Chefs, waitresses, gourmands and others with expertise, explain something.
I look for restaurants that will let me while away an hour in the late afternoon reading a book, and provide something very nice to munch. There aren’t many with the quality I want, at prices I can bear.
When I find one, I pillage the menu looking for exceptional dishes, new tastes. I found one a few months ago (just weeks before it was “discovered”). Fantastic service, unusual dishes, and even the familiar items had a different slant. I order two things that were wonderful, then Tom Yum Kai soup – very common, easy to make. Everything’s great, except the soup. Then I discover in a few visits that none of their soups are good.
What gives? Why can’t restaurants produce menus of uniform quality?
Why is there such disparity in quality of dishes produced by the same chef, with many common ingredients? We’re talking a difference between exceptional and fair-to-poor.
Isn’t any qualified chef going to know how to make all simple dishes in a style well? There’s only a few dozen basic dishes on some of these menus!
I know this isn’t just me, because other people I go out with will say the same. The restaurant even posts reviews that say, effectively “X and Y are great, but their soups aren’t very good.” Wouldn’t a restaurant owner say “Whoa!, I better change the recipe?”
samclem, in a couple cases I’ve watched the chef make the both the good and the bad dishes. These are small restaurants. You’re thinking the problem lies in the junior chefs following the head chef’s recipes with irregular results?
Isn’t the problem more pervasive? I remember being in a tiny restaurant in San Francisco, eating something exceptional. The two women at the next table, two feet away, smiled at my expression. Turns out they were cooking instructors in a school up the street, and that particular dish of the chef was famous. He only knows how to cook a few outstanding things?
I think part of the problem is that taste is a very subjective sense, and what tastes not-so-exceptional to you, tastes good to he who made it. But, as you mentioned in your OP, others have thought the same thing about the soups.
I work as a pastry chef in a small (appx. 60 seats) restaurant that has some excellent cooks, but is run by a woman who is (by her own description), “a self-taught foodie.” Problem with this, is because she is the boss, we do have to bow to how she wants things–even if we completely disagree on how it should be made and/or how it should taste.
You’d think that with bad reviews, the owner would fix the recipe, but, to be honest, there is also a huge problem with egos in the business.
It’s always possible that the owner may see these reviews and just think, “they just don’t get it.” I know this has happened at my place.
It is also possible that perhaps the chef does only know a few outstanding dishes. I know that there can always be things that escape a chef’s knowledge–the head line cook I know can’t cook a potato perfectly to save his life, but most everything else he makes is fabulous.
I guess there’s many different factors that can bring about bad dishes. shrug
JavaMaven1’s right – there are a huge amount of factors to consider as to why all food in said restaurant isn’t, in your terms, “excellent”. You, as owner/chef, can have the most killer recipe in the world, you can show others how to make it, etc., but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’ll taste the way it’s supposed to…
I’ve eaten in highly-touted places where I’ve had good meals. Not bad, not great, just good, as in nothing exciting.
I’ve also come to the conclusion that the more “hyped” a restaurant is (especially if there’s a celebrity chef involved), the more it’s apt to disappoint – not all of them, mind you, but most. It’s like the fame goes to their heads and they forget all about who helped him/her get there – i.e, their unsung 24/7 employees!
My conclusion? If you want a good meal, patronize a small, unpretentious restaurant. Chances are the head chef actually works there, and keeps an eye on things…
There’s a resturaunt in Boston, name escapes me, that allows you to choose the raw ingredients, then watch them grill it up. The food was mediocre, and any exra rice you had (a side dish), was thrown out! I would’ve doggie bagged it, put it in a bowl w/butter, and nuked it at home. Topper, I originally got the wrong check! This was 2 years ago, NEVER considered going back!
That egos, individual taste come into play, I can understand. I like something spiced, but the chef thinks heavy spicing ruins the entire purpose of the dish, which is a subtle balance between X and Y.
I’m still struggling with why, in one restaurant, a beef salad is lean and spicy, the Tom Yum Gai is a little fatty, but spicy and aromatic, and the Pad Thai noodles are soaked in fat, colorless and bland.
Another shot at expressing something similar. You two and I each prepare a cheese souffle from Betty Crocker (or Julia Child). We follow directions, and change nothing. These three souffles are going to look and taste much the same, aren’t they? Maybe you’ve used large, room temperature organic eggs, and I used old, commercial medium eggs. So mine’s not going to have the edge…it’ll still be in the ballpark?
It may be in the ballpark, it may not. It may not even be just a difference of types of eggs. Oven temperatures vary, kitchen tools vary, products vary–I believe you’ll be in the ballpark, if all three of us had the same amount of knowledge of the best way to make a souffle, too. Technique counts for quite a bit, too.
In a perfect world, if all three of us followed a recipe, all three souffles would be exactly the same.