Freshness in Dining- Restaurant Turnover

[jogoode]

I'm ashamed to admit that as much as I like finding a hole-in-the-wall Ecuadorian place, I usually hesitate to order its ceviche, until after a few visits. I've read Steignarten enough to know that I'm probably risking more when I order chicken than raw oysters (and of course ceviche is "cooked" by acid, but we'll leave that alone for now). I'm overly-cautious nonetheless -- to avoid sickness and to avoid a dish ruined by bad seafood. At Sripraphai today I ordered the crispy watercress salad with chicken, squid, and shrimp. Great dish. Fresh seafood, especially the squid, as usual. Since the restaurant is popular, turn-over is high, and seafood doesn't sit around too long. But are there any clues to look for before you eat at a new Thai restaurant, or before reviews come out?

[docsconz]

I think you hit the nail on the head with turnover. The busier a restaurant the more likely the food will be fresh, if not good. It is always a good sign in an ethnic restaurant if it is busy with patrons of the same ethnic background. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean that a non-ethnic will eat in the same way or the same things.

[Fat Guy]

It is always a good sign in an ethnic restaurant if it is busy with patrons of the same ethnic background.

I'd at least limit that statement by saying it's not necessarily true in neighborhoods where that ethnicity is dominant. It's easy to find bad Chinese restaurants in Chinatown that nonetheless have a large percentage of Chinese-American customers. It's less easy to find bad Chinese restaurants in Hell's Kitchen (or Clinton, or whatever the heck they call it now) with a large percentage of Chinese-American customers.

In terms of turnover, there's certainly something to be said for that. But there are other factors to weigh: for example, does the menu have a lot of seafood offerings, or just a few token items. I'm comfortable ordering seafood from a menu that has a heavy seafood component, even if the restaurant doesn't seem particularly busy. Anyway, I figure they're going to buy enough to handle whatever load they handle -- if they do 50 covers a night they buy X amount of seafood, whereas a restaurant that does 500 covers a night buys 10X seafood. As long as the restaurant is serving a certain quantity of each fish dish every day, it can still be fresh. If the restaurant serves a certain fish dish once every six days, that's a different story. Also, remember that most shrimp and squid and scallops are likely to have been frozen anyway, so freshness isn't as much of a factor.

[Richard Kilgore]

If the restaurant serves a certain fish dish once every six days, that's a different story.

Why? I don't think that would necessarily be true. If they buy fresh fish for a special or a rotating dish, that would be at least as good as a daily one (which might be held over a day - yuk!). If it's made with frozen food, what difference would it make?

I think a popular, busy place would be a fair indicator for safe if not great. Not foolproof, but fair.

[Fat Guy]

What I meant to say is that if the dish is on the menu every day, but they don't necessarily get even one order for it every day, and if it's not made from frozen product or product identical to what's in a dish that does get ordered a lot, you could be looking at some extra age on the fish.

On a more general note, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about how fish gets to the customer's plate at the average restaurant. Properly handled fresh fish, depending on the species, can easily stay good for a week after it has been caught. That's lucky for us as consumers, because most non-frozen fish is already several days old by the time it crosses the threshold of the kitchen. Most restaurants aren't getting fish deliveries every day, and if they are they still need to unload the older stuff before they serve the new.

The problem is, "properly handled" is impossible to ascertain by evaluating a restaurant -- it's something that primarily happens outside the restaurant. You can have relatively fresh fish that was improperly handled and it can suck, whereas you can have 6-day-old cod that was properly bled, iced, transported, and held, and it will taste superb.

[phaelon56]

This may seem too simplistic and far too inaccurate a barometer but in any Thai or Vietnamese restaurant I look at the cleanliness of the men's bathrom. If it's spotless and obviously cleaned and maintained relentlessly, I assume that at least some of that diligence carries over to the kitchen. Beyond that I can't hazard a guess.

[jogoode]

This may seem too simplistic and far too inaccurate a barometer but in any Thai or Vietnamese restaurant I look at the cleanliness of the men's bathrom. If it's spotless and obviously cleaned and maintained relentlessly, I assume that at least some of that diligence carries over to the kitchen. Beyond that I can't hazard a guess.

I like this explanation.

[Moopheus]

I'd think that would be true of just about any kind of restaraunt. I mean, if they don't generally keep the public areas clean, what does that say about the rest of the place? And of course, if the employees are also using the same nasty bathroom and then going back into the kitchen? Which unfortunately brings to mind a really nasty diner I stopped at in Virginia once, which I won't describe.

[ronnie_suburban]

This may seem too simplistic and far too inaccurate a barometer but in any Thai or Vietnamese restaurant I look at the cleanliness of the men's bathrom. If it's spotless and obviously cleaned and maintained relentlessly, I assume that at least some of that diligence carries over to the kitchen. Beyond that I can't hazard a guess.

I like this explanation.

Wasn't there a thread about this?

=R=