Category: Rants

I decided to do homemade big macs last night as my son is a big fan. In the past, I’ve popped online to scan for a version of the sauce. I searched again yesterday and was surprised to see a story with a link telling me that the executive chef of McDonald’s had finally released the ingredients for the secret sauce on youtube. I clicked the link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcu4Bj3xEyI&feature=related

It was hilarious! First of all, he’s set up in a rustic home kitchen, not a large glistening steel one. Then he sarcastically tells the girl who sent in the question about the sauce that the recipe has been available for years and then strips off the white chef’s coat to reveal his plaid shirt and jeans. I feel like I’m hangin with a hipster now.

In his subtle wording, he tells us he is going to show us how to make a version of the Big Mac sauce with ingredients we have around the house, not the sauce itself (likely because most people don’t have commercial binding agents and preservatives in their cupboards). He lists off the ingredients with a rather clever discussion about contrasting flavours ,brags about his knife skills and thoroughly enjoys the sizzle of the 100% beef he uses for the burger.

The ingredient list was interesting as it eliminated salt and sugar, two components that have shown up on the “top secret” recipe that has been online for years and I’m sure is contained in the restaurant’s sauce. Instead, he opts for mustard, relish, mayonnaise, paprika, onion and garlic powder and white wine vinegar. The “top secret recipe” also uses french dressing which was missing from my hip friend’s creation.

Top Secret Sauce recipe (posted on http://www.topsecretrecipes.com)

1/2 cup of mayonnaise
2 tbsp french dressing
4 tsp sweet relish
1 tbsp of fine minced onion
1 tsp of sugar
1 tsp of white vinegar
1/8 tsp salt

I made both sauces. I looked at both sauces. I tasted both sauces. The top secret sauce looked and tasted closer. The chef’s sauce had specks of colour with the paprika, not the uniform pink colour that drips out of the restaurant Big Mac. I guess the sugar and salt are necessary, Mr. Hipster executive chef.

This is an another example of McMarketing, this time disguided in the form of a homey youtube video instead of the endorsment of some of the world’s most gifted athletes. Let’s not go there. I’ll be the first to eat a Big Mac, I’m aware what it is and I sure as hell know it’s not made in a country kitchen by a guy who looks like he should be on an abercrombie bag.

Perhaps their marketing dollars should go toward resurrecting the old school disasters such as Arch Deluxe, McDLT or the famous McPizza.

Years ago, Zagat set the bar for rating food.  It employed a novel concept…let diners decide what food is best. Before the electronic information age, paper copies of the Zagat guide were the bible of dining.  Since then, Zagat has been swallowed by Google but still continues to be a useful source of information.  In fact, a goggle search of any Zagat restaurant willl give you the famed mark out of 30.  

With the advent of the internet, food sites are as competitive as restaurants themselves. So, if you want to be seen  beyond a blog nobody reads, you gotta choose.  The front runners are yelp and urbanspoon. So which one?

Yelp  

An independent out of San Fransisco and has a massive following. Like facebook,  you can collect friends. You vote out of 5 and make any comments you want.  Others can tell you that you’re useful, funny or cool.  Yelp goes beyond restaurants and allows you to rate anything from mechanics to hair dressers. 

Urbanspoon

 Urbanspoon is a subsidiary of IAC (the same company who owns dictionary.com and ask.com among others).  Urbanspoon itself  is based out of Seattle and has decent followings in Australia, the UK and Canada.  They are attempting to compete with open table in the reservation market and therefore have reservation software available to restaurants as well. You can vote “like or not like” without comment.  I love the upload picture option on urbanspoon since it had a drop-down menus to match your pic to the food item.  Brilliant!

Yelp vs Urbanspoon

Like Big Turk bars, Red Rose tea and Buckley’s cough syrup, urbanspoon is more Canadian.  For example, close to 80% of votes for Sassafras  in Toronto comes from Urbanspoon. On the other hand, if you look at WD-50 in the New York, almost 70% of the votes come from Yelp.  This is trend that is fairly consistent depending on what side of the border the eatery is.

The Verdict

I’m not one to pledge allegiance to one rating site. When I search for a restaurant I look at them all.   I live in Canada but travel periodically to the US.  I will likely use Urbanspoon for Canadian restaurants and Yelp for American restaurants.  I won’t,  however, cut and paste the same review in both to work toward elite status (it’s not an airline afterall). I will, however, like or dislike and upload photos to urbanspoon whenever possible.

Follow me on yelp and urbanspoon!!!! My handle is spennyrd.

I’ve had my share of beer. Probably a bit too much.  Booze as part of a meal is an fundamental as food itself.  I enjoy following the cocktail, wine and beer trends.  Each season brings in a new concept. Since I’ve become of age, I’ve seen numerous trends in beer including the dry, ice, copper, clear, genuine draft, steam and more recently fruit and ice tea additions.  

There are four types of beer drinkers:

1. The Loyalist– Adheres to the same brand regardless of trend or price.  They wear the hat and shirt (in many cases half their weekend garb consists of some kind of beer shirt, often teamed with their favorite professiosnal sports team) and a disagreement (ie. my beer is better) or empty cooler would result in fisticuffs.  This group often becomes a collector, attempting to collect all 32 NFL T-shirts or 30 Stanley cup figurines.   

2. The Bargain Hunter– Enters the beer store with the intent of pursuing the best value.  Will default to Carling or Lucky lager in many cases.  However, may be tempted to purchase a case of brand name beer using the logic “Ya, it’s only an extra 4 bucks but I get a t-shirt which would cost me at least 15 in the store” or “It’s only 5 dollars more but I do need a flashlight”.  

 3.  The Trendy Drinker– Waits for the TV or tabletop ad to tell them what to drink.  Willing to pay and extra dollar or two to have lime or ice tea added.  If one of these beer are not available, an overpriced extention of a big brand (Rickard’s red or Alexander Keith’s…more on this later) will suffice.

4.  The Aficionado– This person knows the four main ingredients of beer, the meaning of IBU, the difference between an ale and a lager, matches beer to food and  is not afraid to let everybody know it as they scoff at Bud drinkers and complain that their pint was served in the wrong glass.  These consumers will gladly pay extra for a beer, citing  “I need to support the local craft brewer” or “I’m willing to pay for a better quality product”.  Tends to dislike the previous three groups.

Admittingly, I’m number 4 but I’ve been known to drink a Bud Light when necessary (I draw the line at Coors light however). 

 

 

 

I’m a dietitian…but I don’t eat like one.  However, I don’t feel I’m defying the sacred code by frequenting my share of diners drive-ins and dives.

The reason is simple. We live in a land of abundance when the focus is on too much. Too much fat, too much salt, too much sugar. Highly processed foods and fast food concepts not only replace natural and unique flavors with the big three (salt, sugar, fat). The “beige wave” of  deep-fried foods has spread across generations. 

Although abundance is an issue, an equally important trend has occured in our eating patterns over the past 10-20 years…not enough. Packaged, processed food, whether prepared at a restuarant or at home, omits many of the standard nutrients which used to be part of a balanced meal.  We are facing chronic nutient shortages in affluent populations.  We rely on vitamin water, Flintstone chewables and Dr. Bernstein’s injections to provide us with the nutrients we should be eating already.

  I believe developing a good palate must be a trained behaviour….just like throwing a baseball or playing the piano. We have saturated our children’s palates with big three since they had teeth.  They can tell you the difference between a Mars and Snickers bar but can’t look at a thyme and rosemary plant and identify which is which.

While I’m on the soapbox, let’s talk about fresh food.  I had a friend travel to Europe for a month.  She mentioned that when she bought tomatoes from the market, she had two days to eat them before they spoiled.  When she returned from Europe a month , she had two tomatoes in her fridge which still appeared to be edible.   

So, feel free to criticize me for searching out  some of the continent’s most atrocious dining exeperiences.  Given my experiences with diners drive-ins and dives to date, here are my observations:

1.    The food is fresh.  Most of the ingredients are local and most of the foods are made in-house.

2.   The food is tasty and unique.  Rich, flavourful food with some complexity trains the palate instead of dulling it.

3.  The food is prepared with passion and pride. They want to serve it as much as you want to eat it and it shows.

That’s my rationale for a very liberal approach to dining as a dietitian.  So, leave the highly processed chicken pineapple lean cuisine in the freezer and join the adventure for fun, fresh, funky (and sometimes fried) food experiences.

In addition to my mother, my interest in the culinary arts was driven by my grandmother and my father. 

My grandmother would plan a semi-annual excursion to the McDonald’s on Regent St in Sudbury, Ontario. I didn’t complain about cold fries or the fact that were onions on my burger.  I craved the experience……the toy, the cash register, the other patrons.  I prayed for the first time I would experience the Big Mac’s special sauce since to me it was evidence of a transition to adulthood. I did, however, never want to hit the age where, with all the offerings, I would chose the Filet O’Fish like my grandmother. Fish and cheese don’t mix.

My dad brought a different perspective.  When he and my mother divorced, he made it a habit to treat my sister and I to supper at a restaurant every week (FYI- most Suburians call it supper, not dinner).  It was at this point I was introduced to the concept of the sit down dinner.  This involved a table with a cloth, appetizers and dessert other than McDonaldland cookies and soft-serve ice cream.. I remember sitting in Frank Vetere’s..a now defunct pizza restaurant with carnival like mirrors which made me look fat, skinny, tall or short and a toothpick dispenser I managed to destroy as an eight-year old.  Otherwise we’d go to Ponderosa where I watch my dad order a steak which looked like a shoe to get the free salad bar which had magical things like shredded carrots, chick peas and three types of lettuce.

While at McDonald’s, I do remember looking out the window and seeing Deluxe Hambugers across the road.  Boasting the best fries in Sudbury and selling T-shirts suggesting that “Sudbury is a one arch town”, I was introduced to the concept of competition. The big  chain versus the little guy. My experience since has been that despite celebrity endorsements, flashy ads and menu descriptions with no spelling mistakes, few chains hold a candle to the uniqueness and passion of a family run joint.

Today, despite the McDonald’s attempts to localize itself by encasing nickles in the tables, I do believe Sudbury is a one arch town.  I go there every time I visit my mom.  The chicken on a bun dinner (complete with fries and coleslaw) is a must.  I mean Diners, Drive-ins and Dives calibre. Hell, I can’t be wrong..It’s ranked 8 of 178 on trip advisor (more about trip advisor to come….)

So between my mom, dad and grandmother, by age eight I had everything I needed to progress to the stage of food aficionado.  It wasn’t until age 15 that I really learned the inners of the culinary world. Why?  I got a job.