You'll make chefs angry if you order off the menu or request substitutions. Photo / 123RF
You'll make chefs angry if you order off the menu or request substitutions. Photo / 123RF
Choosing something off the menu at a restaurant can be a challenge, especially if there are dozens of delicious-sounding options.
But the task may now be a little easier after restaurant chefs have revealed the dishes they believe you should avoid ordering at certain eateries - and it's bad news for fans of chicken.
From fish on a Monday to everyone's favourite brunch of eggs hollandaise, these are the dishes which will make you regret your menu choice and leave you dissatisfied.
EGGS WITH HOLLANDAISE SAUCE
If you always order poached eggs with smoked salmon, asparagus or spinach, we have some bad news for you.
Chef Anthony Bourdain has said that brunch is the time when chefs can get away with serving the leftover bits and pieces from Friday and Saturday night dinner services.
A staple of brunch is classic eggs benedict or eggs royale - but Bourdain says the sauce has to be kept at a certain temperature for it to be safe to eat.
"Bacteria love hollandaise,' he revealed in his book, Kitchen Confidential. 'And nobody I know has ever made hollandaise to order."
If you're not at a seafood restaurant or somewhere where the shellfish is one of their signature dishes, then avoid ordering oysters.
Bad oysters can make you seriously ill, so you want to make sure the eatery that's serving them has sourced them fresh from their supplier.
Bad oysters can make you very ill. Photo / 123RF
FISH ON A MONDAY
Most restaurants order in their fish on a Thursday - meaning that by Monday, it's about four or five days old.
Fish declines in quality rapidly after it's been caught, and needs to be eaten as fresh as possible.
Bourdain said in his book: "I never order fish on Monday, unless I'm eating at a four-star restaurant where I know they are buying their fish directly from the source."
Fish declines in quality rapidly after it's been caught, and needs to be eaten as fresh as possible. Photo / 123RF
WAGYU AND KOBE BEEF
The world's most expensive meat is a real delicacy, due to the intense fat marbling in the beef.
If it's the real deal, it will be served up in small portions as a steak because most chefs would consider it a waste of such a luxury product to grind it up as mince and use it in a burger.
So if you see a burger advertised as being made with wagyu or kobe beef, the restaurant may be lying to you and using the name to hike up prices, according to MSN.
Wagyu beef in a burger may not be the real thing. Photo / 123RF
ANY CHICKEN DISH
If you watch cooking shows on TV, you may have noticed that chefs don't often reach for chicken as the centrepiece for their showstopping dish.
And the reason is that it's very difficult to make the meat flavoursome, moist, and stand out against other strong flavours.
Dishes can also often be uninspired and overpriced for what is one of the cheaper meats on the market, compared to beef or high quality lamb.
If you're at a restaurant by the sea, the chances are the seafood you are eating will be locally sourced and may have even been caught that morning.
But further inland, the fish will take a while longer to reach the eatery - and may have even been frozen.
As soon as seafood has been caught, its quality declines, so avoid ordering it unless you know the restaurant has sourced its fish that day.
Anthony Bourdain also says that he would never order mussels unless he knows the chef as it is all too common for careless cooks to miss a 'bad' mussel - which can make diners very ill.
The further fish has to travel, the lower in quality it tends to be. Photo / 123RF
BEEF WELL DONE
This is a well-known pet hate of chefs around the world, as cooking steak for too long eradicates the flavour and can make the pricey ingredient chewy and bland.
But Bourdain has shared another reason why we should never order steak 'well-done'.
He said: '"Saving for well-done" is a time-honoured tradition dating back to cuisine's earliest days.
"What happens when the chef finds a tough, slightly skanky end-cut of sirloin that's been pushed repeatedly to the back of the pile? He can throw it out, but that's a total loss...
"Or he can "save for well-done": serve it to some rube who prefers his meat or fish incinerated into a flavourless, leathery hunk of carbon."
DON'T GO OFF MENU
f there's a sure-fire way to anger your waiters and the chefs cooking your food, it's to make a special request or ask for too many substitutions.
A Reddit user, who claims to be a chef, said: "Everytime someone [requests something off the menu] everyone gets frustrated.
"The server has to ask the kitchen to make this very specific item and the cooks get annoyed and it ends up taking a long time and no one is happy at the end of it."
