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  • LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

Why are restaurant foods so dellicious?

What type of restaurants do you go to that serves these horrors lol?

Chains, for the most part, aren't really restaurants, they are basically fast-food under a 'classier' name that serve really cheap produce with a massive mark-up. Proper restaurants would never be pumping things full of MSG, nor would they be using corn syrup etc in sauces.
 
Ah, you see i dont go to places like that nor do i deem them restaurants(although i know they are by definition). Dennys is NOT a restauarant, lol.

If you are paying less than 30$ for a feed then yes of course you are going to recieve shit. You get what you pay for and this is especailly true with food. If its cheap, dont buy it.. unless thats your thing. I dont eat out unless im going to drop some actual money. I can cook a professional quality meal for myself for cheaper than i can get a half assed unhealthy meal at some crappy joint, so ill do that. Something odd ive noticed is how many people order the same stuff everytime they go out or like, they will get something you can get everywhere else(a burger) when the restaurant specializes in steaks or whatever.. blasphemy!
 
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...so you're not acknowledging <$30/meal restaurants, despite the fact they make up the overwhelming majority of restaurant sales in the US?
 
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To me, this is a restaurant:

Maitre'd greets and seats you
A waiter takes orders and serves food
There is no 'buffet/all you can eat/self service'.
There is a wine list, not a laminated card of 'drinks'
Menu includes entrees, mains and desserts

If the place doesnt have all of that^, it is not fit for my custom. Thats just me. I know alot of people are happy to eat shit but you do the math:

30$ for a main and entree, lets say 10$/20$.

How on earth can any place hire all those people.. the waiters, the maitred, the managers, the multiples of chefs, the lease, the power and gas, and then pay for all the ingredients of your meal, and charge you anything less than 30? They cant.. unless they cut back on some of those staff and/or cut back on the quality of product in the food.

I live in Auckland NZ which is full of ridiculously good restaurants. Food is pretty cheap here and super high quality, our meats and dairy are the best. Even with the cheap cost, and our low minimum wage, and how badly chefs get paid here(why i dont do it anymore), a place that serves good food and has all my requirements cannt be found for less than 30-40NZD. So.. yeah, with knowledge that my food is about half sometimes of what americans or other westerners would pay.. its just not plausible that you can receieve quality food for cheap.
 
i'm not sitting here endorsing those places, truth is i usually hate going to restaurants because i almost universally prefer home-cooking. the problem is you derailing shit w/ absurdities like "well, I don't consider them restaurants"
 
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I am submitting useful information to this thread, as an experienced chef. What are you doing? throwing around accusations, lies, and misinformation. You are now resorting to petty posts about my posts.
 
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obesity is a major problem in the US, which affords us an overwhelming amount of data to back up everything i've said wrt the correlation between food preference and salt/sugar/fat.
restaurants always want to improve their offerings' perceived "tastiness", w/ little to no regard for nutritional quality. this isn't an area of guesswork or opinion. McDonald's (or outback steakhouse) know what they are doing, even if you refuse to see it.

clown around all you want, but the data is undeniable (and the logic obvious, after a little contemplation)
 
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moonyham said:
I am submitting useful information to this thread, as an experienced chef.
Click to expand...

If 'useful information' is repeating "I only eat at the BEST restaurants! Anything less is not even worth acknowledging as a place to eat", I suppose you're right. Other than that I'm not sure what actual information you've dispensed.
 
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Restaurant food is so delicious for a number of reasons, guys, and all of your reasons are good reasons. No one reason is correct.

Here's what we have so far:

- experienced chefs
- you pay for what you get
- in the case of cheaper, nationally known restaurants, it is the addition of things that our body really enjoys: salt, fat and sugar.

I'd like to add something to this list we have going: someone else is cooking it for you. You didn't have to do the work for it, which makes it easier to enjoy instead of thinking about how you had to do the work and the dishes.

Now, let's keep this thread going in a positive direction. Let's leave our dislike at the wayside. It's stupid to point the finger and make accusations, as the other three fingers on your hand point right back at you.

Thanks!
 
MrGrunge said:
If 'useful information' is repeating "I only eat at the BEST restaurants! Anything less is not even worth acknowledging as a place to eat", I suppose you're right. Other than that I'm not sure what actual information you've dispensed.
Click to expand...

It isn't about 'only eating at the best restaurants', what he is saying is right, the points mentioned, at least where I am, are the basics for a 'restaurant' to be a restaurant. How would you on average get a good, full meal for under $30 (with ingredient cost (and its mark-up) plus all the add ons of a restaurant, i.e. you are paying the chefs wage) Obviously I don't know food costs in America, but that might be the problem if you're getting MSG laden food.. You can't expect much better for that price.
 
I was a professional cook for 10 years, started in chain restaurants and progressed to fine dining. I think contributing factors to restaurant food tasting better than home cooked are good restaurants have access to better quality ingredients and professional grade equipment in addition to trained staff
 
moonyham said:
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
Click to expand...

You're recommending eating a steak that is turning brown or grey in color? My family and I all got sick from this because the steaks had set in the refrigerator for a couple days. They had a greyish-brown color to them but my dad thought it would be alright as he rinsed them off and broiled them anyway. Big mistake because we were all sick that night. Next time this happened with the color turning, I removed them from the package and noticed a sour odor and promptly threw them in the bin. I wasn't about to chance it.

Yes, we do use a meat tenderising pounder but that's not going to remove bacterial growth, unfortunately.
 
I cant vouch for dodgy american meat, I eat 1st grade NZ beef and ive never had a problem with aging my steaks. I always do it and never have been sick. Im not saying let it turn brown completely but the edges should start to brown. Keeping it at a cold temperature(bottoms of the fridge) is ideal also.

Sounds like you just buy crappy beef though, generally if its prepared in a clean environment and is quality beef then aging it doesnt pose a problem. E coli. is not prominent in beef..
 
Whatever the heck it was, we were sick as hell. I don't want to go through that again. I wonder what the early pioneers did to their beef when they killed a buffalo, they must have put it through a curing process to make it last for the winter you know?
 
Generally you don't age individual steaks, but rather the entire cut of beef (or a large portion of the cut) and then portion your steaks aftwerwards. It can be done at home relatively easily (and cheaply) if properly dry-aging beef is important to you.

If you're so inclined (and willing to risk possible food poisoning), you can wrap your individual steaks in paper towels and place them in a (low humidity) refrigerator for up to a week if you change the paper towels every day. It does make the meat more tender, but like I said, it can go wrong. I've personally never experienced any sickness from this technique, but I've read plenty of stories online of people unsuccessfully aging their steaks this way.
 
Early forms of red meat storage usually included salt and brines. Ive seen some interesting documentaries on it actually, one of my favorites was literally caking the slab of meat in salt everyday in a dry room. Not to healthy for the modern man as we get alot of salt in our diet from everything we eat but back then, salt wasnt as common and a salt piece of meat was probably all the salt youll get that day.

As for aging individual steaks.. I dunno, i mean its up to you how long you age it, but in my experience, a week or less never has had any issues when stored in the fridge. Im pretty good at handling dodgy food though, never had food poisoning but have definitly eaten raw chicken and off red meat. Like i said though, the meat i eat is probably alot better quality than what most people get.
 
I occasionally eat basically raw (very rare at best) steak, browned on the outside, but still cold in the center. I've never worried too much about it so long as the beef has been refrigerated up until the point I 'cook' it.

Truth be told I'm sure that's not safe, but I've never had any issue. I suspect some people just have a higher threshold for food born pathogens than others??
 
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^yes, some people have a stronger stomach(literally) than others. To the point that certain people can eat raw chicken with no problem. Raw meat has its benefits but cooked generally tastes better and is processed easier by our digestive system.
 
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