25 Overhyped Meals That Many Foodies Would Love to Forget

While some people are ready to spend lots of time in lines to try some popular meals, others are quite skeptical about it. And while some people are constantly posting photos of food on their social media, other internet users are expressing their honest opinions about their meals. There’s even a Quora thread about the most overrated foods that they think don’t deserve the hype going on around them.

We at Bright Side were curious to hear the opinions people have about their most overrated meals. And on this list, you will not only find “new” meals, but also a few classics.

• To be honest, cronuts are just a pastry, you cannot expect more from them than from a normal pastry. Deep-fried rings of croissant dough is a new idea. And it tastes just like a good pastry should. However, it’s not worth lining up for. Over time people might come to this realization, and the cronuts will recede into the culinary sidelines. © Cindy Fischer / Quora

• Molten chocolate cake. It’s a chocolate cake with a center that’s basically raw. © Dhaval Chauhan / Quora

• How any restaurant charge a lot for a pizza, which is basically just a flat piece of bread with just a few grams of (very thin!) other stuff “sprinkled” on top, beats me. The raw materials cost “next to nothing” and I resent paying over the odds for something that can be prepared in less than a minute or 2 by an inexperienced “cook.” If I ever have to “cook” a pizza for my son and his friends, I buy a cheap pizza base, spread a little tomato paste, add some quality grated cheese, and then I pile it HIGH with more than just 1/8 of a mouthful of protein. © Kenneth Dakin / Quora

• Kobe beef is considered by many to be the very best cut of meat in the world. In order for a cut to be classified as Kobe, it must adhere to many strict factors, for example, it must be born and raised in Hyōgo Prefecture and must have a fat marbling ratio of level 6 or above. Cows have a special diet and care regimen, and classical music is played during their feedings. It’s necessary to make the texture of the meat softer. It melts in your mouth, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. None of these methods improve the texture or the taste, but it makes the price and the demand higher. © Dan Knight / Quora

• As if fish was not expensive in and of itself, fish eggs create havoc on the entire menu of a fine dining restaurant. A delicacy for some, caviar is nothing but salt-cured fish eggs, used as a topping on little starters and also as an add-on with selected wines and dishes. © Ananvita Bhattacharya / Quora

• Bird’s nest. Expensive, dirty, tasteless, and produces unrealistic results. © Diana Wu / Quora

• The first time you drink coconut water, you will think you are drinking petrol. It tastes terrible! Then you will persuade yourself to accept the taste because it’s popular, expensive, and good for your health. But no matter how healthy the coconut water is, I will not drink it and torture myself anymore. © Cindy Fischer / Quora

• I know green tea is good for you, but I can think of many tastier ways to be healthy. I have tried all types, but it still a bit like taking medicine to me. © Lili McKenzie / Quora

• Chocolate-covered strawberries sound great and seductive and everything, but they have several flaws. You can’t bite into one without the chocolate cracking off, the ratio of fruit to chocolate is always skewed, and there’s no way to look attractive when you eat one. If you’ve figured out how to eat a chocolate-covered strawberry without getting chocolate all over your face and seeds in your teeth, please email me your secrets. © Ronniee Roy / Quora

• Is there anyone who has tried stinky tofu from China? I love it, even though it doesn’t smell very good. It’s one of the most overrated and over-praised foods. Found at street stalls and night markets throughout China and Taiwan. It smells like a wet sock. It actually tastes good. It’s the smell that gives it a semblance of character — brines vary and can include anything from fermented milk to shrimp — and once you settle into it, it’s not that bad. © Grace Jia / Quora

• Smoothies have been overrated for too long. A liquid dessert masquerading as healthy food, smoothies usually contain buckets of sugar and way too much of everything else, like fruit, protein powders, and other add-ins that you may think are healthy but really aren’t. Therefore, I would like to eat some fresh fruit instead. © Cindy Fischer / Quora

• Guacamole is viewed as some sort of green gold, the highest-valued currency of chip dip. It’s generally requested above salsa, and salsa is arguably more important because guac is too filling if you’re going to be consuming food for hours. You can mindlessly eat salsa, but if you continuously dip into the guac for an entire NFL game, you eventually end up feeling like you ate 3 thousand pounds of cement. It’s a great once-every-3-chips dip, but it’s treated like the life of the party when, in reality, no one eats enough of it and you always have too much leftover. You can’t even save it because it’ll get all brown and gross in the fridge. © Ronniee Roy / Quora

• Momos are nothing but steamed dumplings of veg and non-veg stuffings. A friend of mine brought momos once for lunch. Once, a girl got a glimpse of them or smelled them, and then she shouted to the whole class “Listen everyone... she brought momos!.” And within a fraction of a second, those who were present in the class gathered around for momos. I’ve heard people say, “Momo isn’t food, it’s an emotion.” Give me some other logical reason, please. © Ifra Shahid / Quora

• I don’t understand why people like Sichuan hotpot. It’s made with re-used oil (they will tell you directly in the restaurant, they say it’s more delicious this way). The quantity of spicy red pepper numbs your mouth and makes all the food inside taste the same. The food you put inside (as I said it becomes all the same taste) usually includes organs, cartilage, and so on... All things that, in my opinion, should only go into the trash bin. © Nettuno Rossi / Quora

• Swedish meatballs, every culture has some version of meatballs, and other countries’ meatballs are usually not as bland as the Swedish version. Homemade meatballs with brown sauce can be nice, but 80% of what is served is commercially produced and is definitely mystery meat. A few years ago, horse meat had been slipped into the meatballs. © Linda Tisue / Quora

• Don’t get me wrong. I know some people who genuinely like frozen yogurt because of its natural tangy flavor. The people I’m specifically referring to here are those who decided to switch from good old ice-cream to froyo because it’s apparently healthier. But it contains more sugar to hide the sour yogurt taste and it’s loaded with artificial flavorings and other additives. It makes me really sad to see people who would rather be enjoying ice-cream pretend to enjoy frozen yogurt. Dessert is supposed to be enjoyed, not tolerated. © Rozalin Mohanty / Quora

• Cooked fresh morels. Completely boring... Drying them makes them exquisite! And since fresh are much harder to come by in stores — to those paying the cost for fresh morels I am telling you it’s not worth it. © Brian Zoebisch / Quora

• Mango chutney sauce. Slowly disappearing, but I remember when every restaurant had mango chutney for at least one dish. Its complex flavor goes with very few things. © Ca Lo / Quora

• Pretty much everything they serve in those sophisticated star restaurants, especially in those Michelin all-star restaurants. Yes, I know I would be laughed off by many food nerds for my little brain’s unacceptance of this trend. But meh... Am I gonna eat it and feel happy? Seriously, is this what I have to pay a fortune to eat? Well for me these trends are perfect examples of “More money than brain.” © Jyotipuspa Das ( ଜ୍ୟୋତିପୁଷ୍ପା ଦାସ) / Quora

• Aioli. Essentially garlic-flavored mayo. It’s good, but 2/3 of the time it just masks terrible cooking. A lot of places now have flavored aioli, but in this case why not just properly cook up the bacon, pine nuts, garlic, dill, and truffles separately and deliciously, instead of suspending them in mayonnaise? © Ca Lo / Quora

• Salads without meat, eggs, or cheese in them. It’s leaves. You are eating leaves. Perhaps it is flavored using a dressing, but it’s still leaves. © Jon Mixon / Quora

• Macarons. I just don’t get them, they’re flaky and sweet but don’t really have any flavor to them aside from a weird perfume aftertaste? © Srabonti Saha / Quora

• Kale. Kale chips this, kale smoothies that, kale dips, kale cleanses, etc. There’s all this hype for kale because, for years, the mainstream media has been circulating the preposterous notion that kale is the “Holy Grail” of all vegetables and has magical health properties. It’s got the texture of fake lawn grass, and the flavor of a piece of wet cardboard that’s been sitting in a puddle for 48 hours. © Alexander Lee / Quora

• I am really, really surprised cupcakes are so popular. You take a perfectly good cake and make a bite-size portion of it (we are good so far!) and later the person in charge makes it their own artistic canvas and tries making things ranging from flowers, world maps, landscapes, and what not, with sugary, artificially-colored frosting. © Ramya Vemuganti / Quora

• Lobster is incredibly overrated. It’s expensive. Part of it is the tourist trap effect. But in any situation why would someone pay more than $20 for this? It’s hard to eat — it’s messy, you need specialized tooling to get into the shell, and each little leg has only a nibble of meat in it. Why am I working so hard for such little payoff? Also, it has no flavor. Lobster tastes like nothing. It has no inherent flavor. The only part that has any interesting texture is the tail, the rest is just spongy nothingness. This is why it is always served with a boatload of butter. © Nicolas Smith / Quora

What 3 meals would you call the most overrated and why?