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Mar. 6th, 2004 01:25 pmThe verdict on Kikkoman pad thai mix is in: tastes fine, but where is that sweet (tamarind?) undercurrent I crave? It's fairly spicy, so I imagine that even if I hadn't used that huge quantity of noodles, it would still be much spicier than sweet, even if the mix smelled sweetish. Or perhaps I inhaled too much of the super-fine powder when I opened the packet, leaving only the chili behind.
I have a gripe about certain people and "ethnic" (because white North Americans don't have an ethnicity, I suppose) restaurants, Chinese ones specifically. Yes, I know that we don't have as many Chinese restaurants as Toronto -- for one thing, Toronto's Chinese community is a damn sight larger than Ottawa's, so it's a fair bet that if there are more restaurants, there will be more good restaurants. However, I've eaten Chinese food in Toronto many times, and aside from the larger variety of things to choose from, I didn't notice an enormous difference. I mean, of course it's different, every restaurant's food is different; but just as everyone's mother has her own special way of making their favourite dish, there is no best way to make something that everyone will agree on. If you're talking about sushi, for example, it's certain that a place nowhere near the ocean won't have the best sushi in the world, so yes, Vancouver sushi beats Ottawa sushi any day. When the freshness of the ingredients matters, a bigger city, closer to the source, will get fresher things, and that can make a huge difference. But if you're eating dim sum, much of which is fried, does it really matter that much?
Another thing that annoys me is people who seem to equate "good" with "authentic". I'll agree that if you go to Country X, you'll most likely find the "real thing", i.e. what the regular people there eat. After all, I went to Vietnam, I ate, and it was good. But what you eat in restaurants is not recessarily what regular people eat there anyway; in Mexico, a good chunk of the population survives on mainly frijoles and tortillas, which is only a fraction of what you'll find on a restaurant menu, here *or* there. And just because someone tweaked the ingredients to use things more readily available here, that doesn't mean it automatically tastes bad.
I have a gripe about certain people and "ethnic" (because white North Americans don't have an ethnicity, I suppose) restaurants, Chinese ones specifically. Yes, I know that we don't have as many Chinese restaurants as Toronto -- for one thing, Toronto's Chinese community is a damn sight larger than Ottawa's, so it's a fair bet that if there are more restaurants, there will be more good restaurants. However, I've eaten Chinese food in Toronto many times, and aside from the larger variety of things to choose from, I didn't notice an enormous difference. I mean, of course it's different, every restaurant's food is different; but just as everyone's mother has her own special way of making their favourite dish, there is no best way to make something that everyone will agree on. If you're talking about sushi, for example, it's certain that a place nowhere near the ocean won't have the best sushi in the world, so yes, Vancouver sushi beats Ottawa sushi any day. When the freshness of the ingredients matters, a bigger city, closer to the source, will get fresher things, and that can make a huge difference. But if you're eating dim sum, much of which is fried, does it really matter that much?
Another thing that annoys me is people who seem to equate "good" with "authentic". I'll agree that if you go to Country X, you'll most likely find the "real thing", i.e. what the regular people there eat. After all, I went to Vietnam, I ate, and it was good. But what you eat in restaurants is not recessarily what regular people eat there anyway; in Mexico, a good chunk of the population survives on mainly frijoles and tortillas, which is only a fraction of what you'll find on a restaurant menu, here *or* there. And just because someone tweaked the ingredients to use things more readily available here, that doesn't mean it automatically tastes bad.
