You’re talking past each other, using “better” in different ways. Correct, my cooking is technically inferior to restaurant cooking for exactly the reasons you described. However, the recipes themselves are designed by an individual with preferences. Even if my cooking is technically inferior, it will be ‘better’ simply because I am cooking for my own palate and preferences. Same word, completely different meaning.
Fair, but there is also the matter of effort. A lot of restaurant classics are just not worth making at home except as a special treat because it’s so much effort at home whereas a restaurant just does it at scale.
Ramen, for example (and yeah many westerners may consider it upscale but it is, in fact, street food) takes a really eclectic mix of ingredients and only a small amount of each ingredient ends up in each bowl. Perfect for restaurants, because they just batch prepare the ingredients and put a little bit of the batch in the bowl, but a ton of work to make at home.
I actually don’t agree with this. You can also do the prep the restaurant does. Stir-fry, I pre-cut veggies and make various stir fries all week. Pho, I make a huge batch of broth and eat pho every day for a week. Sushi, I pre-slice the veggies and pre-cool the rice then, you guessed it, I make it for about a week.
If you need to have wildly different meals every night then I agree with you. But I’m content to have the same meal 5 to 7 times before switching.
I absolutely hate eating the same stuff for a week straight and I don’t know how people do it. No matter how delicious the first serving is, repeated servings get progressively more bland and after the 3rd serving in a row I’m ready to throw it in the bin.
![Home Cooked Meal [Teddy]](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/6c568f33-16a6-43f9-a043-8c760c83421b.webp){kind=link}
You’re talking past each other, using “better” in different ways. Correct, my cooking is technically inferior to restaurant cooking for exactly the reasons you described. However, the recipes themselves are designed by an individual with preferences. Even if my cooking is technically inferior, it will be ‘better’ simply because I am cooking for my own palate and preferences. Same word, completely different meaning.
Fair, but there is also the matter of effort. A lot of restaurant classics are just not worth making at home except as a special treat because it’s so much effort at home whereas a restaurant just does it at scale.
Ramen, for example (and yeah many westerners may consider it upscale but it is, in fact, street food) takes a really eclectic mix of ingredients and only a small amount of each ingredient ends up in each bowl. Perfect for restaurants, because they just batch prepare the ingredients and put a little bit of the batch in the bowl, but a ton of work to make at home.
At home one-pot dishes are king.
I actually don’t agree with this. You can also do the prep the restaurant does. Stir-fry, I pre-cut veggies and make various stir fries all week. Pho, I make a huge batch of broth and eat pho every day for a week. Sushi, I pre-slice the veggies and pre-cool the rice then, you guessed it, I make it for about a week.
If you need to have wildly different meals every night then I agree with you. But I’m content to have the same meal 5 to 7 times before switching.
I absolutely hate eating the same stuff for a week straight and I don’t know how people do it. No matter how delicious the first serving is, repeated servings get progressively more bland and after the 3rd serving in a row I’m ready to throw it in the bin.