Tips for Restaurant Dining

As any normal person would do on a Sunday, I decided I would go get a coffee and read my book. I went to this little coffee shop, got my caramel latte, and read Kitchen Confidential. This book is great. Here's a couple tips from it. 1.) Don't eat the seafood on Sunday and definitely not Monday. All of it is left over from Thursday when the orders come in. So it is four to five days old when you get it. The best day for seafood is typically on a Tuesday. This is because the chef will be there so he will be watching the cooks and also because there is a new shipment on Tuesdays. 2.) Don't eat mussels in a restaurant. This sucks. I really enjoy mussels. Here's why. They are typically not handled very well. Mussels are so easy to cook they just throw them in a pot for two minutes and then dump them on the plate. The problem is unless the line cook looks at every single one before going into the pot, chances are you will be eating mussels that were dead long before you ordered them. 3.) No seafood for brunch. See number one. 4.) No hollandaise sauce. This one makes me sad. Hollandaise is so good but in a restaurant, it is rarely, if ever, made to order. So, the sauce is made in advance, and has to sit at room temperature. Because hollandaise is made from egg whites and butter, most likely table butter that was, you guessed it, sitting on someones table for hours or days, it is a breeding ground for bacteria. Dang. 5.) Eat the bread. Even though the bread from other tables may be reused, everyone knows when bread is old. It is hard and difficult to break or chew. As far as the reuse goes, whats the big deal. All the germs you would get from eating bread from Billy Bob's table you would be subjected to in a subway or airport. 6.) Don't eat in restaurants with dirty bathrooms. You know why. If they can't keep the bathrooms clean, which is easy, then they aren't keeping the kitchens clean, which is tough. 7.) If you go to a place known for steak, don't order it well done. *This tip is for you pop.* What happens is when you order a well done steak at a steakhouse, they go to the freezer and find the oldest cut they have, flash thaw it, and cook it to leather. They assume if you order a steak well-done, you don't know what a good steak tastes like. 8.) Be weary of the exotic items like sea bass. Here's the rationale, if you order a fish from Chile, than that fish has been frozen for the trip. Once the fish gets to the fish market, it sits out all day in the sun to thaw. That means by the time it is bought, transported to the restaurant and prepped, it has been thawed out and probably partially cooked. Then if it doesn't sell out the day the restaurant gets it, it is refrigerated. So the next day or two, if you order that Chilean sea bass, it has been sitting in the sun, thawed, partially cooked, refrigerated, and then cooked fully for you to eat it. All of these tips come out of Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential. It's a good read. I posted some more pictures today so check them out.