Tiny picnic table, but no tiny plates for ease and convenience.
 
Plates are a pretty ingenious feat of design—a largely flat surface for solid foods, with the perimeter curled upward, ever-so-slightly, so as to contain any wily or runny food as you chow down. It’s a simple, yet elegant, way to dine, but somehow there is this absurd foodie trend of eschewing the noble plate in favor of… basically everything that is not a fucking plate. These are not restaurants I patronize, mind you, these are restaurants I boycott, because while I can appreciate creative culinary presentation, I refuse to eat anywhere that appears to value flash over utility, and apparently I am not alone in just wanting my fucking food served on a fucking plate. This is nowhere close to being “too much to ask for.” A plate???

Enter the noble citizens of We Want Plates, a heroic organization “Crusading against food being served on bits of wood and roof tiles. Chips in little buckets, peas in flowerpots and jam-jar drinks can do one too.” You can join them on Twitter and Facebook, where they publicize the most egregious offenders in hope of shaming them back to their senses. Foodie novelty must be stopped!
 

Butter… served on a pebble.
 

Just paper on a plank—not even a little novelty value to compensate for the fact that you egg yolk is about to run any which way.
 

A ping pong paddle. Note the running sauce/moisture/whatever.
 

Oh come on!
 

Why?
 

Wait… no….
 

Noooooooo!!!
 

Is the hat… used?
 

Ok, those cannot be used, right? Right?!?
 

This is a dessert in an empty soup can served on a picture frame. High concept, unappetizing and it’s the worst Warhol tribute in HISTORY. Bravo—you’ve struck the perfect balance.
 

I assume you eat this with your hands? If they don’t give you a plate, utensils would only make consuming the meal more cumbersome.
 

Knock it off with the shoes! Not only is it wasteful, shoes only inspire hunger in a very specific subset of fetishists!
 

And finally… this. It’s apparently a “salad.”