That reminds me of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a recent documentary I saw the other day. The chef’s apprentices aren’t even allowed to attempt making tamago until they’ve been working with him at least 10 years. The chef’s son made over 200 batches before he finally made an acceptable one.
Sushi – rainbow roll or spicy tuna hand roll or both
Mexican – chile reanno (sp?)
Steak house – filet mignon
Burger joint – bacon cheese burger (duh)
Thai – Pad Thai
This is a first time test. If it is good, then I will be back for other stuff.
Oh, burger joint. That reminds me. My test is plain old cheeseburger, with mustard, ketchup, onions, pickles, nothing else.
I’d definitely go with nigiri, not any kind of roll.
Relleno
Yeah, good point - but I save time there. If the mise doesn’t have a bin of beetroot swimming in juice or if the onions are pre-cooked you can walk out again straight away.
Beet root at a burger place? Never seen it.
It’s an Oz thing. They are passing strange Down Under.
In general, I agree with this.
Although … my favorite sushi place does a really weird take on tamago. It’s very fluffy, almost cake-y. It’s very good, just not the normal omelet-like dish that most places serve.
My benchmark is mostly a scan of the menu to see if they can handle vegetarians. It’s rarely an issue with Ethiopian, Thai, Indian/West Indian or Carribean. It’s iffy with Chinese. It’s distressing with both Mexican and Italian, for no good reason. Near impossible with French, but occasionally there are glimmers of reason. Forget about it with standard “American” or steakhouse.
Yes the bread is what it’s all about. A good Italian or French restaurant should bring a bread basket to your table without being asked, and the bread should be high quality and steaming hot (ie, just out of the oven). Italian places should also bring you olive oil.
I vet most Indian places with butter chicken (murg makhani), though largely because it’s my favorite dish*. There is a local place that has a very flavorful and slightly spicy butter chicken. It has become my new standard. Also if you get samosas there should be two types of chutney.
Any place that serves burgers should ask you how you like it! Except fast food chains.
*Well that and murg methi malai or methi chooza. Any place that serves one of these I immediately know is the real deal.
I don’t use benchmark dishes. Why should I expect (for example) a Cantonese restaurant to have good hot & sour soup (or even to have it at all)?
When I go to a new restaurant I look at the menu and try to figure out what they do well. If it’s an ethnic cuisine, is it regional? Do they specialize in one type of dish, like seafood or grilled items? Does the menu have a list of house specialties (different from daily specials)? Are there odd or unusual items? I’ll also look around to see what other people are eating.
I usually tell the waiter “It’s my first time here, what should I have?” If they equivocate, I’ll say “what’s the most popular dish?” That usually steers me towards a reliable standard that the restaurant does better than others in the area.
You shouldn’t. Why would you use hot & sour as a Cantonese benchmark? The point is to pick something from the style the restaurant specializes in. Like let’s bring up chiles rellenos again. If I’m in a Yucatecan Mexican restaurant, that’s not going to be a good benchmark. They most likely won’t even serve it. Cochinita pibil would be my benchmark in that case.
Granted, when I’m at a restaurant I’ve never been to before, I am likely to do your approach as well and ask the servers what dishes they’re known for or what the chef recommends. However, I also like to have an order of a benchmark dish, if I happen to have one for the style of food that I’m eating.
My only rule is to stick with the restaurant’s theme, like steak at a steakhouse. Otherwise, I just get what I want.
I’ve only been disappointed once. The restaurant closed down within a month. (It was a steakhouse whose steak tasted funny.)
Not food, but when I go to a brew pub, the IPA is the test. Good places have a balance of floral notes and a clean bitterness. Places who don’t know what they are doing have bitterness. Places that really don’t know what they are doing think everyone who orders an IPA wants an XTREME (yes spelled that way) bitter ale that proves their manhood and beer knowledge. Those places last about 3 months.
If a Chinese restaurant did not have hot and sour soup on the menu then obviously I would not use it as a benchmark dish.
I am not enough of a foodie to know the difference between Cantonese and other types of Chinese restaurants. You may mock me if you wish. I assure you I can take it.
I saw Bourdain live a couple years ago. He talked about that part and said basically that was true a decade ago, but don’t follow these rules to the letter today. Things have changed.
The best mexican place around here puts cheese on their fish tacos. They also use lettuce instead of cabbage like most places. All tacos at this place come in a unique type of shell I’ve never seen anyplace else, but I think it’s corn based. Not a flour tortilla anyway. No sour cream either, just a chipotle ranch (at least that’s what the menu calls it, doesn’t taste very ranchy at all). Anyway, they’ve been in business for over 30 years now, and have expanded from a little hole in the wall to 4 restaurants and they’re always busy, so they must be doing something right.
By the way, these are the best fish tacos I’ve ever tried (not that I’m some sort of fish taco expert) so don’t be quick to dismiss a place just because they do something slightly different. If you try it and think it’s gross, fine, but just turning your nose up at something like cheese on a fish taco without even trying that or at least trying something else on the menu may make you miss some really good food.
I guess I don’t really believe in “benchmark dishes”.
Hmmm, I guess you… FISH TACO!!!1!
You need to really settle down before you do anything else.
There will be plenty of fish tacos in the nice room there…go on, you’ll like it.
Was this the egg sushi? I don’t eat sushi at all really, but even this seemed odd to me.