Why proofreading is important

The other day I got curious about the whereabouts of past Top Chef contestants, and happened, in my searches, to come across a restaurant run by Season 5 contestant Stefan Richter. The restaurant has a menu, so I thought I'd take a look at it and see what he was offering.

I'm not going to critique the food choices; that's not really the point. I am, however, going to note that it's a really, really good idea to hire a proofreader for one's menu, even if it's just the online version. This particular version of the menu (I'm working off screenshots on the assumption they'll fix it at some point) contains a number of misspelled words, missing commas, and missing spaces. It's really pretty amusing, which probably wasn't the point of putting it online.

For instance, I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as "haricotvert red onions". Sure, I can parse that into what they mean (I assume they mean both green beans and red onions), but it's sort of jarring as one goes along. And I think that "cauliflower puree roasted shallots" is simply missing a comma, though I did find it entertaining to try to decide if they were coating shallots with puree and then throwing it all in the oven.

But I have to admit I'm not entirely sure how to parse "pan seared john dory with lentil parsnip ragout, baby spinach, extra virgin olive oil and micro greens". Are they just serving some olive oil on the side? Is it a spinach, olive oil, and micro green salad? Is the spinach on the side and the olive oil just on the micro greens?

Among the various things they're offering are: sandwhiches, sourkraut, sunchockes, bannana split, and 'redwine icecream lolipop', which... well, let's just say I had an image for a very, very scary anime series, okay? You're lucky my scanner is broken or I might try to share the image. (And, yes, I've reproduced those words accurately.)

But the one that finally made me and my sweetie crack up was when I read 'aged smoked goud'. It really shouldn't have been that funny, except I said "I guess they just dropped the 'a' from gouda." And then he said, "Unless there's such a thing as 'goud'." So I looked it up, and said "Not unless they're offering smoked Indian dudes."

It was... uh. It was really probably a lot funnier if you were there. Trust me.

Anyhow, I imagine they'll get that cleaned up at some point, and while the food doesn't seem to be much to my tastes (a few items excepted), I imagine there will be some happy customers. Even if some of their smiles are at the menu, and not the food.