Hey, I’m the manager of the restaurant you’re dining at, and— just a quick heads up— it looks like you ordered the only dish on our menu that comes on a different type of plate.
How fun is that?
Before you ask, yes, it’s flamboyant—excessively so. Yelp reviews have described this dish and its presentation as “over the top,” “a nonsensical and disrespectful way to serve chicken piccata,” and “enough to get my friends to refer to me as ‘Viscount Jeremy’ for the remainder of my miserable life.”
There’s no real reason why we serve our chicken piccata on an ornate Medieval serving tray—complete with traditional Dark Age–era cutlery, a garishly embellished gravy boat, and a historically accurate replica of the crown Henry Tudor would’ve worn at his feasts—while the rest of our dishes are delivered on minimalist white plates from Crate & Barrel, but that’s just how things shook out.
Quickly, before I forget, I wanted to mention that our chicken piccata actually has an auditory element as well. Yeah, our waiter is going to clang around with it a bunch before bringing it over to your table. That’s just how chicken piccata is served. Here, at this Mexican–Italian–Medieval England fusion restaurant, anyway.
Bet you didn’t expect chicken piccata to be the menu item that’s served with a little razzle dazzle! Bet you thought it would be a nondescript dish that would fly under the radar. How wrong you were!
We know you avoided the fajitas because you’ve never felt confident enough to weather strangers’ stares as a big sizzling plate is delivered to your table—but you shouldn’t have worried! Our fajitas are served ice-cold and sizzle-free because, to be honest, our chef doesn’t really know how to make them. He sure as hell knows his way around a big, weird platter that we found under one of the stoves, though (he skews more toward the Medieval England side of the “fusion”).
I’m just going to give it to you straight: when your dish arrives, you’re going to feel exposed, singled out, and vulnerable. And then, of course, there’s the humiliation. People will be looking at you.
You see, we want our customers who order the chicken piccata to feel seen, recognized, jeered at, diminished, ridiculed, “other,” jester-esque, unwelcome, self-conscious—an outsider looking in.
Before you start speculating that this is a personal attack designed to embarass you in front of your friends by making you look like a haughty child monarch from yesteryear, just remember: there’s absolutely no way for you to prove that.
If you happen to hear raucous laughter coming from the kitchen, it’s just because one of the line chefs told a really funny joke, not because the entire staff is doubled over in laughter after watching you try to use a traditional Medieval feasting fork.
And, before you ask, no, that’s not something we made up.
We did, however, make up the antediluvian cutting goggles. Those are just a pair of prescription readers the last table left behind. You can go ahead and take those off.
Look, do we get off on watching you try to act normal about your ostentatious, oversized serving platter while the rest of your friends eat their chic little mahi mahi tacos off dignified glazed ceramic? Of course—but that’s not why we do it.
We’re a restaurant—making weird, incongruous stylistic choices for no other reason than “we felt like it” is the name of the game. Ever been to The Cheesecake Factory?
So, go ahead, try and act like you’re not mortified by the brash, pompous platter that was just placed in front of you. Give it your best go. But just remember: you’ll never fit in, not really. Your wildest suspicions were correct: Everyone you know and love sees you as a big dummy. A big dummy who orders big dumb dishes that come on big dumb ornate silver plates. Straighten your crown, it’s sliding off.
Now that that’s out of the way, which of you ordered the fajitas? I’m supposed to comp your order up top just to get ahead of the whole “served cold and wet” thing. Oh, I never mentioned anything about them being wet? Yeah, they’re going to be, like, super mushy.