Why are restaurant foods so dellicious?

[Dre1990]

What is the secret to cook like they do in restaurants? I cook my own food and I think I cook fairly well but every time go to a restaurant I get blown away by the flavors and the smells of food. I eat until like, my stomach is about to burst. I'm a skinny guy who is trying to put on weight so that's a good thing for me.

Has anyone ever work at a restaurant? a chef? Please tell us the secret to cook a good basic foods like rice, beans, potato, some meat, fish, salads, etc.

 

[T. Calderone]

My ex husband learned a cool trick from the cook at this restaurant we went to. They would have blackened fish which we had trouble duplicating. The guy said we need to use a cast iron skillet and suggested a certain seasoning. So he started making his own and it came out nice. My son and I like making our own chicken ceasar salads. We just use a regular skillet and a creole seasoning "Zatarains Big and Zesty" and brown skinless/boneless chicken. We buy the bag mix of romaine hearts, green butter lettuce and green leaf lettuce. The ceasar dressing from the jar can be overly thick and fattening so I add a spoon of plain yogurt, mix with parmesan cheese and croutons. Costs half the price of what restaurant charges and very tasty!

 

[moonyham]

As a now retired chef, i will tell you why food from restaurants is so good.

1: Multiple chefs means all your food is cooked to the minute, meaning no lying around coagulating or getting cold, everything you get was just cooked and therefore is the appropriate(delicious) heat and consistency.

2: Herbs and spices. Most kitchens you go into(especially younger people) think 'salt and pepper' is all you need. While those are great, you can do a million more tastes with a good 20$ purchases of lots of spices from your local. Chefs love spices. Sauces are VERY important also. Most proper kitchens have a chef who JUST does sauces its that important. Who here knows how to make a juix? Or a home made basic vegetable stock? Sauces are amazing when done right.

3: Ingredients are usually fresh or aged appropriately. Alot of people for example buy steak and then eat it while its still red. Who here owns there own meat tenderizing hammer? Exactly. Let that steak sit in your fridge for half a week till it starts going a lil brown and THEN eat it and you are in heaven. Is much more tender aswell as tasty(real taste). Also things like salad greens, and other vegetable, are usually ordered in that day.

4: Lots of prep work. Alot of people dont know, but if you simmer/boil thinly sliced(5-10mm) chicken in a chicken broth till its just a lil cooked(not completely) THEN add that into your fried rice instead of just adding raw to the wok first and trying to fully cook it like that, you will be left with a tasty fried rice much like what you get from chinese restaurants.


Its all those kind of tricks and things plus many others that make restaurant food tasty.

 

[Jabberwocky]

lol. *What* restaurants are you referring to? The answer depends on that. By and large tho, the reason ppl prefer <insert whatever here> at the restaurant to what they make themselves, is that the restaurants add more sugar, salt, and fat.

/thought this was common knowledge..

 

[34-dihydroxyphen]

Not to mention flavoring agents like MSG and others.

 

[Jabberwocky]

yup.

ppl i cook for always LOVE their meals, almost w/o failure. for some(MOST) people, this is because i "juice up" their generic request so it "tastes like restaurant food". for more 'foodie' folks like myself, it's because of cooking things *perfectly*, spices that work, pairing food properly, etc etc etc.
(that's not to say that most people can't tell when basic stuff is off like over/under cooking, but for the overwhelming majority taste is basically what they know they like + sugar/salt/fat. lol the nutritional profiles of lots of entrees of the sort are more fitting for deserts than dinner)

 

[MrGrunge]

I think people tend to rush things when cooking at home. Who has time for marinating or aging their meat properly? Who has time to go to the grocery store every day to get the freshest greens and herbs? Unless you're someone who devotes a lot of time and energy into making sure your everyday meals are delicious, you probably won't be able to duplicate that "restaurant quality".

Cooking technique will only get you so far if you don't have the ingredients to back it up, which most 'good' restaurants do.

 

[Jabberwocky]

disagreed. most people could never discern those subtleties through a blindfold. How close to "perfect" you take cooking time and temp, spices / additives, and teh 'flow' (food pairing, courses, matching appropriate beverages, etc etc) are the majority of what matters.

 

[MrGrunge]

I'm not "most" people and I don't cook for "most" people

I've cooked certain dishes with the best ingredients I could find and also with whatever cheap versions were available, and the quality ingredients always win out. Ingredients are tantamount, imo. Granted, 'most' people won't be able to tell the difference, but that's because 'most' people don't know the difference to begin with. I also confess to being a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my personal cooking, so the things I find important might not apply to the average joe.

(I'm talking about individual dishes, not meals, so pairing is irrelevant in this case)

 

[Jabberwocky]

you prolly misunderstood me i was just referring to most ppl. BUT, i'd still venture to say that most who *claim* they can tell the difference would not be able to tell their ingredients were swapped. This is shown over and over and over again. I'm not saying ghetto, about-to-expire veggies will pass for fresh, top-of-the-line, but you'd be dumbfounded what you were unable to pick up in this regard.

/wish i didn't cook for 'most' ppl, i always seem to end up being the shopper, cooker and dish-cleaner wherever i go.

 

[MrGrunge]

you prolly misunderstood me i was just referring to most ppl. BUT, i'd still venture to say that most who *claim* they can tell the difference would not be able to tell their ingredients were swapped. This is shown over and over and over again. I'm not saying ghetto, about-to-expire veggies will pass for fresh, top-of-the-line, but you'd be dumbfounded what you were unable to pick up in this regard.

Maybe, but if we're comparing Wal-Mart "Frozen Chicken Breast with Rib Meat" to "Free Range Organic chicken breast" I'd beg to differ. As someone who has grown up with ready access to latter-quality ingredients (grandparents own a farm with chickens/cows/pigs), I've gotten pretty good at discerning the difference. I only have about 5 years restaurant experience (been cooking for 16 years) from fast food to formal dining, but I've seen enough to know that people will consider 'passable' quality. Americans just don't realize how inferior most of their store-bought ingredients are. Genetic engineering and modern preservation techniques just sap the true flavor out of the food - homegrown veggies annihilate their store-bought counterparts (imo).

/wish i didn't cook for 'most' ppl, i always seem to end up being the shopper, cooker and dish-cleaner wherever i go.

Haha, I know that feel bro. Although, I like the shopping and cooking aspect - it'd be nice if people would lend a hand for the dish cleaning once in a while.

 

[Jabberwocky]

hah true, i guess i do like it - i just wish others did too. enjoyable to do because you like doing it, but always an annoyance to remember that if you didn't, nobody would
story of my life LOL

 

[llama112]

Chefs are professional chefs. They do this for a living. They cook EVERY DAY. Multiple meals. Different types of meals. They sometimes go to college/other schools to get specialty training, where they share all their little secrets lol. Practice makes perfect. Like others have said - spices, sauces, and just the little things - they make a difference!!

About a month ago, I went to the Mandarin, always have loved their food and we go three times a year (my bday, my bf's bday, and our "anniversary") as a special treat. It was so disappointing. It just wasn't as good as the food we make. I find that restaurant food is "easy" (aka we don't have to make it) but it isn't quite as good.

 

[Jabberwocky]

while that's very true, it doesn't just apply to chefs it applies to everyone. if you're into food, you will get good at it- it's not rocket science lol. if i'm cooking for myself, or someone i know well enough, the food is preferable to most any professional chef's (in that any superiority over me they have in the kitchen is wayyy overcompensated by the person-specific tastes that i understand so well)

 

[MrGrunge]

^ With restaurants it's not so much that one specific professional chef is in the kitchen, but multiple chefs all working on your meal at once, each one cooking the same items (depending on their position in the line) throughout their shift. Meals are assembled at the precise times and temperatures, which gives them a pretty big advantage (in terms of meal quality) over a single chef working from home.

I generally prefer food cooked at home, though. Restaurants are like assembly lines whereas home cooking is like songwriting, or painting - you have the freedom to express yourself and experiment. Even if the dish or meal doesn't turn out the way you wanted (and assuming you didn't totally mangle/burn it) there's still something satisfying about knowing you created everything from scratch, a feeling that's even better if you grew or raised the ingredients yourself.

 

[Jabberwocky]

i know, i've worked in my share of restaurants when younger. the line cooks in that setup usually don't approach true chefs, which are who i was referring to in that post

 

[MrGrunge]

Who are these "True Chefs"? The ones who design the menu?

(almost) Every restaurant uses some variation of a line set-up, and most of the time these people can prepare a dish better than the one who created the recipe. Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagasse can suck a dick - the cooks actually working in their restaurants deserve most of the credit. A restaurant is only as good as the people on its payroll.

Even ludicrously talented chefs like Ferran Adria or Pierre Gagnaire need people who can mass produce their genius.

 

[moonyham]

'True chef's' haha. 'Executive chef' is who designs the menu and sorts all the chefs out with duties and finer techniques.

And LOL at 'it taste better because of salt fat and msg'. How idiotic. Too much salt is.. well, too much salt. It does not make food magically taste better. There is an 'appropriate' amount which chefs usually have a much better sense of than people who dont cook for a living. It took me a long time but im very good at seasoning foods now. As for MSG.. well, most restaurants of any sort of quality will never use MSG unless they are chinese/asian of some sort, in which case the best chinese food ive had had no MSG at all.. so yeah. MSG is a easy way to add umami to a dish, but it is not the best and is a short cut which most chefs and restaurants dont take.

Too much fat is not 'tasty' either, it turns out greasy, and.. argh theres just so many things wrong with that post. Fat is tasty yes, but you cannot simply 'add fat' for 'more flavour'. There is an appropriate amount of fat and anything more usually makes the food less appealing. Just like salt.


I think the best way to realize why food you cook at home usually isnt as good as it is at restaurants is purely YOU ARE NOT A PROFESSIONAL. Its the same reason why when you try and make furniture it is not as good as when made by a carpenter, or why when you try and fix your car but you are not a mechanic, you wont do as good of a job if at all being able to complete the task.

You cant expect to know as much as a chef or be able to cook nearly as good.. they generally have 1000-1 experience over you.. you spend 8 hours in an office everyday, they spend 10 hours in a kitchen. Go figure.

 

[Jabberwocky]

"true chef" ie someone who's got more experience, maybe culinary education, and isn't someone who's working in the kitchen they learned to cook in a month prior. unsure how the gist of that wasn't apparent in my post.

moony- if you took anyone's posts to mean fat / msg /etc is a "more is better w/o any ceiling" then you suck at reading comprehension.

comparing cooking, which can easily be done on a routine basis your entire life, to making furniture, is the kind of shit that makes your appearance in threads a headache.



this has lost any potential for fun now. talk about chefs all day long, i'm very comfortable in my knowledge of how some of the best restaurant chains on the planet get, and retain, their customers, both from studying the mechanisms academically and real world experience as customer and employee. If you think that lowering the nutritional quality by higher levels of salt, fat, and sugar are not a major part of what separates typical restaurant food then i don't know what to tell ya.

 

[moonyham]

Well, im a chef, or atleast was. I mean what would i know, its not like i have a diploma in it, its not like i have years of experience being a chef, its not like i have even been a head chef making menus and the such... noooo, none of that stuff. :/

You are just a strait hater, on any and all of my posts, no matter how valid and true they may be, you just want to disagree with me. I can play that game, to quote you:

''By and large tho, the reason ppl prefer <insert whatever here> at the restaurant to what they make themselves, is that the restaurants add more sugar, salt, and fat. ''

Did i say anything about no cieling? No. You made out that 'they add more' compared to(?) home cooking. Well.. thats just stupid. If anything there is less salt in food from a restaurant because the people cooking the food know how much is enough, unlike the average cook who just chucks it in with complete guess work, or is too shy to add enough because they are scared of making it too salty.

How is my comparison to other professionals not valid? Because most people dont make furtniture often? So??? My point is, of course someone with many hundreds if not thousands of times more experience will be better than you at something, especially cooking which has no cieling when it comes to gaining new knowledge. And sorry, I AM bad at reading comprehension? You couldnt even read into that which i made pretty fuckin clear, bro.

You sound like you know nothing, tbh. Like you've just watched some hells kitchen and food network shows and now you know it all... haha. The fact you dont know that 'true chefs' as you put it are actually called executive chefs tells me how vast your knowledge is. *laughs manically*


Just a side note: You clearly have never worked in a real kitchen, and have no real experience. At most you have some sort of job in the office side, but even that i doubt. I HAVE worked in a kitchen, ive worked in many, infact its been my career of choice since i left school... you dont know shit, i am the fucking man at cooking and everything about it and this is one thing that i do know lots of shit about. When i was at chefs school i was one of the few people in my country to get 100% in the international chefs exam we took(cant remember what its called). Ive won medals on a national level for my cooking too. Infact if there is one thing i know, its food, and that you dont know anything about it.