Is this Company Ruining Restaurants in America?

[geist1223]

Do you follow the recipe exactly?

 

[klpca]

Same recipe. same ingredients, the wife and I make it, her's is 10x better than mine. What magic does she posses?

We have had this discussion at our house. I think that it is because have been cooking/baking for 40+ years. My instincts are different than my husband's (he's been cooking for about 5 years). I know just about when something is properly done, I know what color I am looking for with carmelization of aromatics, etc. We even prep mirepoix differently which seems like it should be 6 of one, half dozen of another - I think it is my insistence to dice in very consistent size, vs his more "rustic" technique. It is a bunch of little things that make small differences in the way that the dish tastes. It makes the same dish taste ever so slightly different. Either that or your wife is adding things on the sly like a bit more butter or deglazing with wine.

 

[jp10558]

The longer I've been cooking, the more I can tell if a recipe is wrong, or how to tell if something is done. Not to the level of my mom, who can use several recipes for the same thing as inspiration on the fly while editing for some flair and have it come out amazing. I can sometimes pre-compare different ones and come up with one I think is best with bits of others, but I can't just grab spices etc on vibes and have it come out.

However, I'm certainly above my sister who admittedly can "boil water" and hates cooking - when she needs to cook something and asks me sometimes I can't really explain how to do it - I just know bits and bobs.

It's very possible a more experienced cook will almost unconsciously adjust a recipe to make it better or more like what they want...

 

[geekette]

Not gonna blame Sysco for anything. Whoever owns and manages the restaurant decides what to serve. If I don’t like the food, I don’t go back.

Two people can have identical ingredients and have different outcomes. Eat the better dish!

 

[easyrider]

This video came across my YouTube feed today. It goes into detail about all the sameness of many restaurants across the US. I notice this when looking at the menus of all the timeshare resort restaurants and pool bar & grills. They all serve the same stuff and chances are, the food is all coming from the same place. I will apologize now to a specific Tugger as I know they worked for the company that is the topic of the video. The company is Sysco but it also referred to US Foods and one could even put Gordon Food Service in there.

I've never been a fan of going to restaurants. I have trust issues after coming down with food poisoning at a top restaurant. Gordon Ramsey also ruined my restaurant experience with all of the shenanigans restaurants pull on his show.

Bill

 

[dlpearson]

Isn't Carnegie Deli considered a tourist trap in NYC?

This tourist was devastated the day they closed their doors several years ago. Found an offshoot in The Mirage in Vegas several years back, but that's also closed. I've heard they have a small shop inside Madison Garden on game days (but never been).
Carnegie Deli cheesecake is by far the best cheesecake I have ever eaten--haven't found any other place in NYC that can hold a candle to it (and I've tried lots of options!)

 

[1Kflyerguy]

I finally had time to watch the video from the original post. It seems that the content creator is primarily arguing that large food distributors are driving down costs by using lower-quality food, and that the creation of frozen or factory-prepared items compromises local flavors and the overall experience.

It's possible the drive to lower costs results in lower quality food, which makes sense, but I don't have direct knowledge of the food business to really comment on that.

As for local flavors and dining experiences, yes, I am sure factory-prepared items don't help that. However, I believe there are several factors beyond the major supply companies that are influencing this situation. You have many national restaurants, such as Olive Garden and Cheesecake Factory, that offer the same menu nationwide. You have things going viral on social media, things that start local like a Cronut, or a sandwich made with a giant pickle instead of bread... Pre-internet, they would have stayed local, but spread after people started talking online. Some things remain more local; the video mentions fried pickles, which are available here in Northern California but not commonly found. They are much more common is the south in my experience. I have never heard of the funnel cake fries mentioned in the video, although I can imagine what they might be.

 

[ScoopKona]

Tuggers, you will be surprised that many restaurants used Sysco, Golden Foods, Sam’s Club and Costco in their restaurants. The difference is how their chef’s prepared the meat and seafood items. IMHO.

Hard disagree on this one.

Let's take milk. I won't drink it in the US. It tastes like nothing -- homogenized so that it's just another commodity. Since our milk mostly sucks, we'll never have great cheeses. Our dairy industry is best described as squalid, anyway.

The good thing is that our food landscape has improved immensely in the last 30 years. You can lay your hands on the good stuff. Even milk that tastes like milk. And from that, great cheese as well. There's a nunnery in Connecticut which makes particularly good cheese. I've got a whole freezer full of I'o Ranch beef right next to me as I type this from a grocery store.

But even when I lived in Las Vegas, I could still source the good stuff -- a ranch in Arizona brought beef to Las Vegas every week. Same thing with a ranch in Utah for pork and poultry. Local produce wasn't happening there. But just getting as much as possible from as close as possible improves the quality of the meal.

There's the added bonus of shopping small and supporting your community. But even if that wasn't the case, I'd still buy local just because it tastes better.

 

[davidvel]

Random incongruous lecture:

- "I won't drink [milk] in the US."

- "The good thing is that our food landscape has improved immensely ... You can lay your hands on the good stuff. Even milk that tastes like milk."

 

[heathpack]

I don't know how many people want to run up to the villa mid day to cook up a meal. Poolside is just so much more convenient. That said, I do agree, having a kitchen is great. We rarely eat at the resort restaurants and often cook in the kitchen. The problem is, for those that do eat out at nearby restaurants, much of the food distribution to those restaurants is controlled by just a few conglomerates.

We rarely to never eat poolside. Mostly because the food is unappealing.

 

[Matthew DB]

LOL! Not everyone lives in cities. Sure a lot do but this is still possible. My daughter-in-law's family are ranchers. The beef tastes very different than supermarket beef. We live in a rural area now and I get all my produce from farmstands for half the year. Vacations are, of course, the exception for us when we eat out quite a bit.

Yep, you're not the only one. My in laws own a ranch, my eldest is taking it over.
We have a cooler that meets the 62" linear dimension limits. Duct tape it shut with meat and dry ice. What we don't use in the end gets given to the cleaning crew. The cooler gets filled souvenirs on the way back. At $40 extra it is worth it.

 

[Matthew DB]

Of course it doesn't but that is what one self proclaimed expert contends over and over again. I have searched out quality meat at local places in Maui, Kapolei, and Kauai and could never find any, if any meat at all. For one to suggest the meat at Costco is not quality and there are other places like farms for timeshare visitors to go to is absurd. Even here in San Diego where we have lots of local quality butchers, the cost is 3-4x Costco for marginal increase in quality if at all. But that is par for the course for him. It is his way or nothing.

Meridos farms of Kalahio in Kauai carries locally grown beef, pork, chicken and eggs.

 

[ScoopKona]

Meridos farms of Kalahio in Kauai carries locally grown beef, pork, chicken and eggs.

There are loads of places like this statewide. It's not like they're keeping it a big secret.

Like everything else in this country, food is like the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities. It's not at all difficult to find ranches, farmers markets, and stores which source locally. I'm sitting in one right now.

But it's not as convenient as Safeway -- where the shopper can get everything in one stop. Just that little of it is particularly good.

 

[davidvel]

Yep, you're not the only one. My in laws own a ranch, my eldest is taking it over.
We have a cooler that meets the 62" linear dimension limits. Duct tape it shut with meat and dry ice. What we don't use in the end gets given to the cleaning crew. The cooler gets filled souvenirs on the way back. At $40 extra it is worth it.

Note that checking a sealed cooler with dry ice is not legal. It can explode (compression-wise, not like a firebomb), as the CO2 turn from solid to gas, causing damage to stuff in the hold, or worse.

https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/dry-ice

 

[rickandcindy23]

My grandparents owned cattle, and the meat was exceptional. Took it to the local butcher. Small towns in Nebraska actually have butchers. We rarely had meat that was store bought.

 

[1Kflyerguy]

Note that checking a sealed cooler with dry ice is not legal. It can explode (compression-wise, not like a firebomb), as the CO2 turn from solid to gas, causing damage to stuff in the hold, or worse.

https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/dry-ice

Interesting, did not know this. I am not the type to travel with a cooler of food, so don't think I would ever accidentally do this either...

 

[Elan]

One of our state universities runs a meat packing facility. I've only tried the ground beef, but it was considerably better than Albertsons, Safeway or Costco. Need to look into it further, but this university is 5-6 hours north, so logistics are an issue.

Sent from my Pixel 9a using Tapatalk

 

[magmue]

Isn't Carnegie Deli considered a tourist trap in NYC?

The original Carnegie Deli closed in 2016. DH, who grew up in NYC, took me there on our first trip to NYC together. The pastrami sandwich was epic.

FWIW you can get mail order pastrami from New York - we’ve tried both CD and Katz’s Katz’s is leaner, but CD is juicier and more flavorful.

 

[jp10558]

There's the added bonus of shopping small and supporting your community. But even if that wasn't the case, I'd still buy local just because it tastes better.

Shopping small and supporting the community I can get behind. But I don't find that "local tastes better" where I live. It really depends. It's very disheartening to pay 2x-6x as much and find it far less appetizing than Sam's Club. Which I can now get delivered to me for a little fraction of that multiple.

I think it's obvious that convenience trumps a lot, especially when travelling. Some people travel to try new foods, and I guess some travel to find new farmers markets and cook different sourced ingredients. That's great - but many travel for completely other reasons, and expecting a huge time commitment outside of WHY they're traveling in the first place is unreasonable.

 

[Elan]

Shopping small and supporting the community I can get behind. But I don't find that "local tastes better" where I live. It really depends. It's very disheartening to pay 2x-6x as much and find it far less appetizing than Sam's Club. Which I can now get delivered to me for a little fraction of that multiple.

I think it's obvious that convenience trumps a lot, especially when travelling. Some people travel to try new foods, and I guess some travel to find new farmers markets and cook different sourced ingredients. That's great - but many travel for completely other reasons, and expecting a huge time commitment outside of WHY they're traveling in the first place is unreasonable.

I think it's like anything else -- one has to try enough places to be able to definitively decide it's not for them. If it's not that important to someone, then they're unlikely to put in the effort to find "better", which is fine. And sometimes, even if better, the additional cost isn't justified. But, if/when one finds a place, the additional effort is presumably minimal.

 

[ScoopKona]

I think it's like anything else -- one has to try enough places to be able to definitively decide it's not for them. If it's not that important to someone, then they're unlikely to put in the effort to find "better", which is fine. And sometimes, even if better, the additional cost isn't justified. But, if/when one finds a place, the additional effort is presumably minimal.

I know a lot of people who simply don't care about food. "It all goes the same place." And that's fine. They absolutely shouldn't waste time trying to find something better. For them, a calorie is a calorie.

But for far too many travelers, it's like the Europeans who visit the US and snivel about the quality of our beer. "It's like drinking water!"

Well, what beers did you try?

"Bud Light!"

You didn't drink anything besides Bud Light?

"Yeah! Horrible stuff. How can you people drink such awful beer?"

Without much effort at all, I manage to find outstanding food everywhere I travel. All it takes is doing a little homework and then playing to a region's strengths. Hawaii, for instance, gets dragged constantly for having lousy food. Nope. We have amazing food. Revelatory. But that's not what they're serving over at Howlin' Howlie's on the Waterfront. Howlin' Howlie learned that his guests have "less taste than a drunk after a bottle of tequila." (Maria Lima) So Howlie is slinging $30 orders of tater tots. That is neither sarcasm or hyperbole. We have a waterfront tourist trap here which sells $30 tater tots. And tourists just love the place because of it's "vibe."