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> If a menu has pictures, I expect the food to look like the picture. Has food ever looked like the picture, though? I find this position unrealistic outside o

> If a menu has pictures, I expect the food to look like the picture. Has food ever looked like the picture, though? I find this position unrealistic outside of an Amazon return excuse.

thenewnewguy 10d ago
This isn't black and white, it's a sliding scale. Advertising, menu boards, box art, etc. do show the product in the best light possible and take artistic liberties, but are substantially closer to the real product than an AI that's never seen the product spitting out an image of a burger. It's reasonable to be annoyed when the menu board _isn't based on the product at all_ and thus is nowhere close to the real thing.
- jackb4040 10d ago
  If I got served food at a restaurant and realized that the pictures were from a different restaurant, I would be pissed off in exactly the same way and amount as if a menu used AI slop. The only difference is that with AI slop you can tell ahead of time and decide not to spend money there.
jklinger410 10d ago
> Has food ever looked like the picture, though? I find this position unrealistic outside of an Amazon return excuse. Yeah man it's unrealistic for restaurants to take pictures of the food they make and use that for the menu. Totally.
onion2k 10d ago
I'd expect the picture to be an idealized, perfected version of the food. That's how marketing works. But somewhere in there should be the actual food even if it's cold, sprayed with glycerin, and under studio lighting. An AI image isn't anything to do with the actual dish. That's too far removed from the reality to be considered fair.
- phoghed 10d ago
  Motor oil on a perfect pancake from a batch of 10 that they put 100x more effort into for the photo? Sign me up, I love it. AI image of a pancake because the small business owner doesn’t have a Kellog’s budget? Fuck that guy, I hope his business fails
  - jackb4040 10d ago
    The point is that it was the same business making the image and the actual food. Now basically every business will have the same abomination of a cheeseburger on their menu because they all prompted the same thing, and as a result customers lose that signal. So defensively we have to assume the worst, but when we actually do that (or god forbid talk to other people about it) online weirdos like yourself start jumping in front of the bullet.
    - TheOtherHobbes 10d ago
      It was hardly ever the same business making the image and the food. I'll say that again - when a restaurant has pictures of food, those pictures are often from stock, not actual representative shots of the food the restaurant sells. This especially applies to fast food and tourist eateries. (Upmarket restaurants don't usually have photos at all.) Just Eat in the UK has a policy of requiring actual dish shots, but that's not the norm.
      - jackb4040 10d ago
        Hmm. This is not a common occurrence for me (in the US), has happened maybe once in my life that I can remember. I would have exactly the same issue with that, maybe worse since with AI slop I can at least tell before I've spent the money.
      - onion2k 9d ago
        Just Eat in the UK has a policy of requiring actual dish shots, but that's not the norm. Just Eat has recently started allowing AI images, but does tag them as AI.
JumpCrisscross 10d ago
> has food ever looked like the picture, though? Yeah. Especially at Asian restaurants. (With predominantly Asian customers.) If a menu has like clearly painted or drawn images, on the other hand, I weigh them on artistic merit versus anything descriptive.
plorkyeran 10d ago
Yes? My main experience with menus with pictures is Chinese restaurants where they took a poorly staged and lit photo of the actual dish. Sometimes the real thing ends up looking better than the picture.
ssl-3 10d ago
Yes, it has happened at least one time. I once ordered from a Waffle House once exactly like this: "I'll have the Texas Bacon Cheesesteak Omelette, with hashbrowns all the way...and I want it to look like the picture." And to my disbelief, they don't throw a chair at my head. Instead, the cook came over and asked about that -- usually, they'd finish cooking the omelette filling with the eggs because it tasted better that way, and he wanted to make sure that I wanted the fillings wrapped up as in the photo (kind of like a burrito) instead. I saw him holding the menu with one hand to use as a reference when plating it. He presented it with a big smile. And, indeed, it did look exactly like the photo in the menu.
YeGoblynQueenne 10d ago
>> Has food ever looked like the picture, though? Er, all the time? In the South East of England, I specifically look for menus with pictures of the food on Just Eats because I can get an idea of how good the food is going to be that way. I don't think I've ever received something that didn't look like what was on the menu pictures. Sometimes people make a nice presentation with fancy dishware and so on (Indian restaurants do that a lot in particular), but the food is always the same as what I get when I order, except it's in a foam box or similar.

> If a menu has pictures, I expect the food to look like the picture. Has food ever looked like the picture, though? I find this position unrealistic outside of an Amazon return excuse.

thenewnewguy 10d ago

This isn't black and white, it's a sliding scale. Advertising, menu boards, box art, etc. do show the product in the best light possible and take artistic liberties, but are substantially closer to the real product than an AI that's never seen the product spitting out an image of a burger. It's reasonable to be annoyed when the menu board _isn't based on the product at all_ and thus is nowhere close to the real thing.

jackb4040 10d ago
If I got served food at a restaurant and realized that the pictures were from a different restaurant, I would be pissed off in exactly the same way and amount as if a menu used AI slop. The only difference is that with AI slop you can tell ahead of time and decide not to spend money there.

jklinger410 10d ago

> Has food ever looked like the picture, though? I find this position unrealistic outside of an Amazon return excuse. Yeah man it's unrealistic for restaurants to take pictures of the food they make and use that for the menu. Totally.

onion2k 10d ago

I'd expect the picture to be an idealized, perfected version of the food. That's how marketing works. But somewhere in there should be the actual food even if it's cold, sprayed with glycerin, and under studio lighting. An AI image isn't anything to do with the actual dish. That's too far removed from the reality to be considered fair.

phoghed 10d ago
Motor oil on a perfect pancake from a batch of 10 that they put 100x more effort into for the photo? Sign me up, I love it. AI image of a pancake because the small business owner doesn’t have a Kellog’s budget? Fuck that guy, I hope his business fails
- jackb4040 10d ago
  The point is that it was the same business making the image and the actual food. Now basically every business will have the same abomination of a cheeseburger on their menu because they all prompted the same thing, and as a result customers lose that signal. So defensively we have to assume the worst, but when we actually do that (or god forbid talk to other people about it) online weirdos like yourself start jumping in front of the bullet.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10d ago
    It was hardly ever the same business making the image and the food. I'll say that again - when a restaurant has pictures of food, those pictures are often from stock, not actual representative shots of the food the restaurant sells. This especially applies to fast food and tourist eateries. (Upmarket restaurants don't usually have photos at all.) Just Eat in the UK has a policy of requiring actual dish shots, but that's not the norm.
    - jackb4040 10d ago
      Hmm. This is not a common occurrence for me (in the US), has happened maybe once in my life that I can remember. I would have exactly the same issue with that, maybe worse since with AI slop I can at least tell before I've spent the money.
    - onion2k 9d ago
      Just Eat in the UK has a policy of requiring actual dish shots, but that's not the norm. Just Eat has recently started allowing AI images, but does tag them as AI.

JumpCrisscross 10d ago

> has food ever looked like the picture, though? Yeah. Especially at Asian restaurants. (With predominantly Asian customers.) If a menu has like clearly painted or drawn images, on the other hand, I weigh them on artistic merit versus anything descriptive.

plorkyeran 10d ago

Yes? My main experience with menus with pictures is Chinese restaurants where they took a poorly staged and lit photo of the actual dish. Sometimes the real thing ends up looking better than the picture.

ssl-3 10d ago

Yes, it has happened at least one time. I once ordered from a Waffle House once exactly like this: "I'll have the Texas Bacon Cheesesteak Omelette, with hashbrowns all the way...and I want it to look like the picture." And to my disbelief, they don't throw a chair at my head. Instead, the cook came over and asked about that -- usually, they'd finish cooking the omelette filling with the eggs because it tasted better that way, and he wanted to make sure that I wanted the fillings wrapped up as in the photo (kind of like a burrito) instead. I saw him holding the menu with one hand to use as a reference when plating it. He presented it with a big smile. And, indeed, it did look exactly like the photo in the menu.

YeGoblynQueenne 10d ago

>> Has food ever looked like the picture, though? Er, all the time? In the South East of England, I specifically look for menus with pictures of the food on Just Eats because I can get an idea of how good the food is going to be that way. I don't think I've ever received something that didn't look like what was on the menu pictures. Sometimes people make a nice presentation with fancy dishware and so on (Indian restaurants do that a lot in particular), but the food is always the same as what I get when I order, except it's in a foam box or similar.