Do you Ever Make Food you Wouldn't Eat in a Restaurant?
Today I was making a stir fry with less than fresh veggies. The broccoli was a little limp, the ends of the green onions were a little brown, the bean sprouts weren't as crunchy as they could be. It all came together and tasted decent, but if I were given that sad plate of veggies at a restaurant I'd be less than thrilled.
Frankly, I don't have the time or the money to do any major grocery shopping over the next couple of days. I have to use what I have, even though it's older produce from a visit to the farmer's market about a week and a half ago.
Do you ever eat things at home you'd complain about being served? Do you ever use ingredients you wouldn't find acceptable in restaurant food because you don't want to be wasteful or can't afford to not use it?
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22 Comments:
At a restaurant, I'm not going to pay for their leftovers. :P
I use leftover stuff and throw it together all the time. Baby carrots are 3 weeks old and little rubbery, throw it in soup. Celery leaves are yellow, throw it in stir fry. Leftover ribs, throw it in ramen.
I'm more of a stickler about certain veggie flavors. I'll eat month old cabbage and carrots but if the baby spinach and bean sprouts are wilted or limp, I throw them out.
Cassaendra at 8:29PM on 06/10/09
Well, I normally wouldn't order anything I cook at home when I eat out. That is not to say that if I were served my food at a restaurant, I'd complain about it, not at all. It's just that at this point, for me, the point of going out to eat is to enjoy something I don't make at home for whatever reason.
But more to the point - I'm really good about using my veg while still fresh. For the most part, I buy food (produce as well as everything else) with a purpose in mind, so I get as much or as little of it as I know I will need/use during a certain period. I have a very good memory, so I always remember what I have (and I use those green bags - no, seriously, they work). So my produce seldom goes limp or brown. In fact, I don't remember when it happened last time. I don't throw away food (for both moral and fiscal reasons), but it just virtually never gets to the stage where I have to decide whether I should throw it away or close my eyes and eat.
brooke29 at 8:54PM on 06/10/09
Browned lettuce. I don't mind a few dark edges on a salad at home, but if I see it at a restaurant, it peeves me (happened all the time in England).
As far as cooked ingredients go, you can be sure that most restaurants would not throw out any veg just for a little tiredness. They get used, somewhere.
renzata at 8:58PM on 06/10/09
Cheese with mold on it that I cut off.
pjracz10 at 9:15PM on 06/10/09
Yep, all the time.
I use up all the odds and ends, even if they look a bit sad or creepy. Some things don't do well once wilted/sad (like the sprouts or spinach mentioned above) but if I can possibly use it I do. I surely would not want some of my "creative" meals served to me in a restaurant!
I do this both because of economy (I am all kinds of broke) and because I hate wasting anything if I can help it. I am forever tossing bits and ends in the freezer for soup, even just a spoonful, or getting things blanched and frozen if I catch them in time as they start to go all sad or making a big pot of something from all the weird veggies.
sadiepix at 9:41PM on 06/10/09
"In that case, sir, may I advise against the lady eating clam chowder?"
Seriously though, not that I can think of. If I'm willing to eat it at home, I'm willing to eat it at a restaurant.
cycorider at 10:35PM on 06/10/09
@cycorinder, you're my hero for today.
I do it all the time, and not just with old produce or things perhaps slightly past the expiration date. For me, it's more about throwing things together that in retrospect should probably never be on the same menu, never mind plate, ha.
kfarrel3 at 11:18PM on 06/10/09
Wouldn't it be nice if we could all afford be as stringent with our "home creations" as we are with standard we hold restaurants to? The fact is most of us can't afford to be wasteful at home. I weigh in with those who would be unwilling to order a plate of leftovers from a restaurant. That's not to say that I don't get it. Restaurants use those marginal ingredients in soups and... and they use yesterday's boiled potatoes for today's breakfast fried potatoes... the list goes on.
Truth is if I'm paying the price, I want a restaurant to serve me something I haven't mastered at home at a quality level my kitchen can't achieve. If they fail that, I won't return.
czken at 2:59AM on 06/11/09
at least if my veg at home is a little tired, I know who handled it and how it got to be looking that way, sorry but for the most part, I just dont trust reseraunt sanitation. besides I'm with @Cassandra, why should I pay for their leftovers?!
huneybumper at 8:12AM on 06/11/09
If anyone attempted to duplicate some of my fathers receipes I doubt they could master the magic!
On a similar note:
My local northern Chinese rest. serves a deadly uncomparable hot and sour soup that I would never attempt to order anywhere else!
@pjracz10 - for sure! don't know if I would be comfortable with that hahahahaha
hungrychristel at 10:11AM on 06/11/09
Absolutely. As much as I would like to say that every dish I prepare comes out perfect and unbelivably delicious every time, we all know that isn't the case. But I can't afford to waste ingredients, so unless it's absolutely unbearable, I'll eat it (or most of it, at least); however, I only subject myself to it - no way would I ever serve something that isn't good to anyone else. And of course there are some meals that aren't "pretty" enough to serve in a restaurant, but sometimes they're the best tasting!
kimberlymac at 11:45AM on 06/11/09
do i eat things at home i wouldn't eat in a restaurant?
umm, all the time. my home cooking is usually throw-it-all-together, spice to taste, home cooking style. concoctions usually turn out really good to pretty good. if something is still edible in the fridge, i'm going to eat it, or find a use for it.
that said, i've made a few gorgeous meals at home that looked and tasted like restaurant quality, and i've had a few restaurant meals that were more lackluster than my home made creations. but part of the fun of going out to a restaurant is ordering something i would never attempt at home!
redhead at 11:55AM on 06/11/09
When I'm paying someone to cook me a meal, I do not want their scraps. But if they are my own scraps and it saves me money to use them up in my own home, that's a totally different story. Obviously we'd scoff at browning lettuce at a restaurant because we expect better but you're right - it's not like we won't ever eat slightly browning lettuce in our own home.
I think company should also be considered. I don't think any of us would serve browning lettuce to guests but for us and our family, we can get over it. It's all just a matter of expectations.
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 5:40PM on 06/11/09
When you eat in a restaurant, you are getting the scraps. This shouldn't be news to anyone; it's called controlling food cost. For instance, we serve a hanger steak at my restaurant. When a batch of steaks gets a little past it's prime, I'll freeze it, and it get made into chili somewhere down the road...
I make stuff at home I wouldn't ever admit to even eating, much less paying for!
sailordave at 9:45PM on 06/11/09
I refuse to eat browned lettuce at home. Nope. I love salads, and to me that browned stuff tastes metallic and ruins my tastebuds. When I get a salad in a restaurant, I want to imagine that it's at least as fresh as what I have at home.
I doubt I'd eat the soup of the day if they called it "we cleaned out the refrigerator and this is what we found." Not that my soups are bad or use rotten ingredients, but it's usually not something you could put a name to, unless it's something like chicken and random vegetables..
I also doubt I'd eat the special of the day if they said, "the cook was in the mood for something that tasted just like this, served over the noodles we happened to have enough of, which in this case was wagon wheels and tubular noodles, um, yeah, so it's lemony chickeny creamy stuff with capers over wheel and axles. Yeah, that's it.
I also expect that if I order the same meal at a restaurant again, it's going to be strikingly similar to what I had before. At home, there are very few things that I make the same way over and over again.
dbcurrie at 11:30PM on 06/11/09
I think @huneybumper - tired / not so great things in my fridge that I eat have at least gotten that way in my own kitchen, under my own nose.
If I go out to eat, I expect it to be good: fresh ingredients and attention paid to what they're actually making. When I throw something together in my house clean-out the fridge style, I just expect it to be food, and usually it tastes decent enough too. I will also eat things that I have dropped on the floor and taste straight off my cooking utensils - things I would not want to happen in a restaurant.
Note: these things do not happen when I am cooking for company.
joyyy at 3:49PM on 06/12/09
Huh? Almost without exception, I won't eat ANYTHING in a restaurant that isn't something I cannot ordinarily make as well at home.
We don't eat in restaurants very much, for the reason that we cook very well and use quality ingredients, and more often than not believe that our results are better than what we would get in most restaurants.
Lorenzo at 4:26PM on 06/15/09
I usually don't order things I can make at home. I don't order chicken dishes (unless they sound absolutely SPECTACULAR) because I can cook chicken very well on my own.
omnomnom at 10:04PM on 06/15/09
Pasta. When it comes to restaurants who don't particularly specialise in pasta or at least know what they are doing, I avoid it on menus. A lot of times I find pasta dishes overly saucy and the pasta overcooked... yuck. I make pasta all sorts of ways at home, way better.
Quasibonko at 12:13AM on 06/17/09
chicken parmesan. or anything stereotypically italian.
stefathena at 12:52PM on 06/17/09
Definitely! I'm single so sometimes I have to stretch my lettuce a few days past prime.
Luby26 at 1:53PM on 06/17/09
I am not a bad cook, but I am cheap, so if I'm paying a lot of money for food at a restaurant, I want it to be something I don't know how to cook or can't cook myself. It seems silly to go out for something I can make at home for 1/4 of the price.
MeganCochran at 2:01PM on 06/17/09