When you go to a fancy, white table clothed restaurant, you probably think that the chefs and owners can charge you a minimum of $29 for an entree because the cooks spend hours preparing the components of your meal using the freshest, highest quality ingredients, right?

You would certainly like to think so, right? 

Why else would you be spending so much money on a single meal? Turns out, one chain restaurant decided to cut some corners. 

While their ingredients may have been fresh once, Fig & Olive prepared meals at their central kitchen in Long Beach, NY, and either refrigerated or froze them before shipping them to one of their eight restaurants. 

So unfortunate customers were essentially paying top dollar for someone to heat up components of their meals before artfully plating them. 

At an establishment where an average entree costs over $30, it is appalling to discover that portions of the served dish had been thawed and then served. 

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The Washington City Paper broke news yesterday that the master recipe book given to cooks at Fig & Olive indicate steps such as "use frozen mushroom croquette mix." 

We're not knocking the idea of frozen food (heck, we may be eating a frozen pizza for dinner), but when we're paying $30-$50 for a meal, we kind of expect quality. 

Fortunately for us, we can find farm-to-table fresh restaurants using the Aura Rating app on our phone. That way, we won't get gypped out of our hard earned cash just to eat some pretty, frozen and thawed food. 

As for Fig & Olive? Well, we'll just stick to our frozen pizzas. With them we have a better idea of what we're paying for, and that in itself is sad. 

Check out 9 Best Steakhouses to Celebrate the Holidays in NYC. 

[via Eater] [Feature Image Courtesy EventSeeker.com]