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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4483 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 5, 2023

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One thing which may be contributing to what you have experienced is that cooking savory dishes and making desserts are two somewhat different skill sets.

Oh I know. But I'm not talking about Chili's. I'm talking about restaurants with $100+ steaks. It's not that I go to those every week, but I've been to some. Their dessert game is slightly better, but not by much. It's not that they can't afford a pastry chef that can bring it to the next level. It's that they don't think they need to.

why the heck do you think we're so fat?

Cheeseburgers and hippo sized cola? ;)

BTW, my secondary complaint - which is overshadowed by the primary one, of course - is that those American desserts that I manage to get are almost always over-sugared. No, dude, "sweet" doesn't mean you should put as much sugar in it as you can without it being just called "a blob of sugar". You can make sweet things that have balanced taste not overwhelmed by sugar. If fact, that's how it should be done - but rarely how it is done. I mean, again, it's not universal - I've had very good ones, but the overall tendency is "it's supposed to be sweet - dump another sack of sugar into it, people love sugar!"

Cheeseburgers and hippo sized cola? ;)

The latter, for sure. Drinking sugar is a great way to get fat.

I share your complaints. Most desserts are far too sweet for me, and when I make recipes at home, I usually halve the sugar called for to no ill effect.

Oh I know. But I'm not talking about Chili's. I'm talking about restaurants with $100+ steaks. It's not that I go to those every week, but I've been to some. Their dessert game is slightly better, but not by much. It's not that they can't afford a pastry chef that can bring it to the next level. It's that they don't think they need to.

Fair enough, so we're talking nice restaurants. But in that case I honestly don't know what to tell you. I've never had bad or even just OK desserts at a restaurant like that. They're always quite good in my experience.

Maybe it's because you're going to steakhouses?

Steakhouses both seem highly formulaic and the food is so heavy and the portions so large that people usually don't really want a dessert, so it becomes a bit of an afterthought.

Not only steakhouses, I just used steaks as an example because it's very comparable - one would know how much steaks costs in various kinds of restaurants. If I used some specialty dish it'd be harder to compare how fancy the restaurant is. But, tbh, I can do a dessert after a steak - I usually go for a smaller but tastier steak rather than a slab of meat that would put me in a coma for the rest of the day. That of course unless it's a Brazilian restaurant where all hope is lost and there I don't even dream of eating anything but meat (and a bit of veggies of course).

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