Lazy Dog Restaurant

[Porthos]

I don't know where to put this thread. Hopefully a moderator can move it to where it should be.

 

My wife asked today about trying the Lazy Dog Restaurant that is near us. I went on-line and looked at their menu.

 

Thought one: I am old-school and not particularly fond of stacked food. Their pot roast is a stacked-food presentation.

 

Thought two: The pictures of the various dishes looked to me to be leaning towards artsy-farty plating/presentation. Again, I'm pretty old-school.

 

Thought three and the reason for posting this: They have an extensive menu to my way of thinking. It is hard for me to imagine that they can put out so many different varieties of food and do it well. I am interested in the thoughts of others about my perception that too many different things coming out of a kitchen speaks to not being able to do things truly well.

 

Let 'er rip.

 

p.s. In this particular case I will not be adding to the thread, just reading it.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Porthos (log)

[heidih]

Are you talking about this chain and this pot roast?  https://www.lazydogrestaurants.com/menu/meat

 

I avoid these "something for everyone/trying to be trendy" chains like the plague. That said, the 93 year old wanted to go to Elephant Bar (similar) for his birthday last month - worst restaurant meal for all of us  that we could recall - and we all ordered a different entree........

[Lisa Shock]

I think most of these places are serving frozen pre-cooked entrees.

[btbyrd]

Looks like standard mediocre chain restaurant food to me.

 

Stacked food isn't exactly new school plating; it's somewhat dated at this point, smacking as it does of the 1990's. It's very "chocolate lava cake" in that way (which, surprisingly, isn't on the Lazy Dog menu). And as silly as stacked food can be, it sometimes has a place. Stacking a pot roast might seem dumb, but so does serving pot roast at a restaurant when virtually anyone can make decent pot roast with minimal effort. To make customers want to pay $15 for such an inexpensive and easy to prepare dish, you'll need a gimmick. And the Lazy Dog's gimmick is in the plating. Make of that what you will. I don't think it's especially objectionable.

 

I wouldn't consider their presentations to be especially "artsy fartsy" unless you consider anything that comes with squeeze-bottled sauce to qualify as artsy. (It doesn't.) And again, I wouldn't consider "new school" to have a monopoly on "artsy fartsy" plating. Some of the most ridiculous and amazing presentations in culinary history are old school French preparations. All I see in the plating here is a bit of layering and squeezed sauces to make the food look more interesting than it really is.

 

And you're right not to expect high quality food from a restaurant that sells brick oven pizza alongside burgers and wok-fried dishes. The menu at these places isn't meant to impress but to offer a huge variety of adequate (but not especially delicious or inventive) options at reasonable prices so that families and large parties can eat at the same restaurant without causing conflicts. The Johnsons want to go out for dinner, but they can never agree on what to have. Susie, the mom, wants Mexican food while Bill, the dad, wants to go to a steakhouse. Jane, their teenage daughter, is going through a vegan phase while Little Jimmy, their youngest, will only eat pizza. And Fido, the family dog, has separation anxiety so the family seldom leaves him for a night out at a "fancy" restaurant. But at the Lazy Dog cafe, Mommy Susie can have the fish tacos, Father Bill can have a steak, and Jane can have tofu stir fry! They can keep Little Jimmy entertained by making his own own pizza! And if they sit on the patio, Fido can have grilled chicken and rice! Sure, none of it's very good -- it's "3.5 star Yelp" material at best -- but everyone's happy. Especially the dog, who really doesn't know any better.

[blue_dolphin]

I think btbyrd captured the essence of the place and as Lisa pointed out, there's likely a lot of frozen, pre-cooked food.  

 

Sadly, I live in a land of chain restaurants and have a Lazy Dog outlet very close by.  I have friends who like it because they can bring their dogs (patio only).  I haven't eaten there.  I assumed it's like the Applebees that I visited while traveling with family.  My quesadilla was delivered without guacamole and the server told me that they could get me some but that it would take "a really long time to thaw out the paste."  Yeah, I know that's what I get for going there but still, no thank you to "the paste!"

[josephnl]

Porthos...if you're looking for something special, I can't imagine that you'd like Lazy Dog. We've eaten there one or twice when we've arrived at SNA at 10:30pm and were hungry and nothing else nearby was open. Lazy Dog stays open late, and that is their only plus. You can get a passable drink and an edible burger, but it's nowhere I would think of going if anything else decent were available.