Chain restaurants across Britain have been serving the same tired starters for decades. While some classics deserve their permanent menu spot, others are clinging on through sheer nostalgia rather than culinary merit.
From soggy potato skins to limp prawn cocktails, these appetizers have overstayed their welcome on menus nationwide.
1. Prawn Cocktail
Remember the 70s when this pink monstrosity dominated every dinner party? Sadly, chain restaurants haven't got the memo that times have changed.
Those suspiciously uniform prawns drowning in overly sweet Marie Rose sauce atop limp iceberg lettuce create a textural nightmare. The entire concept feels like a relic from the era of fondue sets and avocado bathroom suites.
2. Deep-Fried Brie Wedges
Once the height of sophistication at 90s dinner parties, these greasy triangles have become a lazy menu staple. The concept was brilliant initially – who doesn't love melted cheese?
But today's versions feature barely-warm centres encased in cardboard-like breadcrumb coating. Paired with that sickly cranberry sauce from a plastic tub, they're about as gourmet as a petrol station sandwich.
3. Garlic Bread With Cheese
The faithful companion to every chain restaurant pasta dish has lost its charm. That anaemic baguette split lengthways and slathered with margarine-based 'garlic butter' before being topped with plasticky cheese deserves retirement.
Often arriving either burnt to a crisp or soggy in the middle, it's the definition of culinary complacency. The garlic flavour typically resembles something from a laboratory rather than an actual clove.
4. Loaded Potato Skins
The hollow shells of yesterday's jacket potatoes somehow became a menu fixture. Their crime? Being consistently disappointing.
Microwaved until barely warm then topped with stringy cheese and bacon bits that resemble hamster bedding, they're the definition of minimum effort. The sour cream served alongside invariably has that suspicious skin forming on top, suggesting it's been sitting out since breakfast.
5. Chicken Satay Skewers
Chain restaurants took a vibrant Southeast Asian street food and turned it into beige disappointment on a stick. The chicken pieces, suspiciously uniform in shape, suggest more processing than preparation.
That sauce though – thick as wallpaper paste and about as flavourful! Any resemblance to authentic peanut satay is purely coincidental. The requisite cucumber garnish wilts sadly, wondering how it became involved in this culinary tragedy.
6. Mini Yorkshire Pudding Bites
Whoever decided to turn our beloved Sunday roast companion into finger food committed a proper culinary crime. These sad little cups arrive either rock-hard or unpleasantly chewy – there's no middle ground.
Filled with stringy beef and gravy that's more salt than substance, they're a poor imitation of proper Yorkshire puddings. The horseradish cream on the side usually tastes suspiciously like mayonnaise with a hint of wasabi.
7. Mozzarella Sticks
A staple that refuses to evolve since the 90s – these rubbery cheese fingers have become the poster child for lazy menu planning. What should be stretchy, molten dairy goodness is usually a disappointment of epic proportions.
The cheese inside rarely melts properly, while the coating has all the appeal of cardboard. That marinara dip? Nothing more than watered-down ketchup with oregano, fooling absolutely no one.
8. Onion Bhaji Tower
The 'tower' concept was impressive in 1995. Today, it's just three greasy onion bhajis stacked on top of each other with a mint yoghurt dip that's seen better days.
Chain restaurants have perfected the art of making these Indian-inspired fritters simultaneously soggy and tooth-breakingly hard. The onions inside have usually surrendered all flavour to the industrial fryer. Meanwhile, that sad lettuce leaf underneath absorbs all the excess oil.
9. Nachos With Plastic Cheese
Nothing says 'we've given up trying' quite like a massive plate of tortilla chips drowning in fluorescent cheese sauce. That unnaturally orange liquid bears only a passing resemblance to actual dairy.
The guacamole has usually oxidised to an unappetising brown, while the salsa comes straight from a jar. Those sad jalapeños scattered on top – the only thing with any flavour – are fighting a losing battle against culinary mediocrity.
10. Vol-Au-Vents
These puff pastry time capsules from the 1970s somehow survived into the 21st century. The pastry cases – clearly mass-produced and frozen for months – taste like buttery cardboard rather than the light, crisp shells they should be.
Fillings range from mystery seafood 'mix' to bland chicken in wallpaper paste sauce. Garnished with a sprig of curly parsley (another relic), they're the culinary equivalent of your granddad's old armchair – familiar but desperately in need of replacement.
11. Cajun Chicken Dippers
The word 'Cajun' is doing some heavy lifting here. These uniform chicken strips have about as much connection to Louisiana as I do to the Royal Family.
Coated in industrial orange breadcrumbs with a whisper of paprika, they're about as spicy as a cucumber sandwich. The sweet chilli dip alongside – straight from a cash and carry catering bucket – completes this monument to menu mediocrity.
12. Tempura Vegetables With Sweet Chilli Dip
The 'healthy option' that's anything but. These vegetables – usually ancient broccoli and carrots – are entombed in a batter thick enough to survive nuclear winter.
Any nutritional value has long since departed, replaced by oil that's been recycled more times than a politician's promises. The sweet chilli dip – luminous orange and tasting of pure sugar – is the final insult to both Japanese cuisine and our taste buds.
