But of course.
I try to stay civil.
I hope we all can share our different POV without the temper getting the best of us.
But of course.
I try to stay civil.
I hope we all can share our different POV without the temper getting the best of us.
I disagree.
I’m not labelling all as lazy as you say I am.
I’m calling the people who cook professionally sloppy & lazy, if they don’t respect their customers enough to cook different types of ingredients in separate pans.
If we’re talking small street food vans they can still rinse their carbon steel pans out between the different orders. It takes a minute or even less.
Anything other than that is not respectful.
I was invited by local Thais, so out of respect I didn’t complain.
Oops I forgot to post my resume
Well, no chef in the World would ever disagree with anything I’ve ever posted on the Internet.
A quick rinse might make you feel better but won’t actually do much. It’ll get rid of the chunks, but as people have previously mentioned, fats and flavors get baked into the polymerized oil of the seasoning, and if there’s one you’re highly sensitive to, you’ll still be able to taste it.
I hope you have more satisfying experiences on your next trip, wherever it is.
I’ve experienced something very similar, yet opposite, of this at a restaurant I owned at one time. I owned a steakhouse; however, we had several seafood options. As well as seafood, I would routinely try to accommodate other dietary requests like vegetarian.
My particular problem was some (few) customers would complain of their seafood or non-red meat items, tasting like red meat. (Probably about 15 years ago) We already used separate cutting boards for meat, chicken, fish having separately colored cutting boards for each product. (red meat - yellow poultry - white non meat) However knives and other cooking utensils, including the grill, were shared with between meat and non-meat meals.
Thankfully one of the people who complained about the meaty tasting non-meat meals was actually my VP of Ops at my day job. So with her help we were able to determine that it was in fact, the utensils (mostly tongs / spatula’s) that cooks would pick up what’s closest, rather than “cleanest” in the heat of the moment in the kitchen. This included using shared broiler(s) for the meats and seafood.
Through a lot of trial and error and actually re-creating some menu items to help alleviate mishaps in the middle of a Saturday night, when cooks might forget to pick up the proper utensil, we were able to correct it.
Your complaint seems to be geared more towards cross contamination issues, particularly a problem for all street food vendors, rather than any incrimination of any Asian food / vendors. Honestly, if you are going to continue to enjoy / partake in street food of this nature you might have to chalk it up to “occupational hazard” because of the limitations of street side cooking/washing/cleaning. Kind of sort of similar to one of my guilty pleasures, “dirty water dogs”. Throughout my lifetime spent in/around the restaurant business, I can assure you I’m not under any allusions as to the cleanliness of street food vendors in New York City. Yet, there is something about a dirty water dog that I simply cannot resist. (although I only have a handful a year) I think anyone who has made a living in the restaurant business has to make some mental adjustments to their thought process about somethings, I realize “sh*t happens” in the best kitchens that would “gross out” the general public, but that’s a fact of life. Even Michelin Star restaurants occasionally have an “oopsie” in the kitchen that might require the turning of an otherwise eagle eye to detail, in order to “save a meal” or keep a suffering kitchen out of the weeds. It happens.
So I’m under no illusion that the water is sanitary, is kept at the proper temps. I know rats probably crawl over the carts at night, in whatever damp unsanitary conditions they are stored overnight. I go into it knowing full well my dietary indulgence can very well turn into a negative - “gastoric event” but I accept those risks for the guilty pleasure of a delicious dirty water hot dog.
I cannot say those conditions are accurate, all I can say is I accept them in order to enjoy my indulgence guilt free. Seems like you might have to adopt a similar mind set, that out of every 10 Asian noodle street food dishes you get, 3 of them might taste fishy. If those odds turn you off so much you can’t tolerate them, time to find a new indulgence. Or with time and patience maybe you will find those hidden jewels that prepare street food in the most sanitary / proactive ways that you don’t experience the fishy taste. To me in the spirit of the late great Anthony Buoudain - is the search for the perfect off the charted course places to enjoy whatever it is that floats our respective boats.
Either way let’s all enjoy our eats to the best of our abilities!! No need to yuck my yum!! lol
Is there a HungryOnion Manifesto?
If there is, is Not Yucking Another’s Yum part of it?
I think that was an oft used phrase from CH. As in many rules, observed more in the breach.
THIS x a gazillion!
(I know)
What if they really added some fish sauce to the ribeye? I’ll give it a try for my next steak, maybe it will come out delicious.
Fish sauce definitely makes my bolognese sauce taste better, I don’t see why it can’t work on steak.
Fish sauce definitely gives a different twist compared to many other condiment. A thing a touch of fish sauce will be interesting.
In Costa Rica salsa lizano is added to everything even coffee. Pura vida lizano.
Catching the tail end of this, but I think all of the above may apply depending on the dish and the place.
There are definitely tons of mixing of seafood and non-seafood proteins in Chinese and other Asian cooking. Even in Japanese cooking, dashi, which is fish based, is a seasoning stock for so many not-obvious not seafood dishes. In Cantonese cooking, conpoy and dried shrimps are prized as umami boosters and often added to various broth recipes, and other dishes for flavoring, even if seafood is not the star. Heck, oyster sauce, is like second only to soy sauce probably as a common ingredient in so much Chinese cooking and of course fish sauce is a huge component of many Southeast Asian dishes as well.
I would assume having a mildly seafood taste in a Chinese dish (or other Asian cuisines) is a sign of a sloppy or lazy chef. If we’re talking allergies here, it is imperative that the diner clearly indicate their allergies to the kitchen. And if they can accommodate, and still give you a seafood tasting dish, then yes that is absolutely their bad. But if there isn’t a special ask, there is no reason a chef preparing the same dish with the same mix of ingredients should deviate from it.
This reminds me of a vegetarian coworker who asked for miso soup when we were ordering sushi from a local eatery. I chalked it up to her being a pescetarian and not knowing that. We chatted later and she confirmed she loved miso soup and was glad this was one of the few things she really liked that at a Japanese place. I gently mentioned “You know miso soup is flavored with fish, right?” Her face and her eyes…poor girl. She apparently had miso soup from a place that did do a vegetarian version (no idea what they subbed) and she assumed all miso soup was vegetarian. I apologized to her and explained that I thought she was pescetarian and I didn’t mean to cause her distress. She was gracious and thanked me for teaching her, and now she knows to look for vegetarian versions.
I remember letting someone know that the refried beans she had introduced a visiting Australian vegetarian family to, at some cheap Mexican restaurants in NYC, were delicious because they were fried in lard.
A lot of people don’t realize how much lard is used in milk tarts, custard tarts, various Chinese dumplings and pastries.
Not so odd. See also: Garum.
And then there’s this technique, which has made the rounds - Faux Aging Steak in Fish Sauce (And Koji)
Who do you think sells streetfood but amateurs? They’re on the street. They have typically a single cooking vessel or two. They charge little, they work fast. You may belong in a higher class place with commensurate higher prices.
You’re giving autism a bad name. I have an adult son on the spectrum, high functioning, and he would simply not eat what he doesn’t like. He would not go on a public forum and reiterate how lazy and unprofessional and bad people are 30 different times, despite everyone else telling him to simmer down.
My son also is anaphylactic to peanuts and tree nuts. He and I would never in a million years walk up to a street food vendor and have any fairytale ideas about clean stations and care with cross-contamination. You are living a fantasy.