These are four standard items in every restaurant’s tables.
Note:I don’t care about other items. If you want to rate syrup or catsup, start a new thread. Restaurant is a food place with tables and wait staff.
What I want to know is what you add to something after it arrives, not what’s in it. Cake has lots of sugar but you don’t add to it.
Rating from 0 to 100. Zero if you never use the item, 100 if you always use the item on something during each visit, 50 if you use the item in 50% of your restaurant visits.
Butter is different - I’d call it a topping, as vs. a seasoning like the others. Butter is intended to be spread on bread or similar items, but typically doesn’t come pre-applied. For my tastes, if food items need to be touched up with sugar, salt, or pepper, the cook has done a poor job.
Do you guys usually go to restaurants where butter is available as a seasoning, alongside salt and pepper?
I find that if I get butter, it’s because I got something that requires butter and was on the menu as such - rolls with butter, baked potato with butter.
When else do you get butter??
I’ve never put salt, pepper or sugar on anything in a restaurant.
It really depends on the type of restaurant, though. I’ll generally only use butter in places that have bread or rolls, and that’s surprisingly few places. And I’ll only use pepper in chower or other creamy soup, and once again that’s rare.
My butter and pepper usage tend to skyrocket during summer vacation.
I would actually like to use salt more often, but a lot of times I don’t want to bother the other people at the table by asking them to pass it to me or reach across them.
I only use salt, pepper or sugar if I’m having breakfast. (Small dash of sugar in the coffee, S&P on fried eggs) I might use butter on a piece of bread or toast, but don’t usually bother.
I agree with you on the butter. The only time restaurants here serve it is if it goes with something you’ve ordered, and then they give you either too much or too little.
I can’t agree that food that needs the addition of salt or pepper reflects on the skill of the cook, though. Some people like saltier or more peppery food, and some people need to avoid salt for health reasons. My husband puts salt and pepper on melon and salt on his apples and enjoys that, but I’d be a pretty grumpy customer if a cook did that to my food.
I can’t imagine adding sugar to anything at a restaurant but coffee or tea, though.
Regarding the OP: Salt probably 10%, pepper 5%, sugar 0%, and butter as required, or maybe 5% of the total.
I have low blood pressure, so have to eat a lot of salt, and drink a lot of water. Fortunately I also really like salty food. Any chef who made food alted to my taste would be out of business pretty quickly.
Pepper I use on eggs occasionally, and sugar never - most food is too sweet for my taste already.
Butter if it’s steak (very seldom), or a baked potato (more often).
Well, I said for my taste, though I was looking at it from a “chef” perspective rather than, say, a short-order cook. It’d have to be pretty bland food for me to have at it with condiments, rather than trying to appreciate it as-is. My husband is a salt fan but backs off on the stuff in nicer restaurants, though part of that may be doctor’s orders for him. Most restaurant food has a lot of salt in it, regardless of where you’re eating.
I stand by my zero; I don’t order coffee in restaurants.
(I put just a touch of sugar in my homemade tomato sauces to cut the acidity, lest my husband complain. But a well-made restaurant sauce definitely shouldn’t need that.)
I have to admit that I don’t eat at a lot of places that employ chefs rather than cooks (the only one within 10 miles of us closed down 2 years ago), and the items I do season at the table are usually some form of either eggs or potatoes. I agree with you that a more complex dish should definitely not need the addition of condiments–well, except ketchup ;).
1 salt 5 (that would be in a Spanish restaurant when I order a salad, as those are served make-your-own-vinaigrette; goes up to a 50 if we’re including corporate cafeterias, which for some reason have decided to cut off on everybody’s salt - I have low blood pressure)
2 pepper 0
3 sugar 0
4 butter 5 (on the bread, but if I’m buttering my bread it means I’m hungry enough to start eating the waiters)
It’d have to be pretty bland food for me to have at it with condiments, rather than trying to appreciate it as-is. My husband is a salt fan but backs off on the stuff in nicer restaurants, though part of that may be doctor’s orders for him. Most restaurant food has a lot of salt in it, regardless of where you’re eating.