‘It’s like eating from a roof tile’: The trends these Aussie food icons just can’t get behind
The food world is full of weird and wonderful trends, from Instagram-bait menu items to quirky flavour pairings – but even those in the industry feel things go a step too far sometimes.
Just ask chef and TV host Courtney Roulston, who has a simple plea for the food venues of the world: “Just give me a plate.”
Serve Courtney Roulston a meal on one of these flat slate plates at your peril. iStock, Nine
Roulston isn’t loving the trend of serving meals on anything but plates, including the ever-popular flat slate squares.
“It’s like eating from a scratchy roof tile. I’ve even seen things served on shovels and miniature metal frying baskets in restaurants,” she tells nine.com.au.
Roulston’s not alone in taking a stand against a popular food fad – many of her fellow Chefs Ahoy stars have equally firm views.
“It just tastes like a cup of lawn mower clippings,” is Mark LaBrooy’s verdict on matcha. iStock, Nine
There’s no denying matcha is the drink du jour, with recent data from Hey You and Westpac DataX showing a 133 per cent surge in orders year-on-year in Australia.
But as far as chef and Three Blue Ducks co-founder Mark LaBrooy is concerned, the distinctive green bevvy “can bugger off”.
“I’ve tried, but it just tastes like a cup of lawn mower clippings,” he declares.
For chef and restaurateur Dan Hong, the movement of “putting ‘protein’ in absolutely everything” has crossed the line.
Dan Hong is seeing ‘protein’ added to “absolutely everything”. iStock, Nine
It’s easy to see what he means – take a walk through your local supermarket and you’ll see ‘protein’ popping up on everything from cereal boxes to yoghurt pouches.
Social media is also full of protein-related content, giving rise to the truly wild trend that is #proteinmaxxing (although #fibremaxxing is coming for its crown.
Meanwhile, food writer and advocate Alice Zaslavsky just can’t get behind cake pops.
For those who’ve somehow missed the trend since it exploded in the 2010s, these involve cake crumb being bound together with icing, rolled into a ball and served on a lollipop stick with a thin coating of melted chocolate or icing.
Alice Zaslavsky just can’t get on board with cake pops. iStock, Nine
“Why would I want a denser sponge and to miss out on buttercream?!” Zaslavsky laments.
Chef and restaurateur Vincent Yeow Lim, aka Dimsimlim or ‘The Wolf of Wok Street’, is tired of seeing people take something simple and “make it way too complicated just for the sake of it”.
“Sometimes food doesn’t need 20 ingredients or to be completely reinvented. If it tastes good, it tastes good,” he says.
Vincent Yeow Lim is sick of seeing food made “way to complicated just for the sake of it”, while Khanh Ong has a bone to pick with the food ‘hacks’ trend. Nine
In a similar vein, chef and TV presenter Khanh Ong would like to see the end of food hacks that “save you five seconds but don’t make the dish easier or taste any better”.
“Like, what are we doing here? Why are we putting everything into an air fryer and calling it a hack?” he asks.
Truly a question for our hack-obsessed times.
Watch Chefs Ahoy on Channel 9 and 9Now
