Chowder?

My friend Annie went to Tallulah on Thames last weekend, and she reported that she was less than thrilled with her "Deconstructed Clam Chowder." Personally, I'm getting tired of hearing the term "deconstruction" bandied about. In the same way that using the word "ironic" when you mean "funny" doesn't make your fart joke highbrow, saying something is "deconstructed" doesn't automatically make it artistic. Or, in this case, good.

From what I can tell, they used "deconstructed" as shorthand for "we didn't bother to build flavors in this soup, we just had the server dump broth over a couple of clams and some potatoes at tableside." The whole point of soup is that the process of making it creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

To quote Inigo Montoya, I do not think it means what you think it means.