Tuesday, March 4, 2008
I have been living in North Carolina for almost three years and I still can't find a restaurant that provides consistently good food. I know this is an issue everywhere, but for those restaurant owners in the Raleigh/Durham area, they don't realize that the worse sin you can commit is to prepare consistently bad food and pawn it off as good or even fairly decent. I don’t eat out a lot, but when I do, I want good food. I know there are a lot of issues that restaurant owners have to deal with today and many will say, “It’s not my fault, I'm doing the best I can. The reason we have lousy food is because:"
No one properly trained the kitchen staff
There are no really good chefs out there
The kitchen staff does not speak English
The kitchen staff cannot read
The kitchen staff cannot follow directions
The kitchen staff cannot cook
The kitchen staff lied about their culinary experience
The kitchen staff won’t come to work
The kitchen staff doesn’t care
The kitchen staff is lazy
or
I know I'm the owner but I don't care about serving tasteless food
I know I'm the owner but I don't care about serving food that is old
I know I'm the owner but I don't care about serving bread that is stale
I know I'm the owner but I don't care about the quality of the meat being served
I know I'm the owner but I bought this restaurant from someone else and they always did it this way
I know I'm the owner but I have too much on my plate and I just can't worry about that
I know I'm one of the owners, but this is not my responsibility, the other owner handles this, I just keep the books
Look, this is the way it works, as the owner of an eating establishment you are responsible for the quality of the food you serve. If you don't care about the food you service CLOSE YOUR ESTABLISHMENT OR YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL CLOSE IT FOR YOU!
Hello people!!! It is 2008 and I wish diners would stop patronizing fooderies that pass off "nasty food" as delicious culinary works of art. It just ain't so!
At what point do we grow some backbone and say "Hell No We Won't Go" and exercise our options, our culinary dollars and sense. Your restaurant does not have to have a menu containing 120 items, everyone is not a Coney Island. If you have five or six entrees that are "consistently exceptional" you will have people lined up out the door, I promise.
When I first came to Cary, North Carolina my daughter and I would purchase a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, hummus and grape leaves from this little Mediterranean Restaurant across the street from where we lived. It has since gone out of business and it really should not have. The restaurant would be open today if the owner took pride in what he was selling; unfortunately he did just enough to get by. The little place had a huge problem with “inconsistency.” One day the food was great, the next day it was lousy. Some days the hummus had garlic and lemon juice, other days it had nothing. Look if you can’t seem to get your recipes straight (and you're the only one cooking) close your restaurant and become a used car salesman. I guess that’s what he did.
I know we are in a recession/depression and food prices are soaring, but if you want to remain open and keep customers coming through your doors, pay attention to the quality of your food. I honestly think, and this is my opinion and my blog, so don’t get upset, not that I would care; but I honestly think that food in the south sucks, there I said it. What people in the south are pawning off as good food is a travesty. Oh, there is an exception, the food in New Orleans, Louisiana (pre-Katrina) had a tendency to be pretty good, but it really depended on where you ate.
I even went to a “Ruth Chris” the other night and my daughter’s filet mignon was overcooked, the creamed spinach was undercooked and the mashed potatoes were made from a box. I could have screamed!
I am going to push for a revolt against all restaurants that attempt to force us to eat their nasty, flavorless food.
From this day forward I would like all who read this blog to get up and walk out of any restaurant that attempts to serve you bad food. Leave behind a ticket that says, “Serving Bad Food Will Put You Out of Business.” The CWD (Cooking with Denay) Bad Food Police. We certainly can't put these restaurant owners in jail, but we can ticket them!
Honestly, I would rather have three or four superior restaurants to choose from than three or four hundred lousy ones.
If you know of any really great restaurants in the Raleigh/Durham area please send their names and addresses to me so I can check them out and put them on the CWD (Cooking with Denay's) Super Fantastic Restaurant List.
Good food is just hard to come by today!!!! ....but it shouldn't be......