Before we ring in the new, we should say a goodbye to the old!

Goodbye to:

Gourmet Burger Overload

Don’t get me wrong, I love me a good burger. I love hamburgers. But everyone these days has a fancy burger on the menu. On every corner is a new gourmet burger joint. And the all the meat is a specially ground just for that restaurant from Pat LaFrieda, which begs the question: if everyone has a proprietary blend from the same butcher, how special are the proprietary blends?! And they all tower to the point that only Paul Bunyan could comfortably take a bite out of one without it exploding local pickles and artisanal slaw.

Too much, too much, too much.

Burgers reached maximum saturation point yesterday. It has just gotten ridiculous.

But . . . yeah, I’ll still order them. Because they’re delicious.

Planking

Whoever came up with the idea of playing dead, and posting the clips or pics on the internet as a fun thing for adults to do is just idiotic. I look forward to saying goodbye to this bizarro trend in 2012.

Tebowing

Oh, Tim Tebow. I know next to nothing about football. But I do know that you strike a pose out of love at the end of each game. I’m not a hater, but you spawned a fad that I wish would go away.

Pork Belly

Yes, I know. I love pork belly too. I really love pork belly. I would marry pork belly if I could, but pork belly is also everywhere all the time.

And quite frankly, I think it is about time some other cut got some tender loving attention too.

Molecular Gastronomy

I said “goodbye” to this last year too, but it still lingers on and on. Foam is fun, but sometimes I just want food that looks like food, you know what I mean? I don’t want to sniff a whiff of flavored air from a globe made out of candied sugar before and after each bite of gelatin.

This year, I want food that I recognize. I want food that I know how to eat without needing an explanation. If I have to ask how, I don’t want to eat it in 2012.

Sous vide

An overused excuse for not cooking with real heat. Seriously, a monkey can stick a bag of vacuum-sealed chicken breast in an expensive hot water bath. The only difficult thing about sous vide is purchasing or building a sous vide water oven.

I think people who smoke a lot of pot must really like cooking sous vide, since building a bong is suspiciously similar to jerry-rigging a cooler. I’m just saying.

Potted Food / Food in Jars

Along with “boards,” this is the one restaurant snack trend that I think has had its day. I like rillettes as much as the next person (in fact, I adore rillettes), but what was once a deliciously thrifty way to use and store away every last bit of valuable animal has now become silly as prime cuts get ground up, or shredded and topped with Sauternes gelée.

One to Two-Hour Waits for Tables

I’m sorry, I’m too old for this. Bring back reservations!

Menus on iPads

Am I the only one who gets overwhelmed looking at restaurant menus? I think that I love set menus because I would rather sit back and let the kitchen bring me something to enjoy, rather than shove the onus of picking well or poorly onto my uneducated shoulders.

I cannot think of anything more distracting, more confusing, and more annoying that putting a menu on an iPad and making me figure out how to navigate my way around it.

And if I picture my mother trying to do it, I can only think of one thing: #restaurantfail.