Well I use it occasionally and I’m pretty nice, so why not 
?
Hijack, but is the jarred Rao’s pasta sauce good? I see it in the supermarket for about twice the price of the big brands.
Actually it IS pretty solid. You’ll find plenty of website reviews that will agree, like the first one I googled or this reddit discussion on how to duplicate it. However whether it is actually better than good homemade (probably not most of the time) or worth the extra cost (very, very subjective) is a different story.
I am pretty price insensitive about smaller items like this at this point in my life and I’m lazy as fuck. So I’ll spend the extra money on Rao’s or some imported jarred Italian stuff and doctor it up with sauteed mushrooms/onions/assorted meats/etc rather than go the full-on scratch method with fresh or San Marzano tomatoes et al… It’s easy. But again whether it is worth it for YOU is going to be pretty individual.
I think outsourcing is allowed at “nice” restaurants surly there is a line where too much comes in bags and boxes but I think there is a lot of latitude. My local nice restaurant is the best steakhouse I’ve been to in Colorado.
They clearly buy pre-made rolls and heat them up / finish cooking to order. They also have a Mac and cheese dish that I’m sure uses dried noodles and I’d bet they don’t make their own salad dressing. On the other hand they dry age their steaks for 60 days in house and cook them perfectly.
If they were buying pre-made salads or their appetizers came just needing reheating they wouldn’t be nice. But doing their specialty well with nice service and ambiance while outsourcing high quality additions still makes them nice if not fine dining.
Same, if I’m cooking at home I use a jarred sauce 95% of the time unless it’s a special occasion, Rao’s is pretty good but for some reason only available at certain stores around here, “Classico” is pretty good too.
I would not be bothered if a steakhouse’s mac and cheese uses dried pasta. (I’m guessing it’s mostly for the kids.)
I dunno, mac and cheese has been “elevated” to adult status at most places, even nicer ones.
Maybe it’s a regional difference of some sort? The best Italian restaurants in London that I know, the ones that count as “nice,” all make their own pasta. My favourite Italian cafe, which is far too informal to count as “nice” (though it’s one of the best places in the world, no exaggeration), and charges less than a tenner for lasagne, also makes it own pasta.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a restaurant advertise inhouse made pasta here, though I’m sure some do.
I had to check the ones I know in case I was imagining it.
Places like Franco Manca are chains that are well-regarded for pizza (and obviously they make their own dough but I assume most places do), but don’t make their own pasta because it’s not their speciality. It’s a nicer chain, but still a chain. The kind of place where, if I were told I was going to be going somewhere nice, I’d be surprised to be at a Franco Manca.
I wonder if this is the norm. I haven’t used jarred sauce since I learned to make sauce from scratch when I was in my 30s.
I won’t go so far as to say I never use jarred, but it’s rare. Scratch sauce is very easy to make, but sometimes you just want to pull a couple of things out of the pantry and be done with it.
I’m not a huge foodie but most basic pasta sauces really aren’t any more effort from scratch than from a jar. That’s not to say I’ll never order pasta when I’m out - it’s still reliably very good, and often if my friends want pizza I’d prefer somewhere that does pasta too.
A super basic marinara recipe looks something like this:
- Peel and chop a bunch of garlic.
- Cook it up in olive oil.
- Add a can of good-quality crushed tomatoes.
- Season as you like.
- Simmer gently for at least 15-20 minutes
That’ll make you a damn fine sauce and it is indeed super duper easy, but “open jar, pour jar, heat through” is still gonna be done before you finish step 2.
I do usually use cheat’s garlic (from a jar) or have just chop a load when my hands are doing well and freeze it. Same with onions.
Jarred sauces are all too sweet for me. I got a load in my covid relief boxes last year so have had to use them, but would really rather not. (Can’t give jars to foodbanks. And we ended up with over 40 jars!).
Cheating or pre-prepping your garlic definitely cuts down on the time. If I know I’m going to be using a lot over a few days I’ll usually spring for a bunch of fresh peeled cloves.
I’ll second this. premium pasta sauces in general and Rao’s in particular are way better than Prego or whatever.
Yup. There aren’t many dishes that won’t benefit from some garlic, so it always gets used. Or onions. We also just grate loads more cheese than even we need (we like cheese) and put it in a tupperware dish to use it on the next meals or sandwiches or whatever rather than grate every time and have to wash up the bastard grater.
Laziness can save time.
I don’t think any restaurant make their own macaroni.
Even the fancy pants foodies on food Network use dried Mac.
price to me isn’t necessarily “nice” I mean one of my favorite places is a big portioned, although to do have a bar inside
crazy ottos diner their motto is “if you leave hungry it’s your fault” and can easily be between 30-70 for 2 people