20 Restaurants That Should Stick to Serving Food on Plates

This "gastro" trend at restaurants is getting out of hand. Restaurants these days don't think it's enough to serve food on plates and in bowls. They feel like they have to get creative, and they are getting way too carried away. Luckily, there is a whole subreddit called We Want Plates dedicated to calling out these ridiculous restaurants for their strange serving habits. 

Call me crazy, but I don't want my food hanging on a clothesline, looking like it just came out of the wash. I'd kind of expect these to taste like soap, and I don't think that's the effect they're going for. 

That looks like a legit old VHS tape of The Bodyguard. And it doesn't look like it's been laminated or anything, which can only mean that it has not been cleaned or coated with a protective seal. This restaurant is crazy if it thinks I'm going to eat dessert off a moldy VHS tape the manager found in his mom's basement.

Ooh yes, what a lovely loaf of bread. So spongy, so crispy, Just a slight hint of mysterious animal hair that gets caught in your throat as you swallow. It's everything you want your bread-eating experience to be. Oh wait, that's the opposite of what you want when you eat bread. Sorry, I messed that one up. 

Yes, this is a meringue dessert of some kind served on a pillow that was magnetically levitating in the air. Is this a once in a lifetime experience? Probably. Am I going to steal that pillow for a post-fancy meal nap? Absolutely. 

Who in the world wants to eat anything out of a shoe? The only person I can think of who might not be totally offended at the idea is the old woman from that story who lives in a shoe. If her whole house is a shoe, maybe she won't mind being served fried nuggets of I don't know what in a shoe as well. 

Now, take-out containers are made for food. But they're not well-designed enough to eat out of. They leak something awful, and I have to imagine that eating a rapidly melting ice cream sundae out of a take-out container is not pleasant. Maybe these are lined or something. 

This looks almost sexual and naughty, and I hate it. Would it prevent me from sliding those onion rings off and eating them? No. Onion rings are delicious. But this would be the last time I went to that restaurant and ordered onion rings, for sure.

What! What! This makes those chicken tenders look so incredibly uninviting. Pine needles are spiky and uncomfortable to touch. Why did they do this? Do you think the pine needles contribute to the flavor of the chicken tenders at all? they look like pretty regular ol' chicken tenders.

This is actually really great because I can just take this breakfast and fling it into the Sun rather than eat it. How efficient! Because I definitely do not want to eat this breakfast off of a shovel that was just used to dig someone's grave or something.

This one really baffled me, and I will tell you why: They make bricks out of salt. Whole bricks of salt. They could have used those, but instead, they put the oysters on salt on a regular brick. Come on, guys. So close and yet so far.

What a sad and tragic presentation. First of all, the burger and the nachos just look terrible. I'm sorry. I guess they could have tasted good. But half a burger and four nacho chips also don't take up enough room or look cool enough to be put on an electric guitar. 

You can tell by the quality of the picture that this came from a very fancy restaurant. That's how these places get you. They light everything perfectly and make their dishes tall and serve them on strange objects, and you don't realize until it's over that you've eaten three bites and you're more starving than you were before the meal.

See what I'm talking about? This is the same deal as the previous picture, only somehow the fact that it's potato chips makes it worse. I'm pretty sure these are just Terra Chips they took out of a bag and stuck to a branch.

Seriously, this tree thing has to stop. This one is crazy because broccoli already looks like trees! It's a bunch of miniature trees on a tree. It's Tree Inception! Tree-ception! I'm tired. I think I need to lie down and take a nap. This is too exhausting.

This looks less like the way a restaurant would serve peanuts and more like the way my grandma would steal peanuts from a restaurant. Oh, and she would. I have witnessed many old people put dinner rolls and worse in their purses. 

Yes, it's exactly what it looks like. This is a bite of crab salad served on a tongue made of ice. Presumably, you're supposed to lift up the ice tongue and put your mouth around it to slurp up the crab. It's extremely disgusting and I hope I never have to watch someone eat this.

This little shopping basket full of French fries really does look like you can (and should!) pick it up and take it with you to the grocery store. Man, if I could eat French fries while I went food shopping, I wouldn't hate shopping for groceries so much. 

This must be a joke, right? Is this some sort of cruel trick? In order to eat that yogurt, you either have to lift the glass and let it fall everywhere, or you have to flip the slab and throw all that nicely sliced fruit on the floor. This one is just plain mean!

I cannot. I give up. This is so pretentious and infuriating. They think they're being funny by serving this apple dessert on an iPad with a picture of a plate on it? Well, I'll tell you something funny. Apple dessert is going to get into every nook and cranny of this iPad and destroy it from the inside out. 

Well, this is the biggest "NO THANKS!" I have ever come across in my entire life. Who thought serving red jello on a pad was a good idea? Because I would like to meet them and then punch them in the face. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather not feel like I was slurping up period blood when I go out to eat.