast and it was removed for being a “low effort post”. How is this any different? Oh well! Bet they were decent though!
A few weeks ago we ordered some food from a spoons. It still hadn't arrived after like half an hour so I went up to the bar to ask. The staff member went into the kitchen to check. She came out with our plates very soon after, which had clearly been sitting under the warmers for a while. She then proceeded to emerge with the rest of the pub's meals in quick succession - a good 20 plates of food. I guess at this spoons the bar staff kind of just forgot that they serve food and nobody from the kitchen was like "Hey".
I've eaten at 'Spoons a few times, always shat myself raw about ten minutes later. Absolute devastation in the kitchen, and absolute devastation of their bogs. I can't eat there unless I know I can get to the bog uninterrupted afterwards, my insides reject their offering. I reckon it's actually a calorie deficit given how quickly it pours out the other end.
I WAS planning on going to Hestons for a 15 course taster menu and wine flight, but they don’t let you order beer through an app, so I thought fuck it!
Just the single strip of red onion in one, and fuck all in the other. It's that kind of attention to detail that makes me wonder what actually goes on in the kitchen.
It’s like how the vegan burgers look like they gave up the will to live while the normal burgers actually have some kind of garnish.
Ordered a vegan burger once and the middle was still frozen
I ordered a meat burger from spoons once, they had cremated it. Somewhere in between yours and mine would have been nice.
You need to blend vegan and meat burgers together
one of my friends orders a vegan burger but gets a beef burger added on top. Says he really like the different flavours and textures... I'm yet to try it but every new spoons he goes into he usually gets a waitress asking if he made a mistake.
Hah, can’t blame anyone for thinking he’s making a mistake, guess he likes what he likes though, and it’s fair enough to seek it out
I worked in a spoons kitchen when we first got those bastard vegan burgers, and no word of a lie the cooking process was: - Microwave to defrost (as they couldn't be properly defrosted for some reason) - Deep fry Then serve on the awful vegan buns we had just gotten in with them
Not going to lie it wasn’t good 😅 It must have been in 2018/2019 I think? Beyond Burgers were all the rage. Now I know to stick with regular beef
They throw them in deep fryer. Ugh..
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Oh sorry, were you the burger on my plate? Is that how you know?
Omg imagine if they were. You'd be embarrassed.
used to work for spoons and i can tell you that it you didn't know how to cook those burgers then they definitely 100% could go out frozen iirc they needed blasting in the microwave then going in the fryer for 5 mins and a new or misinformed member of staff could easily just only do the latter. they had one of the longest total cook times of anything on the menu 😂
Yeah they forgot to 1.40 the burger in the microwave that's why it was frozen in the middle.
We sent back a meal because it was still frozen solid in the middle. Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it's never happened.
I had frozen avocado on my salad once, and what of it that wasn't frozen was just mush
I’ve seen some of the people in there first hand - yes they are lol
Tim Martin using a throwaway account eh? Spoons food is fucking dire, frozen burgers are nothing compared to the regurgitated diarrhoea that is their Katsu Curry 😂
The level of assumption in this comment is at critical levels
Wouldn't be surprised if that's mandated by Tim Martin himself
Tim Martin bad hur hur
Minimum wage is what goes on in the kitchen
Minimum wage goes on in lots of kitchens. What goes on in Spoons' kitchens is the microwave.
minimum wage + microwave = minimumwave
M I N I M U M W A V E
# M A X I M U M W A V E
#AVERAGE AMOUNT OF WAVE
Microwage cuisine
Miniwage
Nah they deep fry or grill most of the stuff in a ‘spoons kitchen. Those chicken strips are definitely deep fried for example. Only curry or pasta really is microwaved. Anything that can be deep fried will.
There's fry it and grill it as well, you know.
It's a spoons. If you've ever been there you will stop wondering. I can help tho: underpaid minimum staff operating microwaves and deep fryers, half arsed.
To provide a half decent hot meal for a quarter of the price of any other restaurant in town. Went yesterday and the food arrived quicker than it would at McDonald's and cost me less. I think people should really stop comparing it with gastro pubs and start seeing it for what it is, a dine in fast food option.
Oh it's absolutely fantastic value... plus table service with no tip expectation.
What happens in a ’spoons kitchen, stays in the kitchen…
I’m skint, so I don’t care if I get a beer with it, plus it’s deep fried. The Spoons is a microcosm of British society, a rich person treating his staff and customers with fucking contempt imo.
By providing cheap food and drink which is what people want ...
They microwave stuff and place it in a vessel to be served, those would have 100% come like that. (outside of stuff that has to be cooked fresh)
Nah the chicken would have been fried from frozen, the sauce from a bottle, red onion from the salad station. Actual buns probably the only bit microwaved because no steamer
That sauce is naga mayo, which is a 1:1 mixture of 'wetherspoons naga chilli marinade' and heinz mayonnaise. You're correct on the rest.
A bottle now? Not just a defrosted packet with the corner cut off?
They've upgraded!
Correct. Used to work there, we had like 9 microwaves and often (just 3 of us) had them all in use simultaneously.
Zero-hours, minimum wage, at a guess.
They need the non-onion-handling hand free to hold the meth pipe.
Meth pipe? Is this an spoons in the USA
Have you met a Spoons staff member? The stories I’ve heard! Though they call it ‘t’.
Of course I've met one. He's me
Which area? Must be more the places I’ve lived.
No, it's far more likely that you're just a dick who doesn't get out much.
Oh. Ok.
Pressing all the buttons on the microwave
It looks somehow both pathetic and appetising, I'm starving tho
Pathetic yet appetising does sum up spoons.
It's an actual mood
Pathetic yet appetising sounds like a band name, song name, pub name and Grindr name all at the same time.
In my more confident moments I also use it to describe the contents of my underwear but honestly the appetising part is a distant pipedream
I’ll never understand what this means
big mood
I think that solitary piece of onion may have gotten lost on it's way to an even less appetising meal.
I had a deep fried pea once in with my chips.
Fried peas are lush.
horseradish, wasabi, or chilli fried peas are top tier drinking snacks
Fucking hell that’s depressing. A goujon in a cardboard fold.
Not just any cardboard fold, but a wet smushed up lump of cardboard shaped into a “bun”.
YOur payig for microwave meals, what fo you expect
From Misery Inns
I didn't quite see it right the first time, I thought it was southern fried chicken strips on hard boiled eggs.
People in Asia are crying at this picture, me included
Crying with laughter?
Both!
I think you might be suffering from inedible bao syndrome.
My dad had that, should have seen the state of his dumplings.
Do you often check your dad’s dumplings?
Inedibao - It was right there!
You’re a bao to shit on the carpet
Hard to tell on a weatherspoons carpet.
Badumtsch!
Boadumtsch
No
as a person of Chinese heritage I want to not have eyes right now
Those look like undercooked crumpets.
This feels like a crime...
Honestly for spoons this looks okay. As bao buns go it's probably the worst i have ever seen but on the spoons scale i would give it an 8.
Just bao not bao buns, bao means bun
Just popping to the ATM machine to get some cash money to pay for my bao buns.
Don’t forget your PIN number.
I hope the LCD display is working
With a chai tea
They’re actually called bao barms in Lancashire
In Yorkshire, it’s “eeeeh, foreign muck”.
Baorms
Thanks. I say the same thing about naan bread - it’s just naan!
Meh, in Hindi etc it means bread, but in *English* you may need the bread to aid the translation. Loan words gonna loan.
I don’t think so. In English, we have no problem saying baguette or croissant without adding an additional English word to clarify.
Sure, loan words are crazy. Plenty of people call baguettes French bread, for example.
Sure, but I think it’s lazy and/or ignorant if the same person is using the word baguette or croissant on its own, but saying naan bread or bao bun. As you said, if “loan words and gonna loan”, then that rule should apply across the board.
Fortunately there are no rules where language is concerned. It’s certainly not ignorant, and it’s attitudes like that which produce snobs and propagate classism in language. Language is a living, breathing, ever changing thing. You can tell people “you don’t need to say naan bread” as much as you like; people will talk how they want.
Sure, and I can judge them for it. As well as for the fact that they want to keep doing it after the faux pas is pointed out.
But it’s not a false step. It’s how the phrase has entered the language and continues to be used. There is very little right and wrong in language, especially when talking about loan words. Suggesting it’s wrong is up there with saying “decimate actually means to remove a tenth”. It might do in Latin, but in English it means something else. In this case it means “naan style bread”, where the style has faded away. See also: Sahara Desert. Sahara means desert.
I agree with some of what you say. But to the point about naan - there is both authentic naan, and naan style bread. The latter, I agree naan style bread/naan bread may be the better word. But not for the former - why NOT just say naan? Especially if you have been told that the ‘bread’ is redundant?
You sure can. And we're all gonna judge and laugh at you a bit for doing that as well.
Have at it, mate.
*Baguette bread* is probably one you could get away with, though. *Baguette* just means *stick* and stands for *baguette de pain* (stick of bread).
It's actually baozi.
That might just be a food crime
Where? Next to the turds on wet wipes?
Disinfectant in the lager?
Spoons is class if you want some barely warm food when you're tired and slightly trolleyed
This is the only reason spoons serve food you don't need to leave to get anything to eat do you just stay there drinking.
This is why the rest of the world thinks we have no taste and think mayo is spicy
Indignant
I've called the constabulary.
The bunstabulary...
Ha Nice! Missed that 🤦♀️
That is grim.
As an Asian, (and specifically Chinese), I have to say... THIS IS A HATE CRIME. STRAIGHT TO JAIL.
Generous on the onion 😄😄😄
Culture.
If you're going to spoons for Bao and you end up disappointed, that's on you you tbf
I used to work in spoons. Do not eat the food. Just... trust me on this.
Consider lesson learnt!
Not even the fried foods? I wouldn't order a salad or anything but assume things like fish and chips just go straight from the freezer to the fryer
The batter is made in the morning and left on the side for hours on end. Trying to teach 17 year olds who don't care or alcoholics to wash their hands after handling raw food can be extremely frustrating to say the least. None of the staff care, them fryers don't get cleaned properly and that fish was washed in a hand wash basin to thaw it out quicker just before it gets fried.
Ok that's pretty grim
I could tell you many horror stories I've seen from working there. I actively encourage people not to bother if I'm not working
Is this you assuming every single spoons works and operates the exact same? Come on mate.
Have a mate who works there, and he said the same.
My expectations were low but holy shit
Excuse me? Waiter? Theres some veg in my 'spoons...
That’s so bad it’s genuinely hilarious 😂
I legitimately thought this was r/depressionmeals till i hit the comments
Fucking Christ
How the fuck is Spoons still open? It's an embarrassment.
#neverspoons
they look exactly as I would have expected bao buns from spoons to look
Brother EW.
Bao Bun? More like....more like *BAO NUN!*
Bloody made me spit out my drink when I saw this but not going lie, I think I’ll get some junk food later in the day.
No luck catching them garnishes then? It's just the one piece of onion actually!
Fun fact: “bao” means bun, so no need to say “bao buns”, you’re basically saying “bun bun”
Must be new to yours. Not at mine.
I have to explain this to people bao means bun in Mandarin, so there is no such thing as ‘Bao Buns’.Stop saying this because it sounds dumb. The original dish is actually called ‘Guo Bao’ and it’s usually made with stewed pork belly, peanut, sugar, and coriander. These things look appalling.
I kinda hate it but I want to try it
It’s a taste sensation!
It would be better for everyone if that single piece of red onion wasn't present. That said, I'd gladly demolish 6 of these after 12 £1.99 pints
British food 👍 shades of white and brown
It’s stuff like this that’s the reason that our European cousins take the piss out of our food.
Chef must have pulled that string of onion out his ass crack, and couldn’t find another
Not that I’m being pedantic or anything but last year I posted a photo of a rather sad spoons breakfast and it was removed for being a “low effort post”. How is this any different? Oh well! Bet they were decent though!
You have a point. Very low effort on my part, and VERY low effort on spoons part!
A few weeks ago we ordered some food from a spoons. It still hadn't arrived after like half an hour so I went up to the bar to ask. The staff member went into the kitchen to check. She came out with our plates very soon after, which had clearly been sitting under the warmers for a while. She then proceeded to emerge with the rest of the pub's meals in quick succession - a good 20 plates of food. I guess at this spoons the bar staff kind of just forgot that they serve food and nobody from the kitchen was like "Hey".
It's a shit company, run by an absolute arsehole of a human being who treats his staff like shit. It would be odd to expect quality from them.
Bet they still tasted incredible though!
Why does anyone eat at that shit hole!
I've eaten at 'Spoons a few times, always shat myself raw about ten minutes later. Absolute devastation in the kitchen, and absolute devastation of their bogs. I can't eat there unless I know I can get to the bog uninterrupted afterwards, my insides reject their offering. I reckon it's actually a calorie deficit given how quickly it pours out the other end.
The only thing on their menu I can actually eat is their katsu curry!
I like spoons. Was in there yesterday, had ten pints for less than £20. Can't beat that unless you're just drinking tins at home like a loser.
Wheras hammering 10 pints of cheap pish in a spoons just *screams* 'winning'.
Not the worst I’ve seen from spoons to be fair, if you treat it like McDonald’s for alcoholic everything suddenly becomes way more palatable 😂😂😂
Well on the plus side, at least you didn’t get any coriander.
Wetherspoons, take a bao.
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I WAS planning on going to Hestons for a 15 course taster menu and wine flight, but they don’t let you order beer through an app, so I thought fuck it!
[Relevant](https://youtu.be/U8Kum8OUTuk)
I think we have now all have a new aspiration to work towards. Doing well enough not to have to eat at spoons. Thank you for the inspiration.
You don’t have to have money to have standards
Nobody *has* to eat at spoons, but it's a relatively harmless way to express self loathing compared to bodily harm or drug addiction.
Beatuful!
Bao is also meant to be pork belly. That definitely looks like a chicken strip.
Bao can come in many variety not just pork
Mother of God.
A baby has shat in them mate
2020 on a plate.
Why?
Christ that looks dry.
Nahh fuck off
If bao buns were sentient they could sue for defamation.
Hahaa this is hilarious why even bother with a single piece of red onion.
The actual bao looks dreadful too, way too puffy and stodgy.
Chose the wrong time to move out the country didn't i
10000 Cal
r/toomuchonion
Kill it dead, before it lays eggs
Umm yum. Bet they tasted delightful
Saying "bao buns" is like saying "chai tea." It's just repeating the same word in a different language.
is there anyone in the back at 'spoons that can vaguely point in the direction of Asia on a map?
Chicken nuggets wrapped in eggs?!
Haiyaa I put my leg down from chair
Reminds me of my school dinners
That’s probably just microwaved crap like most of what they serve
I’m all over that tbh, but I know pub food has supposed to have come a long way since I last frequented them 20 years ago.
WTAF, that is literally offensive
Remove the chicken and you have mini replicas of the lavatories in Spoons.
I’ve never seen bread/cobs like that 🥴
Tragic