[CH] Sauces to restaurants
Alex Silbajoris (72163.1353@compuserve.com)
Mon, 10 Jan 2000 06:59:52 -0500
Nice points, Calvin, you describe much of what I do in restaurants. I've
never been poorly received for bringing my own heat. If it's some place
I've never been to before, it's usually ignored. But places that recognize
me as a regular take an interest. By now the staff at Casa Fiesta on
Bethel Road expects me to come in the door packing something. Poor guys,
they usually want to try it. Some of the CaBoom sauces have reddened their
faces at times, and some of the green jalapeno sauces have pleased them,
but nothing compares to the time I took some of Cameron's home-made orange
hab sauce in there. Not only was it intensely hot, but it was fermenting
into a foam, and slowly rising up out of the bottle like a homebrew. I
said, how do you like that, a sauce that comes out of the bottle looking
for you...
In that restaurant, as in most Mexican ones I visit, I'll ask if they have
a hot house sauce. Responses vary widely, and some of them are really
good. Some of them, feh. Some Asian places have a good sauce, or just a
simple chile oil. Once in a great while I'll be told something like "we
don't have that" is if it were indelicate to have hot pepper with the meal.
It is precisely because of places like those that I try to always provide
for myself.
In many places the wait staff will ask about the sauce, but be too wise to
taste it. At least they ask politely. It's funny to go to a place like
Joe's Crab Shack, which serves a 6-pack of sauces on every table, taste
every sauce and confirm that the one you carried in is better than any of
them.
I goofed up the other day, trying a little stir-fry joint - I asked for my
pork loin to be extra spicy, and they put extra salt on it. Gotta work on
those guys. Maybe bring in some fresh habs, have him chop them up, and let
him get a whiff of them while they cook.
Alex Silbajoris 72163.1353@compuserve.com
Got sauce?