Hipster restaurants...
- Thread starter Spacealien2
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Someone who favors style over substance. In the case of restaurants: the ones with obnoxious decorations, overly dark, dumb themes and lousy food. Lots of hole in the wall restaurants out there with mediocre (if non-existent style) with excellent food.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I go to a restaurant for good food, good portions, reasonable prices and a good time with friends. If any of these fail, it ruins the party.
I can live with avg service, avg decor as my focus is food, fun and not getting ripped off.
I find all these weird offbeat places force themselves to be like this because they can't compete with the mainstream chains. You rarely see a mainstream chain going belly up, while indie places are hit and miss. So it goes to show that what indie eateries are doing has a high risk of failure.
The amazing thing about restaurants is that the cost of food is always a small part of the entree's price. What costs a lot of money is rent, renos, paying for 20 staff etc.... Most places will tell you that cost of goods on food is probably only 25% of the price and the cost on beverages is even lower. So there is tons of margin to move.
All they have to do is increase quantity and quality of the food a bit and they will get more customers into the door for people who value and focus on "food first". There's lots of profit margin to go around.
But what you see with many of these trendy places when you walk downtown is some of them are dead empty. It's 7:30pm and walking around and passing by fast food places, family eateries, steak places, and mainstream business and there's always patrons eating. Walk by that snooty looking place and there may be zero customers wanting to eat dinner there. The place looks nice and super clean, waiters and bartenders are all there waiting for people to come in as the tables are ready and they are standing there.
High price does not = good food. After all these years I am all restauranted out. That does not mean that I will not enjoy a good Chinese meal at places where I know I can eat like a king for $20 a person.
If I want a good steak or roast, I do it myself on my new sous vide cooking devices that make the most tender meat you can imagine.
Yup.
Home cooked meals are limited in scope compared to the million restaurants and chefs out there.
But in terms comparably made food, no restaurant can beat a good cook at home.
It's amazing too because all a restaurant has to do is use it's buying power, buy up ingredients at wholesale prices so they can make good profits, and then replicate what great stuff people make at home but in larger quantities that customers will order. They should have the skill and professional kitchenware and ovens/stoves to do it, so I can never understand why restaurants can't just take what people make at home and put it on steroids, since people at home aren't pro cooks and just use avg home appliances.
It's funny when you think of it. Because everyone knows those old school moms and grandmoms who just used run of the mill kitchen gadgets, never got professionally trained as a chef, and just buy their stuff at the grocery store down the st. Not exactly super advanced training and gear here. But put up their home made burgers, pot roast, pasta sauce or home made desserts and cookies and it'll compare well against the best restaurant out there.
So.. No offence to many folks but some of you are chipping in and clearly have absolutely no idea what you're talking about but are piling on due to pet peeves or some other intention. Eating for enjoyment is a wonderful and varied experience. I eat cheap food (love good burgers, sandwiches and pho) and fine dining (steaks, sushi, classic French) and everything in between and have made it a point to go to all the good restaurants, hole-in-the-wall, local neighbourhood spots or Michelin Star joints, when I travel around the world.
So to correct some misconceptions:
1) Home cooking cannot replicate classic formal French dining nor the absolute best sushi or steak restaurants - it simply is impossible. It's sourcing the ingredients, the man hours of prep and attention to detail, etc. A classic French meal for $100-200 per person requires, including prep, probably 20+ man hours worth of labour (so much prep) and the commitment to spoil (read throwaway) nearly 50% of the ingredients they bring in through the door to only use the best. Not to mention many decades of training.
2) The very best independent restaurants have moments of fame and some thrive and some die - but the current emphasis is on food and not decor, and if you pick up the Joanne Kate's Top 100 restaurants in Toronto, many are definitely not empty. In fact for the best you'd be lucky to get reservations days or weeks in advance.
3) There is good food at numerous price points all through this city - but it also depends on a persons tastes. I eat everything - literally no limitations. I love game and venison. I love French, both bistro and brasserie-style. I love tacos, pho, Indian, Cambodian. Ethnic cuisine is usually cheapest. Best damn fried chicken sandwich is at Brock Sandwich.
Overall, I'm surprised, folks here are generally respectful and understanding of different "tastes" and the varied experiences we share with respect to the wonderful ladies associated with our hobbying.. Why so close minded about this?
So to correct some misconceptions:
1) Home cooking cannot replicate classic formal French dining nor the absolute best sushi or steak restaurants - it simply is impossible. It's sourcing the ingredients, the man hours of prep and attention to detail, etc. A classic French meal for $100-200 per person requires, including prep, probably 20+ man hours worth of labour (so much prep) and the commitment to spoil (read throwaway) nearly 50% of the ingredients they bring in through the door to only use the best. Not to mention many decades of training.
2) The very best independent restaurants have moments of fame and some thrive and some die - but the current emphasis is on food and not decor, and if you pick up the Joanne Kate's Top 100 restaurants in Toronto, many are definitely not empty. In fact for the best you'd be lucky to get reservations days or weeks in advance.
3) There is good food at numerous price points all through this city - but it also depends on a persons tastes. I eat everything - literally no limitations. I love game and venison. I love French, both bistro and brasserie-style. I love tacos, pho, Indian, Cambodian. Ethnic cuisine is usually cheapest. Best damn fried chicken sandwich is at Brock Sandwich.
Overall, I'm surprised, folks here are generally respectful and understanding of different "tastes" and the varied experiences we share with respect to the wonderful ladies associated with our hobbying.. Why so close minded about this?
If your post is focused on my post, I did mention that for comparable foods, IMO home made is typically better. I'm not saying an avg mom at home can replicate complex cuisine.
But for stuff that people at home can make and restaurants that make it with chefs and commercial grade kitchen gear, there's no logical reason (for example) why the best BBQ I've had is made by friends and family on their backyard BBQ grill with zero professional cooking training, compared to restaurants who have experienced cooks and better equipment.
Another thing you rarely get at home is cold food. At restaurants, you may get your entree that isn't hot. That may be due to it not being cooked long enough, or it was cooked fine, but the server waited too long to grab it and bring it to you. Or the server has to wait to bring it, because he/she wants to being all of your table's food out at once. So whomever's food got cooked first is getting cold. Restaurants always have the risk of being backlogged. The bigger your diner party is, the bigger the risk of cold food as the cooks and servers can't handle coordinating demand a dinner party of 16...... or even worse a company team meeting of 30.
At home, things are cooked hot and served right away.
Went to Edulis (previously mentioned in this thread) once and never went back.
In short, life's too short to deal with so much bullshit for such ordinary fare.
In short, life's too short to deal with so much bullshit for such ordinary fare.
@Occasionally
Responding to the thread in general but also addressing your point as well. And I still disagree, even for your BBQ example, Electric Mud and Barque have fine BBQ. The labour of some of the work from BBQ experts in the Southern States is shocking. The Japanese take on charcoal grill skewers - kushiyaki - is obsessive and is available in both street side stands as well as fine dining-sequel hotel restaurant versions.
I love a home cooked meal myself but the amount of labour possible when it is converted into a commercial venture is shocking.
@JTKirk - I don't disagree but farm-to-table is quite sought after these days. Have you tried the more home style fare at Ruby WatchCo? (Lynn Crawford) or the fancy schmancy tasting menu at George?
Responding to the thread in general but also addressing your point as well. And I still disagree, even for your BBQ example, Electric Mud and Barque have fine BBQ. The labour of some of the work from BBQ experts in the Southern States is shocking. The Japanese take on charcoal grill skewers - kushiyaki - is obsessive and is available in both street side stands as well as fine dining-sequel hotel restaurant versions.
I love a home cooked meal myself but the amount of labour possible when it is converted into a commercial venture is shocking.
@JTKirk - I don't disagree but farm-to-table is quite sought after these days. Have you tried the more home style fare at Ruby WatchCo? (Lynn Crawford) or the fancy schmancy tasting menu at George?
Canoe and Scaramouche are hipster restaurants? guys like you will send our economy into the shitter.Are they all overpriced with absolutely terrible service? At least that's been my experience
The last place I went to was probably more expensive than Scaramouche / Canoe taking portion size into account..
Why would people still frequent those places? Don't they know any better? I'm just mad because their incompetence just wasted my evening.
I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear. But Canoe and Scaramouche aren't hipster.
I keep thinking... My faith in humanity has been on a steep decline. Is this now a social norm to accept "different" restaurants even though they are much subpar than mainstream high end places? Do people actually feel they are obliged to go to such places otherwise they wouldn't be "accepting"? It makes no sense to me. Are they blind?
That is the only explanation I have why hipster places are thriving.I laughed, thank you. Needed it!!
Fair enough.
In my experience eating at nice places all the way down to Denny's, I've personally found no correlation in terms of service quality, or food freshness (temperature). Nicer places have nicer decor and waiters in nicer outfits, and they will almost always have nicer and cleaner bathrooms.
But since we are talking food here and not service (I'd argue that at Denny's service is fast and friendly and as good as any 5-star restaurant.... and half the people there are college kids... and at normal chains they don't try to upsell you on stuff you don't need), the one thing about quality which will never beat homemade cooking is freshness and temperature.
Make something at home, and you can eat it right away piping hot. Right from the stove and right to your serving bowl or plate.
At restaurants, to me it's made no diff whether it's a trucker diner, a steak place or a high end place. Sometimes food is hot, sometimes it's warm. It can be the cook's fault, the servers fault or the fact your dinner party of 12 is too much to handle and coordinate timing it to come out at the same time. Doesn't matter. Higher end places try to bridge the gap by serving food on heated plates. Doesn't matter. Sometimes it works, sometimes food is still warm at best.... which means it's been sitting there a while and the heated plates can't fake it enough.
So to me, no matter how high the price and decor freshness is always hit and miss and will never compare to a home cooked meal. At home, food is always piping hot and just served on normal plates or bowls right out of the cupboard.
Exactly.I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear. But Canoe and Scaramouche aren't hipster.
I keep thinking... My faith in humanity has been on a steep decline. Is this now a social norm to accept "different" restaurants even though they are much subpar than mainstream high end places? Do people actually feel they are obliged to go to such places otherwise they wouldn't be "accepting"? It makes no sense to me. Are they blind?
I laughed, thank you. Needed it!!
The Keg is as mainstream you can get for a steak place. For $40 you get a steak, a side and some mushrooms. I've eaten at fancier steak places and don't see how any of them are really any better. Sure, the other places make a show of it and come out with a big platter and you pick which cut you want. So I guess that is where the extra $40 goes.
I went to the Keg once and I didn't like the steak at all. They didn't even sear it properly. But I do have to say that the steaks at Jacobs were much much better than the Keg, don't like their sides though.
I can make a better steak than the one I had at the Keg
I'm not a good cook, so anyone can make a better steak than me. But your comment about making a good steak at home doesn't surprise me.I went to the Keg once and I didn't like the steak at all. They didn't even sear it properly. But I do have to say that the steaks at Jacobs were much much better than the Keg, don't like their sides though.
I can make a better steak than the one I had at the Keg
As I said above (replying to exnocomment), I'd say lots of things can be made better at home. And few people have pro training or commercial grade cooking equipment. The best steaks I had were buddies making on their backyard BBQ. I have no idea (nor really care) what marinade they use or what brand of BBQ machine they bought. All I know is the best grilled steaks I have had are made by buddies and none of them have one minute of professional culinary arts training. Half of them probably just bought a BBQ at Canadian Tire. And all of them just buy meat from the grocery store, Costco, although some of them go to dedicated butchers. But as a whole, it's not like their choice of meat should be any better than what a restaurant can source.
As for sides, that'a whole other debate. And again, I find most sides at any restaurant lousy.
Tragic when people decide to supplement understanding with labels and ignorance, isn't it? lol
Appreciating great food - literally being able to taste the depth and appreciate texture and so on - takes experience and time spent learning the differences present between similar offerings of different qualities. If you're happy with what you eat and you don't often seek out new experiences, nor strive to refine your tastes and raise the bar, that's fine. Whatever makes you happy. But try not to shit on those of us who do? lol
There's a lot of "I can't tell the difference / I've never put in the time / I don't really care about food, therefor my perspective is the current one" going on in this thread. Personally I've never put in the time to appreciate lots of things on a truly knowledgable level - architecture, classic rock, opera, cars, and many more. But I don't pretend that my limited perspective is somehow all-encompassing. Most things need some measure of understanding to be thoroughly enjoyed.
