[Sca-cooks] Re: Mario Nebbits. New topics for discussion...

[A F Murphy]

I really noticed that about 10 years ago. I was in an accident, and
bashed in my front teeth, and nothing could be done to fix it for a few
months until my mouth healed a bit, so I spent quite a while as a
snaggle toothed hag. Now, I was doing quite a bit of theatre work at
that point, (costume - acting would have presented problems!) which
meant that I was eating a lot of takeout and fast food. Well, since
hamburgers and pizza were right out, I kept trying Chinese. Some dishes
were fine, the places near some of my theatres were fine, and then I'd
find myself with a dish with these hunkso'meat! And no way to eat them!
Frustrating... Orange Chicken and things like that seemed to be the
worst, as I recall. Chicken with peanuts was more likely to get someone
who cut the meat to match the nuts.

I suspect part of it is customers. A lot of people seem more impressed
by the big chunks, because they "see" them as a lot of meat, while small
pieces vanish into the sauce, and people feel cheated. (No, I'm not
talking here about good places with knowledgeable customers. I'm talking
about your basic China Express, NY takeout.) So, what sensible
restaurant owner is going to do more work to get more complaints?

Anne

Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> [Although, not to leave topic or anything, has anyone else noticed
> that the prep work in Chinese take-out (and in restaurants) is simply
> not what it was 10 or 20 years ago? Everything is in much larger
> hunks, either because it's faster and less skilled a task, or because
> it takes up more space in a quart container, or for some more
> esoteric reason, but the days of the 1/16 inch uniform shred seem to
> be dying out, except in the really high-quality restaurants (seems
> like Shanghainese and Taiwanese places go in for this, at least in my
> area). Is this a personal peeve for anyone but me?]


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