Does anyone else here hate that restaurants never cut loaves of bread all the way through? I blanch at seeing a tablemate grab the bread I might be eating, with both hands, and tear it apart, getting his digital effluvia all over it.
Tim

It's not only bread. They also cut pizza part of the way, so that the slices do not separate cleanly.

Yeah that is annoying. Perhaps someone can explain. I am not that germ conscious, it just strikes me as stupid. Maybe the fine restaurants in Europe have this practice.

I agree on all the replies...when faced with this situation I grab the slice I’m going to eat and take the knife and finish the cut only handling my piece. As far as pizza...one pizza place that makes the slicing cuts deep and long enough to not drag the toppings off is BJ’s Pizza And Subs on Saint George Island in FL IMHO the best pizza out (plus they are not stingy with anchovies )...they also cut their sub sandwiches all the way through

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Yeah that is annoying. Perhaps someone can explain. I am not that germ conscious, it just strikes me as stupid. Maybe the fine restaurants in Europe have this practice.

ZS, it's called LAZY -- rampant in todays society. Its like ugly -- you can't change it.

Tinyman

I believe it has to do with the idea of "breaking bread" and it bugs me too.

Bread was an American soft rock band from Los Angeles, California. They had 13 songs chart on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1970 and 1977. The band was fronted by David Gates (vocals, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, violin, viola, percussion), with Jimmy Griffin (vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion) and Robb Royer (bass guitar, guitar, flute, keyboards, percussion, recorder, backing vocals

It's so the loaf stays intact. This way they can cut many loaves all at once to save labor and hassle.......usually the bread is in a towel in the basket, you are to wrap the towel around the loaf and pull the piece with your hand. These days, I'm happy IF a restaurant even gives you a loaf of bread or any bread with your meal......and fall out of my chair if a salad comes with the meal.

^^^^ some will only bring it out if you ask for it.

quote:

Originally posted by SSgt USMC/Vet:
Bread was an American soft rock band from Los Angeles, California. They had 13 songs chart on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1970 and 1977. The band was fronted by David Gates (vocals, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, violin, viola, percussion), with Jimmy Griffin (vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion) and Robb Royer (bass guitar, guitar, flute, keyboards, percussion, recorder, backing vocals

You left out Larry Knechtel on bass/keyboards.

RE: the partly-sliced loaves of actual bread. My guess is that they do that to make it clear the bread was baked on site (i.e. a fresh-baked loaf) and to give you a start at cutting slices. Some places that bake their bread on site just put out a small unsliced loaf and that, IMO, is possibly worse than the partly-sliced-loaf re: person A handling person B, C, and D's food.

Pizza places don't cut all the way through the edges so your pie doesn't slide around on it's way to your table or house.

They want the pizza delivery and/or pickup to be a complete pie, in one piece, not a bunch of slices jumping around on top of each other tearing off the toppings and resulting in a fubar pie being delivered, and thus, returned for credit...

Plus who wants anchovies on their side of the pie...

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

Pizza places don't cut all the way through the edges so your pie doesn't slide around on it's way to your table or house.

They want the pizza delivery and/or pickup to be a complete pie, in one piece, not a bunch of slices jumping around on top of each other tearing off the toppings and resulting in a fubar pie being delivered, and thus, returned for credit...

Plus who wants anchovies on their side of the pie...

I guess that kind of makes sense for delivery or take-out, but for eat-in, I'll have to remember to specify "cut all the way through" when I order. I have to stop at one of my customers' stores in Deltona to deal with a problem there, so that's always a good excuse to eat pizza at Scorpio's on Elkcam Blvd. (worth a ride if you're looking for an excuse to give your motorcycle some exercise, and there's a little mom-and-pop ice cream shop just down the street that always has maple-walnut ice cream in stock).

Re your second point, pizza without anchovies is just plain un-American un-Italian.

quote:

These days, I'm happy IF a restaurant even gives you a loaf of bread or any bread with your meal

I was at a Denver place a few years ago and noticed something under the appetizers section in French that I didn't recognize. It was $4.

I asked, and they gave me a whole explanation and description of what turned out to be bread and butter.

If they cut it through, then people would accuse them of assembling it from what previous diners left behind. You can’t win anymore.

Many moons ago when I worked in an Italian restaurant as a waiter (ok maybe only 8 years or so). The wait staff was given a loaf of bread on a steel serving dish to cut ourselves. We had about 1 minute to cut the bread into slices and get it to the table for the customer. I was so busy as a waiter I wouldn’t have had time to cut the bread all the way through and get appetizers and drinks and meals to all the other tables I was serving so we cut the fresh bread down to the level of the plate it was pulled out of the oven on and put it in a basket with butter and went. It wasn’t laziness it was expedience for us to be able to do our jobs properly.
And as a side note this was a side job for me to earn extra money to pay for my wedding not my career