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Food Bloggers Giving Restaurant Owners Heartburn
crimeandpunishment writes "Call it the invasion of the pasta paparazzi. Food bloggers are so excited about sharing their experiences, especially at trendy, popular restaurants, that they're too busy taking pictures and video to enjoy the food when it's at its best. Many signature dishes come out at the perfect temperature ... take a few minutes to capture what it looks like, and your palate won't be nearly as pleased. Some restaurants have taken the step of banning cameras, or at least have established a 'no flash' rule. Others just want to make sure enthusiastic reviewers are still enthused after eating their food."
Actually how it looks is just as important as taste and smell. When you eat a meal, the first part of your body that perceives the meal is your eyes. Most people will not eat food that looks unappetizing. Next is your nose (which strongly correlates with your taste buds). Many more people will not eat food that smells unappetizing. Only then does taste play a role. Almost no one will eat food that tastes unappetizing.
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"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
This story looks magnificent, I love the arrangement of the words and the punctuation! Hang on while I read it... ... meh...
Perhaps the real problem is that all the flash lights disturb the other guests in the restaurant.
Take the diner who recently ordered a signature dish, Hot Potato-Cold Potato, in which a marble-sized sphere of piping hot Yukon Gold is dropped into a bowl of 40-degree potato soup at the pull of a pin. Eating it at the proper temperature is key to the experience.
Desserts with something fresh out of the oven and ice cream on top are similar- wait even 5 minutes and the melting ice cream hurts the taste and texture noticeably. Now, if they were talking about typical dishes without built-in temperature differences, I might agree with you.
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...a few minutes? What is this, the 1840's?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography
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Even if they did, they are expected to hold their taste long enough for them to be, you know, eaten?
Which, if you do it right, can take some time. Divide into bite-sized portions, not too big, convey to mouth, chew *thoroughly*, then and only then swallow. Then take a sip of your drink, probably engage in conversation for a minute, before repeating.
If taking a minute at the beginning of the meal to take pictures degrades the taste, then the taste will be degraded horribly by the time the diner finishes the plate. And people who take a moment to close their eyes and thank $deity for their food would be ruining it too. It's a bunch of nonsense.
Flash photography can be distracting and annoying, however.
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Many signature dishes come out at the perfect temperature
No they don't. Get over yourselves.
You sir, obviously haven't experienced the finer art of cooking. Last week I made a lasagna that needed to be served at the perfect temperature in order to be optimally satisfying. It needed to be so hot that it would scorch the taste buds right off of your tongue, or else you would be unable to stand the taste.
DE-LI-CIOUS! Hmmm. Nothing beats homemade cooking.
No, the point of food is to maintain health and strength. Whether you enjoy eating it is secondary to that.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I have to wait at a restaurant to get seated and then wait for food, the only thing on my mind when that food appears is eating it. Sure I'll talk about how good it tastes and how great it looks, but that's gonna happen while eating it. I'm not going to go "Sweet! That's EXACTLY what I wanted and I'm starving, oh it smells so good I'm just going to whip out my iPhone and start blogging about it." No, I'm hungry gosh darn it, GET IN MY BELLY!
-=JML=-
I always though geeks were into cooking? First impressions matter. The first bite cements a flavor memory, that sticks with you as your food cools. Miss the window of opportunity and a great dish just becomes good or even meh. This is also why good food is generally served in small portions. Its like your first sip of coffee in the morning, if you waited tell it was cold or left it in the pot to burn you might just spit it out. But if you had a few drinks before waiting tell its past its prime you might just finish off that last gulp or two without any problem. Same thing.
Most people will not eat food that looks unappetizing.
Obviously you're not from Rochester, NY. Our best known local dish not only looks ugly, but it has an ugly name as well. Then again, Nick Tahou's makes some delicious Garbage Plates.
There's food the basic resource, and food the product of the art of cooking. If you are going out to a restaurant, you are paying for the latter kind of food. In developed countries, your definition rarely applies, as shown by many people choosing food for taste and ignoring the health part.
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Anxiously awaiting food.slashdot.org.
And the incessant whining from RMS about restaurants that don't publish their recipes.
RTFA. Setting up and using a tripod takes more than a minute. The problem isn't just clicking a button on a cell camera - the problem is setting up equipment to get the "perfect shot" of the food at the expense of actually enjoying it.
Somehow I think the hunter gatherers would prefer the big macs too.
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To be honest, I keep flirting with taking a contrarian position, and insisting that people should stop worrying about whether food tastes good, much less whether it looks good. There seem to be so many problems with people eating unhealthy food, or eating too much food, and wasting food, and so on, that I sometimes wish people would just take a utilitarian attitude towards food.
I have no sense of smell, you insensitive clod! *
*That's not a joke.
While on one of my long distance hikes, I would occasionally pass a country store and purchase a 24 oz can of a never before heard of brand of beef stew. I would pour this into my pot, add a cup of minute rice and some beef bouillon and top with a cup of water. Heated, this made a quart and a half of murky grayish brown gruel. It was a real treat and the pot was licked clean.
At home, I can not even look at a plate of this concoction, much less eat it.
Nothing like the ambiance of the mountains, day after day of dehydrated crud for food to make anything different a tasty feast fit for the gods.
Obviously. First, a good restaurant chef will time things so that they get done as close to each other as possible. Second, some of the dishes will come off of the stove or out of the oven a bit hotter than the perfect temperature and need a minute or two to cool down; generally, those are plated first, so that by the time everything else is done, they're Just Right.
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Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but whipping out your camera at a nice restaurant seems decidedly tacky. Flashes could also disturb fellow diners.
People fail to realize that the point of food is to enjoy the taste. It doesn't matter how it looks, as long as it tastes good.
Well, that might be if you're going to a cafeteria or buying packaged food. At elite gourmet restaurants, it's a combination of taste, appearance, and atmosphere. Seriously, would you want to eat a "gourmet" meal served under harsh florescent lighting that looked ugly?
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If taking a minute at the beginning of the meal to take pictures degrades the taste, then the taste will be degraded horribly by the time the diner finishes the plate.
The thing is, in restaurants expensive enough to be visited by people who review food, you barely get more than a few bites worth of food on your plate to start with.
So, nothing looks good to the blind... how sad.
And, to add insult to injury, it is not "polite" to use the braille method to "see" your food.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I think you'd be surprised just how much your sense of sight plays in your food choices. Most of it isn't even a conscious choice.
You are right, smell does sense further than sight most of the time. But in a restaurant with competing smells, it's only when you can see what you are supposed to be smelling (your own food) that it gets heightened and "zeros in" on your own food.
Not sure why you dislike seafood so much, but to each their own. (: I have yet to come across a food that I didn't like (or at least try once).
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
It's not so much food puritanism, on my part, anyway. It's that I think food is intrinsically uninteresting, and I'd rather we got cooking and eating done quickly so we can talk about or do things that are actually interesting. There are simple, nutritious foods that taste good; spending more time on preparing food to trick it up into something more elaborate seems to me to be a waste of time.
Many signature dishes come out at the perfect temperature
No they don't. Get over yourselves.
It's the whole idea behind the McDLT.
It should be, "It doesn't matter how it looks, if it doesn't taste good". If it does taste good, better looks will enhance the taste (for the reasons you mentioned). But (unless you're a food snob), a shitty tasting dish will not taste better just because it's all dressed up (sort of like the deeply disturbed troll who also replied to GP o.O).
Food bloggers are simply braggarts. "Look at me and the wonderful food I'm enjoying! Aren't I just precious?" This is the sub-text of almost every food blog. It's even more obnoxious than disturbing the fellow diners.
You are obviously someone who has never had a good meal in his life.
Where is this epicurean desert that you live in that I can avoid it?
Given the choice between some good labor intensive peasant food (I'm Polish) and "utilitarian food," I'm going to be loading the plate up with some pierogis thanks.
Saying that eating should only be for nutrition is like saying sex should only be for reproduction. I reject your outlook. It is without enjoyment. It is spartan for the sole reason of utility. It is a dour, rainy day in late November.
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I think food is intrinsically uninteresting
I'm assuming you're Dutch...
Going to McDonalds for a salad is like going to a prostitute for a hug.
I dunno. Healthy foods can taste *really* good, and look good too, with their vibrant colors. Unhealthy food only really tastes comfortable, and of course there's the slight bump from the fats and sugars that were once scanty in our pre-civilization diet.
It's also more expensive, though, which I think is the real problem. An overdone ground-beef patty, mayonnaise, some wilty lettuce and a slice of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils with some fat-soaked potato slices and tomato & corn syrup preserves on the side is not only cheap to produce, but the ingredients store well for long periods unrefrigerated.
I'm not convinced "taxing it" is the answer either, as then this comfortable, unhealthy mix will be unavailable to the poor, but they won't magically be able to afford healthy food as a result...
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Look, if you think $12 a plate (e.g. Applebees) is high end, you're not going to the kind of restaurant where timing is critical (although applebees does still make an attempt to come out at the same time...). Not coincidentally, you're also not going to the kind of restaurant where people would consider taking a picture of the food.
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I have no sense of smell, you insensitive clod! *
*That's not a joke.
Why is this modded "Troll"? I know someone with no sense of smell, and it seems to be a minor handicap.
I've also met far too many people with no sense of taste!
But is it really that bad? Maybe it just hasn't caught on in little Brisbane, Australia and I'm missing the point as to why it's front page worthy on /.
If I was witty I'd put something funny here but, as it stands, I am not and have just wasted seconds of your life
Have you ever been to the middle or far east? There's a whole lot of amazingly delicious foods that look, and sometimes smell, roughly like someone has already eaten them.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Grouper (the real stuff) doesn't taste fishy if it's not old.
Raw tuna (preferably sushi/sashimi grade...) doesn't taste anything like fish, surprisingly. Salmon is nasty, though. I haven't tried any others.
It really is true, not all fish prepared right tastes fishy.
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Nothing like the ambiance of the mountains, day after day of dehydrated crud for food to make anything different a tasty feast fit for the gods.
The taste of food is intrinsically linked to how much your body needs it. And it even goes down in more detail as to what kind of food your body needs. It is fascinating really. Especially how quickly the taste adepts once you get the needed mineral/vitamin into your system.
Seriously, you don't know shit about cooking meat if you're not resting it.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Crispy things with a sauce on top often get soggy after a while. The more time you spend not eating it, the more likely that it will be soggy by the time you finally get around to it.
Without a sense of smell, you hardly taste anything... including if something is or might be poisonous, either because of its nature, or because its spoiled. You can't smell smoke, which is an early indicator of fire, and you can't smell a gas leak. Smell is pretty friggin' important to actual survival, so I'm not sure I'd classify it as minor.
This is true. When I clean the cat box it is only because my eyes sting that I know the ammonia smell is very bad.
OTOH, irritating smells (like a co-worker's foot odor) doesn't bother me. And so far hasn't been harmful. ;-)
Here was I thinking it was because they fear nobody's going to go to a restaurant serving a tiny portion size. The more the cook fancies himself as a great chef, the less you'll get on your plate.
Presentation betrays the care that was taken in preparing your food.
I think presentation is very important, but then again, I really enjoy going to more upscale restaurants. I'd rather go somewhere nice once a month (or every other month even) than go to places like Applebee's every week. If you don't care about presentation then you might fall into the latter category.
blah blah blah
Middle class worry if it's tasty.
Poor people worry if there is enough.
Are they using polaroid cameras?
Ironically, at the high end most of what prostitutes do a lot of chatting.
What high-end clients pay for may surprise you. For example, according to my ongoing interviews of several hundred sex workers, approximately 40 percent of trades in New York's sex economy fail to include a physical act beyond light petting or kissing. No intercourse, no oral stimulation, etc. That's one helluva conversation. But it's what many clients want. Flush with cash, these elite men routinely turn their prostitute into a second partner or spouse. Over the course of a year, they will sometimes persuade the woman to take on a new identity, replete with a fake name, a fake job, a fake life history, and so on. They may want to have sex or they may simply want to be treated like King for a Day.
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Serious Foods: RE: Resting a Steak
Presented to you is actual photographic evidence for the reason for "resting a steak".
Now, to point, if you rest a steak and the person gets it cold, then they fucked up. Using the argument of "resting a steak" is not a proper reason for a cold steak.
Rather the myth should be that resting a steak means letting it go cold. This later one would be the mark of a bad chef.
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Don't go hating on Applebee's, they're an amazing resource. If anyone says you're a bad cook, take them out to Applebee's and they'll never think poorly of your cooking again.
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To be fair, if a dish is taste, texture, smell, sight... what word other than "experience" sums that up nicely? I understand using "experience" the same way tourism commercials do would be snobbish and silly, but used properly I'm afraid there's no good substitute when talking about food.
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Actually, there are fairly "standard" definitions for "minor handicap" (basically "reduced quality of life but able to function normally without assistance") and loss of sense of smell is squarely in that camp. Eating a poisonous item you can't identify by other means, or smelling smoke and gas are emergency situations that are pretty rare in modern life, ie. a minority of people would ever encounter anyway. Not that it wouldn't suck royally in the quality of life area not to taste most of your food...
Parent is modded funny (and I think that was discord5's intention), but some people like myself have a low threshold of heat pain. I've taken crotch shots, broken bones, and blinding headaches, and come away mostly none the worse for wear.
Are you sure you're following instructions properly when cooking?
It is what it is.
You should always try foods at least twice. First reactions to new things aren't always reliable.
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You can make compost from vegetable waste, but it's very time-consuming and because the cellulose is tough to break down it's not as good. Ruminant digestive systems break down cellulose, which is why cow dung is wet and splattery and horse dung is dry and fibrous. Stable manure doesn't rot down as well as byre manure, but they both rot down a lot better than just dead plants.
Ok maybe so, but what is snobbish about a souffle? They're amazing right out of the oven but turn into a rubbery omelet ten minutes later. They aren't complicated to make; I taught my elementary school kids to make them. The reason many people have never had them is because timing is critical. You can't keep them under a heat lamp.
Or take pizza. Most of us are accustomed to eating lukewarm pizza, but it really is much better right out of the oven.
Ever eat gravy on a slice of roast beef? Isn't hot gravy much better than room temperature gravy? Gravy, by the way, is a sauce, and many sauces, particularly the fat based ones, go from wonderful at serving temperature to nasty at room temperature.
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