It's often a treat to dine out in restaurants, but world-renowned chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain revealed that there are actually certain things people must avoid ordering.
He told the Daily Mail that diners should skip ordering seafood dish at the beginning of the week. Most restaurants place their orders for fresh fish on Thursday, so more often than not, seafood on a Monday is already four or five days old.
The second thing diners should avoid are eggs benedict. It might be difficult to resist creamy hollandaise sauce, but Bourdain said the sauce has to be maintained at a certain room temperature for it to be safe to eat. "Bacteria love hollandaise," he said. "And nobody I know has ever made hollandaise to order."
Adventurous diners would sometimes request something "off the menu," but Bourdain said this isn't always a great idea because they risk angering the front of house and kitchen staff. It takes a while to prepare a new dish, so chefs won't appreciate "bespoke" orders especially if they have a tonne of things to complete.
Fourth, well-done meat is a big no-no to order. Not everybody loves to eat bleeding meat, but chefs from all over the world have acknowledged that cooking steak for too long eradicates all its flavour. Sometimes, the kitchen staff messes up their steak order and it becomes chewy and bland. But instead of just throwing it out, they'll serve it to someone who likes well-done steak.
"What happens when the chef finds a tough, slightly skanky end-cut of sirloin that's been pushed repeatedly to the back of the pile? He can throw it out, but that's a total loss," said Bourdain. "Or he can 'save for well-done': serve it to some rube who prefers his meat or fish incinerated into a flavourless, leathery hunk of carbon."
Lastly, if wagyu burgers seem too good to be true, then it probably is. Kobe and wagyu beef are considered luxury products, so it would be a real shame for chefs to mince it up and use it in a burger. More often than not, restaurants are lying when they advertise their wagyu burgers to jack up prices.
