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Dressing "on the side"


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In working the salad station at my new job, i've noticed a high - very high - percentage of people that order their salad dressing "on the side". I'm sure people have their reasons, but i just never realized how many folks order salads this way.

Are they afraid the salad composer doesn't know how to properly dress a salad? Afraid there will be too much dressing? Too little? Afraid they won't like the taste of the dressing?

It makes my job a bit more time-consuming because we (being a white-tablecloth joint) don't simply perch the ramekin of dressing on the side of your salad serving dish, touching the lettuce (yuck) - so it requires two hands to carry a salad rather than one.

Also, if the server forgets to enter "on side" on the computer, the salad invariably gets sent back to be remade, wasting the original salad if it doesn't sell in the next few minutes. Then i can follow the freshly made salad and separate dressing out into the dining room and watch as the person who sent the salad back unceremoniously dump the ramekin of dressing onto the bare salad, creating, in effect, a salad identical to the one they rejected moments before.

This makes me want to stab people with my cheese knife, but so far i have limited myself to making voodoo dolls out of radishes and chives, and dropping them in the deep-fryer...

Why do you order dressing "on the side"?

Marsha Lynch aka "zilla369"

Has anyone ever actually seen a bandit making out?

Uh-huh: just as I thought. Stereotyping.

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The biggest reason that _I_ do it, and the reason that I think most do, is that often times salads come out positively drenched in the dressing, so that it smothers up every bit of vegetable flavor underneath of it. Ordering it on the side allows you to control how much you put on.

A more recent reason: Since I am now losing weight on a low-carb approach I make a point to limit sugar intake in all forms. If I ask a server if such and such a dressing has a high sugar content, they usually have no clue, and make something up. Even the basics such as blue cheese, ranch, vinagrettes, etc, can have hugely varying sugar contents. I would much rather order it on the side so that I can taste a little bit and gauge whether or not it tastes too sweet before it comes out swimming all over my salad.

He don't mix meat and dairy,

He don't eat humble pie,

So sing a miserere

And hang the bastard high!

- Richard Wilbur and John LaTouche from Candide

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Guilty, I'm afriad.

Well, actually it depends on where I'm having it. A good restuarant will generally get the proportion right and I always order it as is. And don't get me wrong, I tend to favor a good deal of dressing on my salad when I make it at home. But here in the midwest you tend to get more dressing than salad. It's like eating a bowl of spackle with little lettuce bits thrown in...

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Same here, though as a rule if I'm at a white-tablecloth joint I'll be more inclined to trust the dressing; and/or the server's description of same. My problem with most dressings is that they are much too sweet for my palate; I don't sweeten my own at all, so even a subtle touch of sugar can be enough to ruin a salad for me. In which case... I'll have to send it back after all. :wink:

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Yeah, I order it on the side in cafes and whistle stops, but in a fine restaurant I trust the kitchen to dress it appropriately.

I suppose a lot of people just do it out habit, though. I have had some horrible salads where the greens were just slimy with acidic dressing. While you're making effigies, make one for all the restaurant cooks who just dump bottled dressing all over some iceberg and a tomato wedge. :hmmm:

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Mary Baker

Solid Communications

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Are they afraid the salad composer doesn't know how to properly dress a salad? Afraid there will be too much dressing? Too little? Afraid they won't like the taste of the dressing?

Yes.

It makes my job a bit more time-consuming because we (being a white-tablecloth joint) don't simply perch the ramekin of dressing on the side of your salad serving dish, touching the lettuce (yuck) - so it requires two hands to carry a salad rather than one. 

Oh please....you're there to please the customer, not to save yourself steps. :raz:

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This is interesting that most people are agreeing that restaurants use too much dressing... this brings up a point I have been thinking about recently:

Has mainstreamed U.S. society been brainwashed so much by processed and fast foods that they do not appreciate the taste of good wholesome foods any longer? Is the excess of dressing meant to cover up the taste of the vegetables, which many customers might not like? Is this preponderance of dressing part of the same culinary phenomenon as those who drench any ground meat with ketchup, and any grilled meat with BBQ or steak sauce?

He don't mix meat and dairy,

He don't eat humble pie,

So sing a miserere

And hang the bastard high!

- Richard Wilbur and John LaTouche from Candide

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I use very little dressing, and often forego it entirely. Sometimes I order it on the side and use a small amount, and sometimes I just say "no dressing", which gets me a double take and not infrequently a conversation and so there I am, back to asking for it on the side.

Can you pee in the ocean?

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Has mainstreamed U.S. society been brainwashed so much by processed and fast foods that they do not appreciate the taste of good wholesome foods any longer?

I grew up on a farm but my parents always used bottled dressing, so it never occured to me that I could actually make the stuff! Now I make my own from locally produced olive oil, balsamic or wine vinegar, and fresh herbs. It's so easy--bloop, bloop, pinch--and voila! A fresh, tasty vinaigrette made to my own taste. I don't understand why more people don't make their own, but perhaps it's just a lifestyle habit. (I also grew up thinking that mayonnaise was a secret formula that only two companies knew.) :wink:

Bottled dressings taste harsh to me now, even the best brands--I prefer less vinegar and more oil. Sometimes I use orange or grapefruit juice, or a dash of raspberry vinegar, depending on the salad ingredients and main course.

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Mary Baker

Solid Communications

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I make my own  from locally produced olive oil, balsamic or wine vinegar, and fresh herbs.  It's so easy--bloop, bloop, pinch--and voila!  A fresh, tasty vinaigrette made to my own taste.

Exactly. Since I started making my own vinaigrettes, most commercially-prepared salad dressings just taste nasty to me. Like the rest of you, I'll order the salad dressed if I'm dining in a high-end establishment. But even in places where I know and trust the dressing, I'll usually ask for it on the side, just to make sure that the salad is not drenched. After all, it's not like you can remove excess dressing.

"Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside." Mark Twain
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Funny - although I too thought mayonnaise was a proprietary mystery of the Hellmann's company when I was a child, I had the opposite experience with vinaigrette. I don't think I knew that you could buy salad dressings in a bottle - no, I must have known it from TV ads, I guess, but I couldn't understand the point: far as I was concerned, vinaigrette was something you made at home, in an old jam jar.

Speaking of TV ads - remember Anna Maria Alberghetti and that whole Good Seasons thing? Never thought about it before, but what a scam! You pay your money for their special bottle and their packets of stuff... and then you have to put together the oil and vinegar yourself anyway... so you're paying them for the privilege of making your own dressing. Now there was a piece of marketing that really understood its target audience! Women back then didn't want to be told that they could just make their own fresh from scratch - too scary - but they did want to give themselves and others the impression that they did so. So they totally bought into the deal. Such a business! Is this a great country or what!

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Anything "on the side", is for some person that does not trust the kitchen. Take a good look at the ones that do it, don't they all look the same?

Carman

Carman's Country Kitchen

11th and Wharton

Philadelphia, PA

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A salad is SO much better when it is tossed in the dressing, but I have to agree that many restaurants drench the salad. A salad just isn't the same if you don't get dressing in each bite.

But there are some salads that aren't worth ordering if you want the dressing on the side, like for example, a caesar salad.

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i only do it because i, too, am doing the low carb thing. i infinitely prefer a salad that has been professionally dressed, but unless i know for a fact that the dressing isnt full of sugar, i order it on the side.

xo

"Animal crackers and cocoa to drink

That is the finest of suppers, I think

When I'm grown up and can have what I please,

I think I shall always insist upon these"

*Christopher Morley

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Anything "on the side", is for some person that does not trust the kitchen.  Take a good look at the ones that do it, don't they all look the same?

do i look the same? doubtful. although i know to never try this at your place. :laugh:

Edited by tommy (log)
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For me it's not so much that too much dressing is used, as much as it is that the dressing is rarely, if ever, properly distributed. It's all on the top, or the bottom.

Obviously if I'm at a place I know and trust, I wouldn't ask for anything on the side.

Much as I hate to admit it... probably the best "distributed" dressing I've ever gotten was from that now discontinued product from McDonalds where you closed the salad up in a cup and shook the hell out of it. Sure, the REST of the salad sucked, but the distribution of the dressing was "right". :biggrin:

Jon Lurie, aka "jhlurie"

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Yup--toooo much dressing, generally. It has also happened that I have been served a salad that was obviously dressed waaaay before I ordered it, so that the greens are now soggy and the dressing separated--which is truly adding insult to injury.

Again, as others have said, at a decent restaurant, I'd trust them to do this properly, but if I'm uncertain. . . on the side, natch.

agnolottigirl

~~~~~~~~~~~

"They eat the dainty food of famous chefs with the same pleasure with which they devour gross peasant dishes, mostly composed of garlic and tomatoes, or fisherman's octopus and shrimps, fried in heavily scented olive oil on a little deserted beach."-- Luigi Barzini, The Italians

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It has also happened that I have been served a salad that was obviously dressed waaaay before I ordered it, so that the greens are now soggy and the dressing separated--which is truly adding insult to injury.

That's a good point. Sogginess. That happens for two reasons: a.) the dressing, even if properly distributed, is "on" for too long b.) usually it pools in the bottom and anything sitting in that gets progressively soggier even faster.

And yeah... if its a decent oil-based dressing it's definitely going to separate too.

I. Hate. That.

Jon Lurie, aka "jhlurie"

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Aha! It's as i suspected. I'm being punished for the sins of serial over-dressers.

However, i have yet to see any "on-the-sider" taste the dressing before dumping it on the salad. And the ramekins come back empty, because i only put as much dressing in them as i'd put on the salad itself.

But you're kidding yourself if you think you're going to get a better distribution of dressing at the table with your fork than i can achieve in the kitchen.

I understand concerns about getting a salad that's been all dressed up and nowhere to go for awhile. But i don't serve those. That's why it's such a bitch when the server comes back with "sorry, i forgot to punch 'on the side"". 80% of the time that salad goes into the trash.

Maybe after we've been open awhile we'll get a reputation for knowing how to dress a salad properly!

Marsha Lynch aka "zilla369"

Has anyone ever actually seen a bandit making out?

Uh-huh: just as I thought. Stereotyping.

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Now there was a piece of marketing that really understood its target audience! Women back then didn't want to be told that they could just make their own fresh from scratch - too scary - but they did want to give themselves and others the impression that they did so. So they totally bought into the deal. Such a business! Is this a great country or what!

Dunno if this is apochryphal/urban legend stuff, but I remember hearing that the first cake mixes (B Crocker?) contained powdered egg, so all you had to do was add water, mix & bake. They didn't sell well, "women back then" (which I guess is much further back than Good Seasons) needed to feel like they were doing SOMETHING. So Gen Foods removed the dried egg, added "add egg" to the instructions, & the death knell sounded for cakes-from-scratch.

Dressing on the side? I'm with the "generally too much" crowd.

Tho these days you will find me asking simply for the oil & vinegar, since I have no way to determine the salt content of any other dressing when I'm dining out.

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea!

- Sydney Smith, English clergyman & essayist, 1771-1845

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Zilla,

I'm sure you are capable of dressing a salad properly, but alas, so many restaurants are not. Plus, as most of us do not dine most of the time at very fancy places, we have to deal with the mainsteam restaurants and cooks who often don't care about the exact proper ratios in their salads.

If more servers would offer to bring out little sample tastes of some of the dressings that would also be a great help, relieving the fear of ordering a salad glazed in something truly atrocious to your taste buds.

He don't mix meat and dairy,

He don't eat humble pie,

So sing a miserere

And hang the bastard high!

- Richard Wilbur and John LaTouche from Candide

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Anything "on the side", is for some person that does not trust the kitchen.  Take a good look at the ones that do it, don't they all look the same?

Maybe mantee can post a representative picture so we'll know how we all look? :rolleyes:

"Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside." Mark Twain
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