Now Presenting....Your Bread

With the always present health tip that eating less carbs will help a person lose weight, it's a wonder that most restaurants are still serving bread baskets prior to your meal. I try to avoid the bread whenever possible but there are some places and some moments when you just gotta have them. And then there are those times when you may be starving for some bread to hold you over until you get your main course and once you get it, you're just like 'Nah - forget it.' What is that? Cause I think it's all in the presentation.

In my eating-out experience, the following places have really great bread presentation:
Capitol Grill has a variety of breads in their bread basket including matzah...who serves matzah when it's not a Jewish holiday?
The brown bread, that also comes in a white version, from the Cheesecake Factory is so good - especially when they bring it out nice and warm. I eat the brown only - it's supposed to be healthier.
Individual dinner rolls from Legal Seafoods are also enticing - especially when you can see the steam coming off of it as you break it open.
The variety that you get, from Coastal Flats, is also very interesting. I'm a big fan of raisin bread while my husband is a fan of their "munchkin" looking breads.

Those are just a few of the places where you will most likely find me eating some bread prior to dinner - but the reasons why vary - it could be because I'm really hungry. It could be because I need something filling because I know my dinner isn't going to do the trick. It could just be because it looks nice.
What those places, listed above, have in common is that they have a nice presentation. The worst of the presentation probably comes from Legal Seafoods because it's just your dinner roll on a plate with a fish painted on it. But it's piping hot! As for the others, they will usually come out in a basket (wire and wicker) under a dinner napkin or on like a parchment paper. But it's all pretty inviting. When you get that basket with the dinner napkin covering your rolls, you just wanna say, "Hey - what's under there? Let's have a peek and a taste."

Recently, my husband and I made a trip to the California Pizza Kitchen. I always get an individual pizza and the occassional hummus as an appetizer. But it never ceases to amaze me that the pre-meal bread coming from the kitchen looks like prison food. Back in the old days when they said prison food was usually bread and water, this is exactly what I picture. A couple of slices from an ordinary looking bread, on top of an old, white plate, and a couple of packets of butter. I've also seen where the bread comes from. It's not freshly cut, from a loaf that just got baked out of their pizza oven - oh no. It's out of a utility-size, plastic container that looks like it should be holding your arts and crafts supplies rather than bread. I don't know why - I just can't help but think of prison when I get the CPK bread and that just makes me not want to eat or touch it. I wonder why they wouldn't make up a nice bread basket from their pizza dough or something - wouldn't that be much more in line with their regular offerings? Could they be using reverse psychology that if they don't present their bread well, they are helping me by not making me eat it before my pizza? That would be clever, but I highly doubt it.

Anyway - I think as well as in life, the same can be said for food - it's all in the presentation. If it looks good, there's a better chance I'll want to eat it. If you don't look so good, there's a fat chance you won't get touched.