Real Food is continuing its disappearing act from restaurants across America. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the restaurant is a franchise or boasts 5 stars.
At a franchise restaurant like Applebees, Chilis, or Bob Evans, you would expect that cheap, processed food dressed up with a gourmet presentation would reign supreme. Food in these types of restaurants is only a small improvement over fast food in most cases and will make you feel just about as rotten shortly afterward (unless, of course, you already feel so rotten from eating processed food much of the time that you don’t notice).
But a 5 star restaurant?
I recently learned that Bern’s Steakhouse, one of the premier 5 star restaurants in my metro area, uses bouillon cubes (aka MSG cubes) to improve the flavor of its signature french onion soup (source: Bern’s waiter). I was devastated! This was one of the few restaurants I thought I was safe to order soup!
Who cares if Bern’s serves organic baby green salad and grassfed steak sourced locally if you still get a migraine from the MSG laced bowl of soup? It makes you wonder what other corners are being cut that you don’t know about yet despite all the lip service being paid to high quality.
Earth to Bern’s: Bouillon cubes are NOT high quality and should NOT be in your french onion soup.
Just sayin’.
I was also disappointed recently when I enjoyed an evening out at one of my favorite restaurants, Boizao, a Brazilian style restaurant also considered very high end for my Mom’s 80th birthday bash. One of my favorite dishes at Boizao is heart of palm with a special dressing. While serving myself a second helping that evening, the restaurant manager happened by and I took the opportunity to ask if it were possible for me to get the recipe for the heart of palm dressing. He then told me that they buy the dressing from a food supplier and that it came in “big bottles” (translation: cheap, rancid vegetable oils included). I was shocked speechless. Even more amazing, the manager didn’t even seem embarrassed by telling me this!
Didn’t know you were talking to a Real Food blogger, eh buddy? Oops! Secret’s out now!
Am I wrong to expect a high end steakhouse to mix up its own dressings fresh with quality ingredients like extra virgin olive oil? Is this too much to ask anymore?
I have reluctantly come to the sad conclusion that pretty much all restaurants have gone to the dogs in America. The only exceptions I come across anymore are tiny little restaurants where the owner is also the chef and simply will not allow these low quality substitutions.
5 star or no stars, the American restaurant dining experience has been relegated to a processed food affair regardless of the size of the tab. Even if the meat and veggies are decent quality and prepared fresh, little effort is expended on the condiments, dressings, soups, and other extras that round out the meal and make a huge difference to the digestibility and overall nutrition of the experience, not to mention whether you will feel terrible the next day!
Bye Bye Maple Syrup
Another insidious trend taking place is the disappearance of real maple syrup from restaurants serving breakfast. In a related story, Food Renegade wrote about the disappearance of butter from restaurants in a recent post.
Well, the maple syrup has disappeared too I’m sorry to add! It used to be when my kids were begging for pancakes when we were traveling, I could at least ask for real butter and maple syrup to cover the bromated, bleached, synthetic vitamin enhanced white flour, garbage pancakes.
Not anymore! My husband was at a Conference recently at a 5 star resort and when the kids and I joined him for breakfast one morning, I was shocked to discover that only fake, corn syrup sweetened syrup was available with the pancakes or waffles.
You would think that $8 for a plate of pancakes that probably cost the restaurant about 25 cents to make could get you some real maple syrup! Of course, there was no butter to be found either.
Gotta pay all those property taxes for the golf course view, don’t we?
I saw the disappearance of maple syrup coming a couple of years ago when my family and I were eating at a fantastic little breakfast nook in downtown Sarasota FL. Upon asking for some maple syrup, I was informed that it would be a $3 additional charge per 1 oz bottle of maple syrup that was provided. Of course, the high fructose corn syrup sweetened ersatz maple syrup was free.
We paid extra for 3 tiny bottles of real maple syrup but I commented to my husband that it wouldn’t be long before even that option was no longer available.
Sure enough, here we are some months down the road and I haven’t been able to find maple syrup anywhere for quite some time. I realize the price of maple syrup has gone through the roof, but is that really an excuse?
For IHOP? Maybe.
For a 5 star resort or a specialty breakfast nook that prides itself on quality? Most definitely not.
Maybe I should start bringing my own maple syrup to restaurants tucked discreetly into my purse. But, then I would have to bring some butter and maybe some sea salt too.
Oh, forget it! How weird and OCD would that be? I’ll just eat at home!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
What a sad state of affairs we are in! We have avoided the chain restaurants for years, and probably only eat out once every other month. But it would still be nice to be able to actually eat real food on those rare occasions! We try to only eat at local places, but like you pointed out, even at little local places there is no guarantee of the food quality. It is very disheartening!
Sarah, this is a timely post for me as my husband and I are going out for dinner to celebrate his birthday. We always like to go out for our birthdays. It’s about the only time we do eat out. I just never know where to go anymore. I look at the menu and try to choose what I think is the best choice, but you know how it is. I had thought seafood was the best choice, but not after reading comments here. Eating out was one of the things I looked forward to as I am home all the time. It really is depressing.
A bit off topic and yet similar.
The USDA is at it again. Please see this post from Green Pasture. It’s not even safe now to trust organic labels. I’m so thankful that I know how to cook!
http://www.greenpasture.org/fermented-cod-liver-oil-butter-oil-vitamin-d-vitamin-a/usda-certified-organics-dirty-little-secret-neotame/?back=javascript:history.back%28%29;
A few months ago I was at a restaurant I’d been to many times before. My sister spread some butter on the delicious bread and took a bite. “It’s margarine,” she said. I told her she was crazy…they’ve always served butter with their bread. Then I took a taste. Yep, margarine. And no, the server was not able to bring us butter. We haven’t eaten there since.
i really worry about the health of our country, knowing how many people do eat out (and bring their kids) at places like applebee’s and IHOP. it’s encouraging that the weston price movement keeps growing but i think the majority of people in the US are still unaware of these issues (or don’t care).
i don’t eat out much anymore due to the cost-the high quality restaurants sourcing local organic are just too expensive!
You know what I think is really sad. The majority of Americans don’t even know what REAL maple syrup is and if they do, they dont know what the difference is. They just know it costs more. I used to be one of those people. I never knew what I was eating wasn’t ‘real’ food. It was all I’d ever known, and of course, why would they sell it if it wasn’t good for you? Now I do know and I am spreading the word about what people are putting in their mouths.
Thanks for all of your hardwork.
Tracey, I think most Americans don’t know what real food is!
I’m lucky to currently live in Wisconsin where restaurants are required to serve real butter – we are the dairy state! Can’t say the same about using healthy oils, but there’s always real butter on the tables!
As for real maple syrup, I do bring my own with me when I have to travel & stay at hotels. I always bought little 1 oz bottles from the Wisconsin Cheeseman company’s outlet store that is located in my town. However they’re unfortunately going out of business. 🙁 Going to have to stock up on mini bottles of maple syrup before they’re out of them!
The best restaurant that I’ve been to lately in the one in my own home. Not only is it made from real ingredients, but it also has that special ingredient mixed in….love. Can’t get that in any other restaurant.
Beautifully said, Mike.
I have a lot of old cookbooks. Many of them would say the the best food was cooked at home, and that Restaurants were only for tourists and the wealthy. People used to sneer at Restaurant food, because the food at home was so much better. I think we are now coming back to that.
Yes we are Stanley. I sneer at restaurant food already even at 5 star restaurants where the tab for one person is $100 or more. I am proud to be a Real Food Snob.
The next time you’re in San Francisco check out Flour+Water. I think you would appreciate their homemade ricotta, bone marrow pizza topping, or pork braised in whey. Here’s a review:
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/gq-eats-the-10-best-new-restaurants-in-america-2429931#photoViewer=2
This is listed as one of the top ten restaurants in GQ magazine – lots of WP influences. Am I sensing a trend?
Maureen, you are on to something there. Restaurants will HAVE to move back to real food sooner or later or they will go bankrupt. Folks like us won’t go and others won’t go because they will be too sick and on disability at home. It is an eventual happening that is sure to take place. Restaurants will have to change their ways or become extinct, particularly the garbage franchise ones.
Maureen, thank you for posting this! I am going to San Francisco this Friday and I will have to check out this place!
We USED to bring real butter and real maple syrup to a one-man owned, local breakfast restaurant several years ago. I would always walk out mad, though, because the eggs had been cooked in some greasy, yucking oil, and a heap of margarine had been dumped on something anyway. When you are mad and feeling ripped off walking out of a breakfast place, you might as well eat at home (which we now do!).