Salt, a sensitive subject...

I will never understand why so many Americans season their food so poorly. Take Red Robins for an example. I hate Red Robins. My husband is a huge burger fan, so it was inevitable that after going there so many times, I’d eventually also order a burger. As I bit into my burger; my mushroom Swiss burger; my absolute favorite type of burger- there was a distinct lack of flavor. My husband could tell a dark cloud had descended.

They didn’t salt the meat before it was cooked.  Who doesn’t season the meat? Who wouldn’t have the common sense to season the goddamn meat, before you cook it?

I am well aware of the fact that there is a perfectly good salt shaker on the table and I can put salt on, but that is not the point. First off, you season meat before cooking, to help enhance naturalflavor. Second, salting meat after you have cooked it and plated it, tastes completely different.

Then there are places that over-salt, though I never thought I’d see the day. Outback Steakhouse is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Red Robins. Now, I am a girl who loves my salt. Even amongst Asians, I suspect I have a fairly high sodium intake. My friends have a running joke that they should just give me salt lick for my birthdays.

However, Outback took it to a whole ‘nother level. They went above and beyond. My steak was damn near inedible, it was so salty. Not just seasoned; absolutely saturated in sodium. In desperation, I turned to my baked potato for a bland taste of relief. No dice. From inside out, the potato tasted as if it spent the last 2 months of its life in a salt barrel.  

I would make the worst food critic. I am livid when someone screws up my food; the sheer potential of a perfectly good piece of produce, completely ruined due to one mistake made after another. And I have a long memory. The steak incident occurred over 12yrs ago and the burger incident happened at least 5yrs ago. But thinking about it still pisses me off.  I can’t walk by a Red Robins without flicking a look of disgust in their general direction.  It makes me want to go into the kitchen and ring their necks, all the while demanding to know who messed up my food. It wasn’t Carlos, I know that. Or Ricardo. Or Jesus. Or Eduardo. No…..they know better how to treat food respectfully. It was in all likelihood, Frank/John/George Johnson who just graduated with an Associates in Culinary Arts.