I'll have the chopped salad (with dressing NOT on the side),fried eggplant, lobster cardinale, and hot fudge sundae, please.

Gotta' agree with your reader. Some restaurants tend to douse a salad. And when that's what you order cuz you're mindful of calories, it defeats the point. I always ask for the dressing on the side, be it vinaigrette or a chunky blue cheese bath.

You found my pet peeve, RG. I cook enough at home and when I dine out I don't want to be served deconstructed dishes that I have to finish putting together myself at the table. Dressing is an essential part of the salad and cannot be effectively added to the greens in a little bowl as an afterthought. It should be properly tossed in a large bowl in the kitchen by the person preparing the meal.

I want every leaf/veggie in my salads to be coated lightly with the dressing - something that is achievable only in the kitchen, not at the table. This is the chef's job, not mine.
Thank you DBJS for bringing up fond memories of Marconi's. God I miss that place. Whatever happened to Peter Angelo's promise to relocate? Did it go the same place as his promise to provide a quality baseball team to the fans of Baltimore?

I agree, Richard. I think the reason why many people prefer dressing on the side is due to so many chain restaurants and the like putting so much dressing on, which is disgusting. However, people should recognize that when they are in a fine-dining establishment, they need to trust and put their faith in the chef and his team. Unfortuately, many people are control freaks and believe they know best about everything. While you might argue that it's safe to assume a person knows his or her own taste in food, I think that if people stopped bitching, were more open-minded, and just let an experienced chef make the decisions, they would be much happier with their meals in general.

I used to work at a restaurant where almost half of the customers requested "sauce on the side" for every single dish. Might as well stay home and cook it yourself.

I'm with Donna Beth....

If I'm getting a boring green salad (iceberg or romaine, cherry tomatoes, cukes) that comes with a choice of dressing, I'd rather have it on the side because I guarantee I won't want/need 2/3 of what the restaurant would otherwise glop on top (I'm taking diners and the ilk). However, if I'm ordering a fancy salad that comes with its own special dressing, then I expect it to be properly tossed in the kitchen.

I prefer that a salad be properly dressed in the kitchen, but not many restaurants actually do that well (my gold standard is the Lebanese places in Detroit, where there is only one dressing, house-made and the salad is not pre-chopped or dressed before it is ordered).

A glop of Sysco dressing on top of iceburg lettuce just isn't appealing.

Dressing to the right? Or dressing to the left?

Patronizing definitely. Condescending, maybe. Either way it seems incongruous of them to not provide salt or pepper at the table since the chef knows best and yet let the diner decide how to properly dress their salad.

Sauce on the side? Extra sauce? Extra sauce on the side? Dressing on the side?

You do realize that this is highly insulting to the chef? Think about it.

TheMinx has it right, I think. I also think Lyssa and Greg have a point- people's palates are different.

I have another issue- I'm highly sensitive to hot pepper. So if a dressing has too much of that ingredient I'm toast- I'd rather have it plain and be able to test in the case of "house dressing". I have a friend with a mushroom sensitivity and she often encounters the same issue with sauces.

@Owl Meat Gravy -- Me? I like the sauce.
#Familyguyquotes

Owl has a point there.

Richard you are so on target with this one.

I will write that if I'm in a restaurant where I'm concerned about the amount of dressing that will make its way onto my salad, I'll politely request the chef go light on it, but to toss it please. Seems to work.

I've seen the opposite as well where the guest will ask for extra dressing...

Let the chef dress you, but you won't be dressed for long. The souffle is ecstatic!

The dining room photo posted is wrong. That photo was scary, but the actual dining room is lovely.

Prepping blog post with photos of actual dining room from my visit with H&R Kitty. The food was awesome and Rafael was a real treat.

Boy I really agree withMC..my husband & I were just,the other day, lamenting the loss of Marconi's..Yes, Angelos did promise to relocate, and yes he did promise a quality baseball team, and remember the salad. that was chopped and mixed with dressing in a large bowl..and what about the hot fudge sundaes!

HitAndRunKitty, what are you talking about? Maybe you never got there after the beautiful re-decoration shown in the photo. Uh, make that decoration. The original, um, decor, looked like tobacco-clogged lungs.

Here's the confusion: Since the story starts off talking about Taste MG we thought that was a picture of said place. It is not. That must be Marconi's according to the file name.

The Sun photo for the Taste MG review is a disaster. It's art for art's sake and poorly represents the place. And it makes me nauseous. Also, it's a view no one will ever see since it was taken from the second floor. The actual dining room is warm, interesting and inviting. Sorry to bash the photographers but maybe an editor should have stepped in.

Add to that the impression that this photo is of Taste MG & it appears to be a most unappealing environment. That is far from true

Ah.....I see!

Yes, I am guilty of not identifying the photo. But I do it kind of (well, definitely) on purpose sometimes as an Easter Egg for anyone who appreciates it...

:)