Crash Test Dumbass
AV Clubber 
ffc what now
Posts: 7,058
Gender (additional): mostly snacks
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Aug 26, 2019 11:11:14 GMT -5
I wanted Chinese takeout and was feeling lazy, so I went to a place near where I was at the time rather than one of the vaguely OK places I knew.
To say it was a mistake is putting it mildly.
You know that scene in Futurama* where Bender cooks for the crew and the food is about 40% salt? Yeah, that. It's like the chicken and/or beef were brined in a bath of salt water, breaded in salt, stir fried in salted oil, stirred with a spatula made of salt, and then finished with salt. If the chef presented this to the judges on Chopped, all three other chefs could have presented a dish with only one ingredient each and this chef would still be the one voted off. Unanimously.
Oddly, the fried rice had almost no seasoning in it.
I had to throw the two dishes out; there was no way I could finish them. I think I still feel thirsty.
* My Three Suns, s1e7
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Post by songstarliner on Aug 26, 2019 19:56:38 GMT -5
I wanted Chinese takeout and was feeling lazy, so I went to a place near where I was at the time rather than one of the vaguely OK places I knew. To say it was a mistake is putting it mildly. You know that scene in Futurama* where Bender cooks for the crew and the food is about 40% salt? Yeah, that. It's like the chicken and/or beef were brined in a bath of salt water, breaded in salt, stir fried in salted oil, stirred with a spatula made of salt, and then finished with salt. If the chef presented this to the judges on Chopped, all three other chefs could have presented a dish with only one ingredient each and this chef would still be the one voted off. Unanimously. Oddly, the fried rice had almost no seasoning in it. I had to throw the two dishes out; there was no way I could finish them. I think I still feel thirsty. * My Three Suns, s1e7 you should have mixed the two together. |
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Crash Test Dumbass
AV Clubber
ffc what now
Posts: 7,058
Gender (additional): mostly snacks
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Aug 27, 2019 8:09:41 GMT -5
I wanted Chinese takeout and was feeling lazy, so I went to a place near where I was at the time rather than one of the vaguely OK places I knew. To say it was a mistake is putting it mildly. You know that scene in Futurama* where Bender cooks for the crew and the food is about 40% salt? Yeah, that. It's like the chicken and/or beef were brined in a bath of salt water, breaded in salt, stir fried in salted oil, stirred with a spatula made of salt, and then finished with salt. If the chef presented this to the judges on Chopped, all three other chefs could have presented a dish with only one ingredient each and this chef would still be the one voted off. Unanimously. Oddly, the fried rice had almost no seasoning in it. I had to throw the two dishes out; there was no way I could finish them. I think I still feel thirsty. * My Three Suns, s1e7 you should have mixed the two together. I tried that and it still didn't work; the fried rice was still aggressively unsalted, but now with pockets of full-on NaCl. If the fried rice were somehow less seasoned, it would have become anti-salt and mixing the two together could have taken out my entire neighborhood. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Aug 27, 2019 13:50:02 GMT -5
basically anything made by the company Sodexo is a food crime. My employer has Sodexho doing all our catering and cafeteria services, and I fully agree with this... except that they do these AMAZING house-made potato chips that I will do very dirty things for. Their potato chips are incredible. Although I kind of suspect that it might just be that the Sodexho people at my particular site are just unusually good at that, because they're apparently not nearly as good at my company's other office sites in the area. Also, they do a pizza crust that has no business being as good as it is. I think maybe my office building's Sodexho crew is actually a bunch of sorcerers? |
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LazBro
Prolific Poster 
Posts: 10,280 
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Post by LazBro on Aug 27, 2019 14:45:45 GMT -5
I worked for the university union back in college, in the food court, which was run by Sodexo. So I have worked for Sodexo. I thought the company was fine, but my manager was a prick.
Their "grill" concept at the union had a pretty boss Philly cheesesteak though.
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Post by Pastafarian on Sept 1, 2019 13:09:43 GMT -5
basically anything made by the company Sodexo is a food crime. My employer has Sodexho doing all our catering and cafeteria services, and I fully agree with this... except that they do these AMAZING house-made potato chips that I will do very dirty things for. Tell me more. -Mustachioed Sodexo Villain |
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Post by Hachiman on Jan 19, 2020 19:06:49 GMT -5
Our breakroom coffee machine got restocked this morning and I was the first one to use it. My latte had hints of every other thing that the coffee machine can make (including soup and hot cocoa) and it was good? Like the "Graveyard Sodas" of my childhood, only caffeinated and with subtle notes of corn, chocolate, and black tea.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Feb 2, 2020 20:51:05 GMT -5
Jean Valjean. He stole all that bread. Crime.
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patbat
TI Forumite
OK です か
Posts: 2,396
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Post by patbat on Mar 28, 2020 21:07:34 GMT -5
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Post by songstarliner on Mar 29, 2020 6:16:25 GMT -5
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Mar 29, 2020 15:02:43 GMT -5
Oh no you don't! I'm not gonna fall for that again! |
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Nov 28, 2020 14:15:05 GMT -5
I just witnessed a test cook on Milk Street (Christopher Kimball's new-ish show) make bolognese without added dairy, which would have been fine by me had she not replaced the dairy with fucking gelatin to achieve the "silkiness and body" she was looking for.
MARCELLA HAZAN DID NOT DIE FOR THIS.
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Post by Hachiman on Nov 30, 2020 19:50:16 GMT -5
I just witnessed a test cook on Milk Street (Christopher Kimball's new-ish show) make bolognese without added dairy, which would have been fine by me had she not replaced the dairy with fucking gelatin to achieve the "silkiness and body" she was looking for.
MARCELLA HAZAN DID NOT DIE FOR THIS.
I like how one of the criticisms about Kimball back at his old company was that he was really against trying new cuisines and techniques, but from what I have seen and read of Milk Street seems to indicate that he was happy to go totally towards whatever was new or trendy and use completely new approaches. |
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moimoi
AV Clubber
Posts: 5,090 
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Post by moimoi on Dec 3, 2020 14:44:21 GMT -5
Thomas brand bagels are the most disgusting bagels I've ever tasted - cloyingly sweet and mushy in the middle. Their English muffins aren't great either.
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Dec 3, 2020 16:22:21 GMT -5
Thomas brand bagels are the most disgusting bagels I've ever tasted - cloyingly sweet and mushy in the middle. Their English muffins aren't great either. Co-signed. Their bagels are just round Wonder Bread, but worse. Honestly, I've totally forgone bagels if my only option at the store was Thomas brand.
Their English muffins aren't too bad, but I swear they've shrunk to 2/3 of the size they were when I was a kid. I could never make a even a single-egg sandwich with these.
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Post by Albert Fish Taco on Dec 3, 2020 17:14:56 GMT -5
Thomas brand bagels are the most disgusting bagels I've ever tasted - cloyingly sweet and mushy in the middle. Their English muffins aren't great either. Panera bagels might be even worse than Thomas' in that it's clear there was the intent to have some sort of flavor and/or approximation of a real bagel. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 4, 2020 1:32:45 GMT -5
Thomas brand bagels are the most disgusting bagels I've ever tasted - cloyingly sweet and mushy in the middle. Their English muffins aren't great either. What about their Australian Toaster Biscuits? I remember those not sucking that badly but haven't had one in at least 17 years. |
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Dec 4, 2020 12:08:16 GMT -5
You know what are also disgusting? Fucking Lender's bagels. They're no better than Thomas's.
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patbat
TI Forumite
OK です か
Posts: 2,396
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Post by patbat on Jan 27, 2021 22:21:02 GMT -5
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patbat
TI Forumite
OK です か
Posts: 2,396
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Post by patbat on Jan 27, 2021 22:26:31 GMT -5
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Post by haysoos on Feb 13, 2021 0:59:21 GMT -5
Adventures in Culinary Archaeology:
The dish: Swanson Frozen Chicken Nugget Meal
The era: unknown, but likely early to mid First Term Obama Administration vintage
Nearly a year of quarantines and lockdowns, and more than a week of -30 C temperatures discouraging grocery replenishment the slow excavation of the mysterious depths of the freezer has now uncovered this rare artifact. Uncommon in most supermarkets compared with the more popular Chicken Strips or Fried Chicken, a pristine Chicken Nugget meal is a very slightly sought after delicacy that can fetch nearly $3 in the right market.
This, sadly was not a pristine condition meal. The cardboard box was kind of wrinkly and mealy, like it had been moistened and dried out multiple times, and bore a recognizable scent best described as "smells like freezer". Inside, the contents of the black plastic dinner tray were hidden behind a grainy, grey layer of thick ice crystals. The instructions said to remove the plastic cover from over the nuggets, fries and brownie, which was good, as it allowed unfettered access to the ice layer as well.
The ice over the brownie came out in one neat chunk, so that was easy. The ice over the corn didn't come out as neatly. I also tried to keep the plastic over the corn, so only little chunks and shards of ice came out. What was revealed underneath didn't look so great either. The corn was quite brown, and shriveled, looking more like small raisins than corn. Oh well, maybe the ice chunks still left in there will rehydrate them. The nuggets and fries were all frozen together into a single concretion. Using a steak knife, I was able to scrape most of the larger ice grains out of the concretion, and break the nodule into three smaller nodules. Some pieces of fries near the periphery turned to powder during this process, which was not a good sign.
Having prepped the meal for success, it went into the microwave for the recommended 4 minutes. Mmm... that does not smell right.
Well, the corn looks better now. It's still brown, and shriveled, but it's not as shriveled. The nuggets and fries are mostly separated now. The brownie looks shinier, but otherwise pretty much the same as when it went in.
I'm just going to add some seasoning salt to the corn and nuggets, because... well, it can't hurt.
The corn looks like raisins, but doesn't taste like raisins. This is good because I hate raisins. It is bad because this corn is nowhere near as good as raisins. The corn raisins are both chewy and mealy, but the mealy part quickly disintegrates into something like the dust in the bag of corn nuts (and I think the seasoning salt did help here), and the skin remains as an indestructible flayed horror.
The fries come in several varities. The easiest to identify and avoid are the ones that are now hardened, petrified potato rocks impervious to fork and tooth. They are literally inedible. Next are soft, but utterly devoid of moisture. These have basically become potato styrofoam, and will suck every molecule of liquid from your mouth if they touch your tongue or lips. The next crumble to powder if you touch them. The last are technically edible, in that you can eat them, but much like the interior of the corn, they turn into grainy mush in your mouth, and not in a pleasant way.
The chicken nuggets are rather dry, but at least taste like chicken nuggets. The texture is a little off though. I recommend caution when processing, as the texture varies from sponge rubber to rock hard, and you never know which you're going to get, even while chewing the same piece at approximately the same spot. And it will take some chewing to get these nuggets down.
The brownie is oddly pretty good. Chewy and fudgy, paired with some ice cream it could even be called enjoyable.
Verdict: Crime, would not eat again (however there is a Fried Chicken meal that was just underneath the nuggets...)
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