Wow really good critique thank you!

I will say food photography is on another level beyond product. What I thought would be easy wasn't and in fact this was my third time doing this and I still felt I missed whatever vision I had. This also wasn't my creation. I worked with what the cooks were giving me. 10+ dishes consecutively banged out with little to no time consideration for me. Had no control over presentation either.

The tilt I'll agree with. I usually keep everything simple, centered and not off horizon. So the diversion was impromptu. DOF was for subject isolation because I didn't have a good background. Mainly wanted the apples but tried to get the focal point to run down along the meat and potatoes. The meat however didn't look appealing to me so tried to keep it from focus. I was shooting with a 30 1.4 so it was easy to pull back and reduce DOF on that scale. Probably wasn't the best choice of lens either.

The lighting on the plate I don't mind as much but get where you're coming from. I acknowledged the blowouts not contributing and in fact distracting so I'll have to tone it down next time.

10+ dishes this was the only shot I liked if that gives you any idea of how difficult or how bad the rest of my photos were.