So, my wife and I were out to dinner last night as a Thai restaurant and I noticed that the plates were cold. Not just room temparature, but cold, like that had been in refridgerated or something.
I mentioned it to my wife and she also noticed that it was odd. While we were talking about it, a point we had discusses before about having warm plates came up. I am originally from England and we would often put our plates in the over for a few minutes before dinner to warm them up a little. Not so warm that the food would continue to cook, but warm enough that it would not get cold quickly. My wife said that she thought it was a good idea but that her family did not do this much.
Is this a mainly British tradition or are my family the exception rather than the rule? Do others in other countries do this?
I doubt it’s mainly a British thing, but it’s also not overly common any more. If you look at old wood-burning kitchen stoves, they’ll often have a “warming cupboard” (or whatever the real term is) at about eye level above the cooking surface. In terms of modern tech, if you look in restaurant supply catalogs, you’ll occasionally see plate warmers (again, I’m not sure what the official term is).
I have no idea why any restaurant would refrigerate their plates.
Having misspent a couple of summers as a waitress in a large family chain-type restaurant, I can tell you that some restaurants will chill their salad plates, but I am unfamiliar with any that would chill the plates for the hot meal.
We occasionally chill salad plates here at home. Dinner plates sometimes wait on the range top of the stove before the food is served, so they do warm up. If we actually “set the table”, though, they cool off before anyone sits down to dinner.
My mother always warmed dinner plates for hot meals, as does my daughter. Personally, I never bothered with it unless I was having people over. Dining out I’ve not noticed the plates being either warm or chilled.