Do most restaurants put salts on your fries without asking?

dxhound2005

How do they know how much salt to put on?

corner of hells

Wait till ya try salt and vinegar crisps, OP.

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140183#Comment_120140183

It would be good to know beforehand all right but your also asking for something that 99% of people wouldn't give a 2nd thought too.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140257#Comment_120140257

Most chefs will know, they're professionals, a bit like mechanics putting lubricant on a newly installed part, it's the done thing, a lot of deep fried foods are seasoned post cooking (chips, wings, calamari etc..) They tend to salt & toss the chips straight out of the oil in a large bowl before plating. In my limited experience working in kitchens as a photographer this role is left to a commis chef & is fairly standard repetitive stuff, so they'd be producing food for a number of plates with not much contact with serving staff or visuals on the tickets. That's probably why demands for non-salted chips or unsauced wings to fall between the cracks.

It would be unusual for health conscious people to order this type of food in the first place, or if they do they're treating themselves on a night out. It's not a careless or dismissive practise but sending the salted chips back wouldn't be seen as rude or inappropriate, they'd just do a small batch again.

El Tarangu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140257#Comment_120140257

same way they know how much cream to put in the sauce, or how much parsley to put on the fish - they are chefs, you know

dxhound2005

If they are putting salt on, I expect they will also put vinegar on. Just the right amount of course.

Epsom salts have a terrible after effect, never allow them to be sprinkled over your frites

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140244#Comment_120140244

Having no salt on the chips makes it feel like it won't kill me tomorrow 😁

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120139362#Comment_120139362

hi, I’m a chef.

Yes we season food before it’s served. It’s what we’re trained to do (if you work in a decent restaurant). If you don’t want salt just say so, no one in the kitchen cares I promise you.

Believe me when I say asking for no salt on your chips doesn’t bother anyone. We literally could care less it’s the most basic request possible! I’ve been asked for some mad stuff in my time so no salt is nothing new or strange.

As for why there’s salt + pepper on tables, as that was asked, it’s because while we season things “to taste” everyone has different likes and dislikes. We sort of aim for what’s considered “standard” as far as how it should taste and will satisfy most peoples pallets. If you like some food with your salt or pepper though the option is there for you to add some more. You can always add extra never take it out!

The reason why a chipper will ask you is because the foods served to you by the person who cooked it. The chefs dont walk out to your table with food in a fcuking bag like 😂

If you’re inconvenienced by asking your server for saltless chips then why are you even in a restaurant? Is it also an inconvenience that you need to read the menu and order or would you prefer the servers read it to you and decide what you’d like to eat?

if you’re eating at restaurants that use too much salt or none at all you’re probably eating at pretty shite ones then. In what must be well over 10’s of thousands of covers served with chips as a side dish or whatever I’ve never had chips sent back to me for having too much salt.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120139585#Comment_120139585

No it’s not. It’s to season food so it tastes nice and not like flipping cardboard.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140183#Comment_120140183

Put it on the menu? Jesus Christ are you after a menu or ingredient list? I cannot understand how so many people are this contrary that asking a server not to put salt on their chips is such a hardship it’s a wonder you can manage to eat out. There’s a huge difference between a menu mentioning if there’s cheese in a dish (not standard) and salt (basic cooking).

Who cares if you know or not just ask anyway! The server isn’t going to fcuking body slam you if they don’t put salt on them cos you asked ffs.

Count Dracula

I have heard of it happening alright.

Phucking bastards, meddling around with the food they cooked for you? Cheek of them?

Is it true that Staten Island syndrome is a phenomenon unique to trashy tourists visiting the Big Apple, insofar as when their cognitive resonance transitions to pure negative dissonance on the realisation that they have just wasted 4 hours of their lives freezing their balls off on an overcrowded smelly passenger ferry, cramming for a glimpse of a light mint tarnished iron statue that represents one of life's most brazen fallacies, that they feel compelled to gorge themselves on outrageously overpriced slices of soggy cheese pizza sold by a fake smiling food vendor/rip of merchant on Times square, that then subsequentially gets further compounded by the realisation that New York is just as much as a waste of time and money and that if you see the inside of another multi floor elevator you are going to capitulate into a drunken mess and finally realise that, not only is misunderstanding the health benefits of using salt in a stable diet.... that those very benefits are negatively polarised on the dangers of eating processed shight food, which is full of synthetic carcinogens, which their manufacturers spend millions of Dollars on each year, trying to convince any other morons that are addicted to their nicely packaged over advertised toxic product, that contrary to public health advice, it isn't really that bad for you and that if eat that crap in moderation, don't smoke and run 5k 4 times a week you might get away with it....

Fried food is fine also.... and deep frying. But trust me, if you do all your cooking in a "dry frier" that is sold to you by convincing your charmless fear of compromised survival that has been cajoled onto your conscience by the efforts of a marketing strategy you deserve to spend you entire holiday tearing your eyes out over the realisation that the US really is a cultureless kip, albeit a rich one.

Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Kampala, Addis Abiba, Sau Palo, Bogota, Firenze Athens and Seville are all massively better places to taste salt in, proper salt, the natural stuff you use to bring out the flavour in your chips or cure a gum infection with.

Mullingar has nicely salted chips for sale all over the town and if you stretch your imagination you can convince yourself that the Joe Dolan statue is actually a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Try not to kiss it either, I have seen things that would shock you performed by drunk women of an evening. Disgraceful, although Joe loves it I am told. Mullingar is better craic and has much more to offer than Manhatton. Hanging around ground zero staring blankly ahead of you is not what you should be doing with your holidays.

Salt is not bad for you. Processed salt and other synthetics can potentially end your life and will hinder your existence via enabling heart disease. A bowl of cereal has more toxins than a bowl of salt, technically.

martinedwards

If you have dietary requirements, talk to the staff.

Chefs will season the food as they make it.

Takeaway chip shops ask about salt and vinegar, restaurants not so much.

my wife has a heath issue that means she's taking oestrogen blocking medication.

it makes sense to limit that in food so she's gone non dairy. We have never had a problem asking what is dairy free.

if you don't want salt on your chips, just say for goodness sake. I was a chef for 10 years, and never once spat in a customer's meal because they asked for somthing.

Every Time I hanker like a dog for the mecca of all schnaks the salt and vinegar Tayto.

I call Mr Tayto on a direct line and say hold my salt and over easy on the vineagar please.

Works a treat though I have an issue with how he answers the phone at all being an 8 foot high fictional character but that's another thread.

dxhound2005

I can't figure out whether they cook batches of chips and put a certain amount of salt. Or cook individual portions as orders come in from the tables. If it is the former, then just saying we're chefs and we season food, that is what we do is very disrespectful to the clientele. The chef deciding that a certain volume of salt for a batch of chips is what everyone one should be happy with.

If it is the latter, then why not just leave it to each customer to salt or not salt at the table. Chips don't need any salt in the cooking process as far as I know, so why put any on before serving. That is just the same as the customer putting it on at the table, and the customer knows how much salt they want.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140613#Comment_120140613

If your chips taste "like flippin cardboard" without being doused in salt you are either not cooking them right or using the wrong spuds.

Some places use low quality catering pack frozen chips, not saying you do.

Salting in the kitchen has crept in and people now think it's normal.

It's not, let the food stand on its own merits and allow the customer to add salt as required to taste.

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140973#Comment_120140973

It's not disrespectful to the customer, it's called understanding what the vast majority of customers want. If you don't like the way a chef does his job that's down to you to ask if the chef can cater to your needs or you can go somewhere else.

I'm offended by salt.

Salt should be cancelled.

I dont care what qualified Chefs after years of training say.

# cancel da salt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141029#Comment_120141029

The use of salt, fat and heat to generate flavour is as old as cooking itself. Absolute nonsense to say it isn’t normal practice.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141453#Comment_120141453

Bit quick pressing the nonsense button there.

We are not talking about using salt in cooking which as you say is a long established practice.

The subject under discussion is salting food ,in this case chips, which is already cooked.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141029#Comment_120141029

Obviously they don’t taste like actual cardboard my point being they taste very bland.

Sorry, but seasoning in the kitchen IS normal. That’s what a chef is trained to do.

Im sorry but you’re absolutely dead wrong here. If food was consistently sent out unseasoned so you can do it, believe me, we’d end up with 10x the complaints.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141690#Comment_120141690

I promise I'm not trying to interfere with any of your recipes we are just talking about fries/chips.

Dousing them in salt is not a practice I approve of.

I'm not wrong I just have a different opinion to you.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141769#Comment_120141769

There’s a massive difference between seasoning correctly and over doing it.

I don’t think anyone should be layering on ladles of salt. There’s bad restaurants everywhere that can’t cook or season food correctly.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120142135#Comment_120142135

I think we can agree on that.

There are some bad restaurants and I've eaten in a few of them.

notAMember

No it’s not an opinion. In any restaurant they season the food.

Chippers, if that’s what you meant instead of restaurants, will season the chips at the point of sale usually.

But I’d be as wary of the saturated fat / lard that chippers use, as much as the salt if you have a heart condition.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120139452#Comment_120139452

Then get a Ginsters from the fridge and put it on your slate.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140073#Comment_120140073

Really? Neither of the two McDonalds near me put salt on the fries. They stopped a few years ago. Come to think of it, Burger King doesn't either.

Sometimes they even forget to give you those little salt packets too, annoying when you go through the drive thru, and then find out there is no salt in the bag.