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/ck/ - Food & Cooking

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17122987 No.17122987 [Reply] [Original]

Why do Chefs, particularly Chinese restaurant chefs hate it when you ask for a substitution with your food order?

>> No.17122995

partly because they have some modicum of pride in the dish they've created, and partly because they are a business and already have the ingredients and labor priced out.
substitutions throw a wrench in both of these.

>> No.17123001

>>17122987
it's all premade and reheated

>> No.17123003

This isn't a order what you want menu its a fucking order what's on the menu restaurant bitch nigga

DON'T ORDER FROM MY RESTERAUNT AGAIN

>> No.17123004

>>17122995
oh and chinese cooking in particular requires a lot of prepwork, but at the same time americans expect chinese food to be cheap.
their profit margins are thin enough as is without having to do extra prep work for one diner.

>> No.17123022

>>17122987
the real question is why are you failing to accomplish the basic task of picking an item out of a menu?

>> No.17123024

>>17123001
The Chinese place in my small town leaves their gravy out over night outside of the fridge and just reheats it the next day until they need to make more. I don't eat much Chinese anymore

>> No.17123028

>>17123004
>Chinese
>thin margins
Its 85% noodles and mixed veggies, their profit margins are fine.

>> No.17123035

>>17122987
Most Chinese restaurants get their food frozen from food services.

>> No.17123039

>>17123004
You need to eat like 4 or 5 plates of nothing but meat to break even as a Chinese buffet. You really think charging you 75% of the buffet price for 1/10 of the food is a thin margin.

>> No.17123049

>>17123039
Buffet isn't what we're talking about, now is it.
you can't get substitutions in premade food anyway.

>> No.17123057

>>17123001
This is actually at least part of the explanation, yeah.
And not just in shitty places either.
Even fine dining restaurants don't make gravy for one portion at a time after all.

I work in a pretty high-end place and if you just want to add pickles instead of capers or give you a slice of gluten free bread instead of good bread that's fine, but big changes to the stuff on the menu are annoying and might be denied.

>> No.17123062

>>17123024
I’m curious how you know this.

>> No.17123073

>>17123062
A grand total of five Chinese people live in my town, and they're the family that runs the restaurant. The father who's around 80~ had a stroke, and he was the main guy who ran the kitchen. After his stroke, his wife took over everything, slashed the budget, fired "excess staff", and the one non-family member they kept on didn't want to keep working 80 hour shifts for less than minimum wage + tips so she left and told the entire town via Facebook what goes on behind the scenes with vivid documentation, pictures, and videos.

>> No.17123105

>>17123004
>chinese cooking in particular requires a lot of prepwork
lol what? Are we talking trad Chinese food, or sugar chicken?

>> No.17123121

>>17123057
I wonder if people try to order substitutions in soups.

>> No.17123235

>>17123121
>>17123121
I want to go to an Italian restaurant and order the Cioppino without the seafood.

>> No.17123241

>>17122987
A lot of chinese restaurants have pre-mixed sets of ingredients for their common dishes. Toss a serving into the wok, fry for a while, serve. If you substitute, they must mix the stuff from scratch.

>> No.17123263

>>17123241
So if we want our food always prepared fresh we should always request some sort of substitution with in our meal so they have to cook it fresh. I mean who doesn't want their food cooked fresh?

>> No.17123274

>>17123263
Don't tell me you're one of those self absorbed pieces of shit who gets fries with no salt at McDonalds to ensure they're made fresh, despite unsalted fries tasting like shit and it ruins the fries for the next five or six people

>> No.17123287

This isn't really a substitution but something I've done for the keks. Order fries through the drive-thru, especially if there is a long line, then when you get to the window tell the server you forgot to ask for your fries with no salt. That way they'll have to cook an entirely separate batch.

>> No.17123288

>>17123287
You can also just ask for fresh fries.

>> No.17123294

>>17123263
woah woah calm down adolf, they already have it hard enough in the kitchen

>> No.17123298

>>17122987
modifications arent that bad really but if you order off menu and the server has the audacity to ring it in i will personally cry in the walkin and yell at the server afterwards

>> No.17123307

>>17122987
personally, if the menu is large enough i can easily find something that fits my diet and allergies
people who ask for substitutions that aren't simple are usually trying to game the system by getting something fresher, or somehow getting more food. or at the very least they are just being a rebel making things slightly more difficult for everyone.

that said, i'll order things without bread from time to time. just the insides of the burger with no bun. usually when i'm in a hurry. so it goes both ways.

>> No.17123315

>>17123263
At the second course you can expect the chef to put extra care into the nice dollop of phlegm that's now mixed into your sauce.

>> No.17123977

>>17123315
You just reminded me of the boogers and cum from the South Park episode, You're not Yelping.

>> No.17124003

>>17123235
Cioppino is one of the few things that is actually made to order, dum dum.

>> No.17124042

>>17122995
This is definitely part of it, but what it really throws a wrench in is just the basic functioning of the line (and yes, I use that expression all the time). It may not seem like a big deal to substitute blue cheese for goat cheese when we have both of them right in front of us, but you have to remember that we're making like 15 things at a time, continually throughout the rush. So when I have like 4 of the same dish I'm just thinking I have to make 4 orders of the thing I've made hundreds of times. But then all of a sudden one of them is slightly different and it's just one little thing that throws everything off because you have to keep in mind the mod. If it's an ingredient we have that isn't already prepped and on the line you can fuck right off unless we're dead.

>> No.17124143

>>17124003
It's a seafood soup, it's got mussels, slams, and shrimp in it and then a tomato based broth. To ask for it without the seafood kind of defeats the entire purpose of the dish. IT would be like eliminating 90% of a dish.

You might as well order egg drop soup without the egg.

>> No.17124167

>>17124143
I know what Cioppino is. My point was that it's an easy modification because it's made to order so you're just leaving out half the ingredients. The end result wouldn't even be close, and it would be bad, but if that's what they're asking and paying for who cares. If they write a bad Yelp review they'll get a reply from the chef.

>> No.17124177

>>17123001
This. It's true for most restaurants

>> No.17124186
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17124186

>>17122987
what sort of substitutions are you trying to make at the chinese restaurant?

>> No.17124192

>>17122987
as a diner I always ask for substitutions, but when I'm at work I always get fucking pissed any time a diner asks for any substitution at all. I do not feel empathy for other cooks despite knowing exactly how they feel
we get mad because kitchens are hot and we get mad over literally anything that isn't exactly how it's supposed to be

>> No.17124198

>>17124186
cheese dumplings
shouldn't be that hard really

>> No.17124218

>>17124186
I can't speak for others, but I'm certain that they're lying to me about the MSG and putting it in there anyway. It's been proven that MSG is dangerous to the neurons in your brain.

Also, I sometimes like ordering General Tso's chicken in a brown sauce or a bourbon sauce in lo mein. They refuse to do it.

>> No.17124405

>>17124167
>made to order soup
Yes sir, would you like to wait or come back tomorrow?

>> No.17124412
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17124412

>>17124218
>It's been proven that MSG is dangerous to the neurons in your brain.
Yes but also definitely no.

>> No.17124422

>>17124218
source: dude trust me

>> No.17124476

>>17124405
What are you even trying to imply?

>> No.17124486
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17124486

>>17124218
>t's been proven that MSG is dangerous to the neurons in your brain.
i will be stealing this bait thanks retard anon.

>> No.17124520

>>17122987
As someone who has actually served, I'm not sure. I've never had any problem with replacing ingredients or anything like that. If you order a dish and want something extra, I do it. It's the heads that handle the price. If you want something taken out of the order, preparing it doesn't really change anything. I read what's on the ticket/what the chef tells me, and I make it happen.
I find the only people that get assblasted about this are cooks with egos or your typical cheap-ass borderline Jewish Asian owner. Of course, the primary reason is shitlords that serve premade dishes where all they have to do is heat it up, but I needn't mention. Everyone here actually has cooking experience and already know... right?

>> No.17124525

>>17124520
You've never stepped foot in a real kitchen.

>> No.17124555

Why the fuck do Chinese restaurants never add descriptions of the food to the menu? And if they do it's basic shit that barely describes the dish.

>> No.17124616

>>17124525
If you mean the fancy pancy starred ones, you're correct. I'm currently working in the fanciest one in my town, which is connected to the fanciest hotel in town. Cooking is easy as all hell, Anon. If I need to alter a dish, I hardly have to do any extra work at all. The only wrench in the works are seafood allergies & gluten free stuff, because then we have to take a couple minutes to sanitoze everything, get new cookware from the dishboys, and request ingredients from the walk-in to prevent cross-contamination. For a small college town, we're fairly high volume. Over 2000 freedom bucks just from lunch on Saturday. Twice that for dinner.

>> No.17124636

>>17124616
Your first post was such an obvious larp I wasn't even sure if it was meant to be bait, but this is just sad.

>> No.17124646
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17124646

>>17124218
>It's been proven that MSG is dangerous to the neurons in your brain.

>> No.17124671

>>17124636
We all know 90% of /ck/ doesn't cook anything morw than kraft man n cheese.
It's ok, you'll get there someday. I personally started as a dishwasher before I worked my way up to salads & sides, then onto the grills. Took a while, sure, and that was back when I was passionate about cooking. I WANTED to cook every day. Now it's just muscle memory, not enjoyable anymore, but not feeling like a chore yet. "Yet" being they key word, as I'm still the new guy.

>> No.17124689

>>17124671
Why do you keep typing all this shit out? Nobody thinks you're being serious. You're not baiting anybody.

>> No.17124695

>>17124689
Post hands, shitskin

>> No.17124697

>>17123004
It had better be cheap for how terrible it is. Why is Chinese food in the US so fucking terrible no matter what, but vietnamese food is great and cheap?

>> No.17124704

>>17124695
>election tourist
Figures.

>> No.17125321

>>17122987
The people on the line are trained to make a certain set of recipes quickly and automatically.
Throwing in any significant monkey wrenches into that system slows everything down.
Basic subs are fine really. If you want fries instead of a baked potato, thats okay. But if you start asking for them to hold the garlic in your stir-fry, then you're really chancing screwing things up.

>> No.17125328

>>17123024
>chinese food
>gravy
huh

>> No.17125987

>>17122987
you're basically personally insulting their career, for starters

>> No.17126064

>>17124218
>It's been proven that MSG is dangerous to the neurons in your brain.
weird, its also been proven that it doesnt

>> No.17126073

>>17123022
entitlement is just part of american culture

>> No.17126121

>>17123001
lol America

>> No.17126243
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17126243

lol America guys right? America? Holy shit wow America lmao. America xD. America. I can't stop talking about America. Americans amirite? Americans dude. Wow America can you believe those Americans?

>> No.17126257

>>17123024
>gravy
wop detected wee woo wee woo

>> No.17126259

>>17122987
because that circumvents the scam

>> No.17126266

>>17122987

because service is laid out according to food cost, labor, and what the cooks are trained to do. if you want a side of mayo but theres no mayo on the line some cook has to run into the walk in and grab the mayo. i mean it goes with anything. the line is laid out to put together the dishes on the plate, some substitutions are simple enough to do and just piss off the cooks but if youre modding your meal heavily youre causing every single diner in the restaurant to get their food slower, youre costing the restaurant money they dont have built into their prep or product cost, and youre making the cooks bend over backwards. its basically one of the most shelfish things you can do while dining out because the entire restaurant literally has to stop what they're doing to accommodate ur bullshit allergy or stupid palate. if the table next to you knew their food was coming out 10 minutes later because the grill cook had to walk off the line, grab a new cutting board, and set up a station in the prep kitchen to plate your food cuz u lied about a cilantro allergy theyd probably think you were as much of a piece of shit as the kitchen does.

>> No.17127441

>>17125328
>>17126257
I live in Atlantic Canada. They also have an incredibly small menu of local dishes (fries, deep fried cod, hot dogs, etc.) because there's hardly anywhere else near by you'd be able to get such foods, so they do it all. They also use their gravy on their almond soo guy.

>> No.17128540

>>17124218
Try ordering brown sauce on the side.
If they do that, try Tso's chicken without sauce.
If they do that, try the sauceless chicken with sauce on the side.

>> No.17128788
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17128788

>>17122987
Depardieu is a /ck/ lad.

>> No.17128963

>>17123287
Probably the most reliable way to ensure your food gets fucked with