The Big Question: I Thought It Would Be Wetter Edition
By PlumcakeSo I just had my first meatball sandwich. I gotta say, I wasn’t impressed. I always thought that it would be…I don’t know…wetter. I mean I ate it, but I was expecting this big, delightful Italian Taste Sensation and I just got…meatballs.
In bread.
With red sauce.
But it was kinda lame, which leads me to ask today’s big question.
Today Plumcake wants to know:
What was the biggest food-related disappointment of your life?
and as a little palate cleanser (and keeping with the theme of hot Italian dishes) I wanted to remind you that it’s not too early to order your 2009 Calandario Romano.
HELL-OOOO PADRE!
November 12th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Meatball sandwiches vary a lot, you need a Spicy meatball to make it good, also the size of the meatball is important. It is hard to make well but they can be really really good.
My biggest food dissapointment ever was going to a restauraunt in Pescadero Beach South of San Francisco (which will remain nameless, but you can figure it out), I had heard for years about how wonderful it it was and how they had the best cioppino, but it was really bland, and soupy and not at all as good as any other cioppino I had eaten. It was so blah that if this had been my very first time I would never order it again.
November 12th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
That would be soft-shell crab. I’ve ordered it, oh, three or four times now, and … bleah. In my mind, there should be buttery smoothness, but instead I find a sort of toughish, almost crunchy-but-not-in-a-good-way sensation. Something that damn expensive should be divine, right?
November 12th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
What’s so great about oysters?
November 12th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Oh Jenn! Soft shell crab is my favorite food! We used to pull them out of the water using chicken necks on strings.
November 12th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I have two. One was a return trip to a former favorite restaurant I hadn’t visited in years (I’d moved away from the area). I had looked forward to re-visiting this place, but the whole meal was a disaster. My plate was dirty, the portion was tiny, and the food was lukewarm. What a difference 3 years made!
The second one was my fault. I’d spent far more time than I should have tracking down a Bordeaux wine I’d enjoyed at a restaurant. But when I opened one of my sought-after bottles at home, it was awful! My fiance and I corked it halfway through, neither of us daring to admit that my searching hadn’t been worth the effort. But when I uncorked it the next day, it was marvelous. A bit of online searching revealed my mistake: Bordeaux needs to breathe for at least 1, preferably 2, hours before being served. No wonder it tasted so off at first!
November 12th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I’ve never met a cinnamon roll that didn’t disappoint me. They smell SO much better than they taste (other than the bit in the center).
November 12th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Plumcake-
Did you really just try to sway me back to soft-shell crab with a post that used the words “chicken neck”??
November 12th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
One word: caviar.
I just didn’t get the hype. Still don’t. :)
November 12th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
It always has to be wedding cake! I’ve never tasted one where the taste lived up to the prettiness of it.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Reading Little Women aproximately three billion times, and wishing I could taste Meg’s specialty, “Blancmange”. Which turns out to be…
Vanilla pudding.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Melissa B., I had a similar restaurant experience recently. I worked at this place in college and the food used to be really, really good. I’ve eaten there on occasion since then and never been disappointed, until recently. It had been several years since I’d been back. Ownership had changed. Service was painfully slow, I had to hunt down condiments and utensils myself, and the sandwich I ordered, which used to be my favorite thing on the lunch menu, was awful. I don’t think I’ll be going back again.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I’ve got two as well. The first is Boston Cream Pie. It always looked so luscious in the dessert case, and then it turned out to be pretty much … a Twinkie. I’ve had good ones since then, but the first one was a real let down.
The second is Boeuf Bourginon — what do you mean it’s just beef stew?
November 12th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Meatball sandwiches can be pretty mediocre. But if you ever find your way to Seattle, go to Salumi, which is owned by Armandio Batali. Everything there is a ‘big, delightful Italian Taste Sensation.’
November 12th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Candace – I am almost 100% with you. Cinnamon rolls never taste as good as they smell, with the pointed exception of those made by my father. They are SO very good.
My food disappointment would be pizza, odd as that may be. It just never, ever tastes as good as I think it should based on memory and smell.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Ay! Forgive me Father, but el Padre tempts me to return to the Holy Mother Church, what Reformation? Er. . . food, let’s see, I had some Japanese pasteries once, yucky! They looked lovely, but tasted bland.
November 12th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Cilantro. Ick. Tastes like soap. And watercress. Tastes like pepper-flavored soap.
November 12th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Light Lemonade from a fast food tap! I was so excited because I didn’t want diet soda, unsweetened tea or water, but one sip of that stuff is like pure citric acid. Gross.
Also, I think if you didn’t enjoy your meatball sandwich, you were obviously getting it from the wrong establishment. I’ve had some really great ones before.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:30 am
I agree with Kel. Cilantro is awful. Personally I think it tastes/smells like the way burnt rubber or a skunk smells like. At the age of 26 if I accidentally eat a piece I will spit it back out on the table like a 4 year old. Doesn’t matter if I was in a “dive bar” (that has cilantro?) or a 5 star restaurant, out it comes.
I think the food that never lives up to expectation is KFC chicken (original). It always look good, smells yummy, and I remember being a kid and loving it but whenever I eat it now I’m always so disappointed.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:33 am
Kel, I totally agree with you on the cilantro. No one ever agrees on the soap point!
The one that easily comes to mind is cappuccino. Around the age of 13, I had never tried it but my father took my sister and I to a nice Italian restaurant in his office building, and I ordered a cappucino. Dad asked, “Are you sure?” but I was not about to be dissuaded!
Soon, my cappuccino came, all pretty with a foamy top. I took a sip, nearly dropped my cup, and said, “But, Dad, it’s coffee!”
He’s never let me live that down.
I like it much better now.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:41 am
I’m another of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap. Hate it. Hate. It’s a genetic thing, if that’s any consolation.
November 13th, 2008 at 5:29 am
Chastity!?! Chastity!!???!! Surely it is sin of the highest order to let those cheek bones, eyes, amazing hair and lips go to waste!?!
Food? What food? I think I was distracted?
November 13th, 2008 at 5:51 am
[...] The Big Question: I Thought It Would Be Wetter Edition(13 November 2008) So I just had my first meatball sandwich. I gotta say, I wasn8217t impressed. I always thought that it would be8230I don8217t know8230wetter. I mean I… [...]
November 13th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I used to think cilantro tastes like soap. Now, I love it. Love! It can sway me on any menu when it’s used in a dish. I don’t know how that happened, but it did.
Meatball sandwiches are about as Italian, really, as apple pie. But made properly, they can be absolutely delicious (and this is coming from an Italian who avoids anything with tomato sauce because it upsets my stomach). I like them better with spicy meatballs too and the bread has to be fresh and moistened with even more sauce. Yeah, I’d suffer for one of those if it was made very well.
Now a good looking, single, young, and virile man in priest garb? That’s what I call a disappointment.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Apparently 1 out of 17 people have something going on with their tastebuds so that cilantro tastes like soap. I am fortunate to not be one of those folks. Cilantro tastes like a hybrid of parsley and mint to the rest of us.
Also, must agree with everyone else on cinnamon rolls. They just smell so much better than they taste.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Sushi… I so wanted to love it and revel in it… didn’t happen, can’t stand it. I think it’s the dried seaweed that gives me that off taste. Someday I’ll try again without the seaweed!
November 13th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Goat Cheese, in most cases, tastes gross to me. I am a foody- I will try just about anything and have found that there are some things that just make me go Well- its OK, but Goat Cheese is always paired with awesome sounding ingredients, and then I try it and it is just gamey and yuck. I have tried it aged, young, imported, domestic, expensive, cheap and it just never tastes right. My Husband finally said to me “Its OK to not like one ingredient in the world” and he is right it is OK.
As for the hot priest- my husband is a Presbyterian Minister- hottness in a Robe and Stole. Not Italian unattainable hottness, but Hottness none the less.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Oysters. I adore most seafood, and had always heard how amazingly delicious oysters are. At the tender age of eight, I ordered some in a restaurant. I couldn’t even get them down after the first one. I’ve tried them a few times since, just to make sure, and they still come across as bland to me with a really unsettling texture that reminds me why I never order them. The flavor (such as it is on my tastebuds) is just never worth that mouthfeel to me. Doesn’t matter whether they’re raw, deep fried, mixed into a soup or stew…no matter how you cook them I’m not a fan.
Oddly enough, though, while I still don’t go out of my way for them, I can at least eat them disgust-free if they’re smoked.
rabrab, I so feel you on the Boston cream pie question. A good one can be one of the most delightful desserts ever…but a bad one (shudders) is really hard to get over.
As for cilantro, I adore the stuff. There’s a family that does small-production Indian foods that’s at our local farmer’s market every week. When I go, I usually get some of their naan bread and a bucket of their cilantro chutney. Then I go home and scarf down a bunch so that I’m sure to get some before Mr. Twistie and my brother get at it.
But the worst food disappointment I’ve ever had was when I was nine years old. My parents had splurged on taking us to the East coast. We went to historic sites like Williamsburg, Bull Run, Gettysburg (which was painfully disappointing in its own way back then), and Mount Vernon. We spent several days in New York, where we went to museum after museum and I had my first encounter with the art of Robert Arneson and saw my first Dali up close and personal. We went to Washington, DC where we visited a distant relative of my father’s and freaked her out with the way the family just split up when we got to the Smithsonian. She was sure we would never find one another again, but we all knew by instinct that we would meet at lunchtime by the pendulum.
Anyway, during that trip we ate a lot of cheesecake. Everywhere we went there was delectable, creamy cheesecake that melted on the tongue as it hardened our arteries. It tasted like sin and sunshine. It was the most explosive sensual experience I’d had up to that time.
Finally, five weary travellers filed into Dulles airport to await the long plane ride home to California. We found ourselves with some time to spare, so Mom herded us into the cafeteria to get a snack. After all, there was a reason we called my brother the alpaca rancher ‘The Bottomless Pit’ in those days. Of course we all ordered a slice of cheesecake. It was our last chance to have the Really Good Stuff.
Out came these tiny, drier than hell and twice as revolting slivers of dessicated sawdust with microscopic blops of bottom-of-the-line canned fruit ‘pie filling.’ We stared in horror. My soul cried out for revenge.
Worse, it took so damn long to get these offences against the culinary arts to the table and the announcement system was so vestigal that we nearly missed our plane.
It’s been decades, but the mere mention of Dulles airport’s cheesecake is still enough to elicit shudders from me and my brothers. I can only pray it’s improved over the years.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Tandoori anything. Maybe I’m just not going to the right places, but it is always just dry and orange. Now, I like orange. But it seems to me that you should have a little more going on flavor-wise than just demonstrating that meat can be orange.
I’m not crazy about meatball subs either. Messy. Tomato-y. Not worth the calories.
Oh, and Ghirardelli Chocolate. People wax poetic. The waxy part is about right.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Those big honkin’ turkey drumsticks they sell at Ren Faires and Disney – they are always cold and never flavorful. :-(
November 13th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I also was disappointed by soft-shell crab. Too much shell, not enough soft. But she-crab soup… yummy.
I think the thing with oysters, and caviar, and much Japanese food is that the flavours that make them enjoyable are very subtle. So if you (as we tend to in the US) eat a lot of robust, big-flavored food, it will tend to seem bland, and the textures will be unfamiliar and probably unappealing.
I found when I was in Japan that after a few weeks my palate adjusted and I became much more sensitive and appreciative of a lot of tastes. I love oysters and caviar and a lot of Japanese food.
However, even when in Japan once in a while I would get a craving for a slice of pizza or a comforting bowl of minestrone. Unfortunately wherever I went the food had been “Japanified” so my minestrone tasted of miso or dashi, and my pizza came with garnished with fish roe. Quite disturbing.
By the way, the best gummy sweets I ever had were in Singapore.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
PS – I asked this question to several people I met in China (where you can buy chicken feet and duck tongues at the airport) and they were unanimous that hamburgers and KFC had been very disappointing to them.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Mussels. And a whole bunch of things in shells which are often served in great broth with garlic and wine and tomato or something else, good for dipping but I don’t want the meat! I mean, I adore crab, and scallops, but anything else in a shell…except maybe PEARLS…is wasted on me.
November 13th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I add my name to the list of people who were disappointed by the taste of oysters. Aside from having fresh clams off the coast of Florida one time, scallops are the only bivalve I can stand.
Ditto on the Ghirardelli Chocolate. That stuff is definitely overrated. Fortunately, it’s not hard to get really good chocolate here. In addition to the usual fare (Godiva), we have locals B.T. McElrath and Chocolat Celeste. In addition, I once had a chocolate piece call an “Astrid” in the Dayton’s marketplace department. It was nearly four dollars for a tiny piece, but it was so good that it practically changed my outlook on life.
My biggest culinary disappointment is, without a doubt, Krispy Kreme donuts. They have a cult following around here. Having eaten a couple of them, I have no idea why. I like donuts, but I think Krispy Kremes are gross. They’re over-sweet, overly sticky, and short on any flavor that isn’t sugar.
I am a bit surprised that the Vatican puts out a pin up calendar with RC priests as the subject matter. A part of me thinks, “Man, that is just not right.” The other part of me thinks, “Well, if I ever get bored of mooning over Gabriel Byrne in Stigmata…” Really, it’s not fair of them to taunt us in this way.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Ah, maatnofret, Twin Cities represent! I’ve never had an Astrid (but it sounds divine — too bad Dayton’s is now Macy’s and presumably Astrid-less), but I hear you on McElrath and Chocolat Celeste.
And I’m with you most heartily on Krispy Kremes. When they opened here, I was expecting great things. But they’re just puffy, over-sweet bits of dough. Give me a cruller from Mel-O-Glaze any time. :-)
November 13th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Meatball sandwiches need to have enough tomato sauce to soak the inside of the bread. The sandwich is a balance between the meatballs, the soft, tomato-y inside, and the toasted, crunchy outside which is necessary to keep all that gooey goodness inside.
And cheese. Must have cheese.
This story will probably date me (but then, if you can’t be a woman of a certain age after living a certain number of years, when can you be?), but my biggest disappointment was Chicken Tarragon. During my tender years I devoured many books, many aimed at women, whose heroines were always dining out at lovely restaurants overlooking the water or lit only with candles, where they always ordered Chicken Tarragon. It sounded so elegant and refined, and I felt so deprived because I didn’t eat at the kind of restaurants that served such entrees.
A few years passed, and I finally had the opportunity to order Chicken Tarragon. It was as beautiful as I had pictured, a silky white chicken breast in a cream sauce, flecked with the herb. And then I discovered the awful truth.
I hate tarragon.
What a nasty, overwhelming flavor. What a waste of an innocent chicken breast and a perfectly good cream sauce. Blech.
No wonder all the heroines in such books have now switched to a Chicken Caesar Salad as their entree of choice. I don’t blame them one bit.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Ladies,
You will be relieved to know that the “priests” in the Calendario Romano are actually models, and have probably not taken vows of celibacy… And for the record, the calendars are not produced by the Vatican.
So, drool away in good conscience!
November 13th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
My first autumn in New York [cue Billie Holiday in background], I couldn’t wait to try hot roasted chestnuts — they were being sold on every street corner and the smell was downright intoxicating. Imagine my disappointment when my first taste turned into flavorless mush in my mouth. Tossed the rest of the bag in a New York minute.
November 13th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
My experience with cilantro was similar to that of TropicalChrome and tarragon. All the recipes and descriptions of cilantro sounded delicious. When I moved to California I kept tasting something in dishes that I didn’t like but didn’t know what it was. One day I ordered Cilantro Chicken and there it was – the flavor I didn’t like!
I do like oysters – they taste “fresh” to me but it is a subtle flavor.
Krispy Kremes are just more expensive doughnuts – not any better.
November 13th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Krispy Kremes must be eaten directly off the line inside a Krispy Kreme facility when the sign outside says “hot.” Otherwise there is nothing special about it. When eaten gooily, drippily, hot and fresh, mmmmmm fantastic. Out of a box at the supermarket? A pale, shrunken shadow of former glory, barely better than the cardboard encasing the remains.
November 13th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I hid bone marrow under my knife at a two-star Michelin restaurant. It tasted like jellied nothing.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Beignets at Cafe du Monde: they are just funnel cakes by another name. I’ve been eating beignets at county fairs all my life and didn’t know it.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Oh, New Orleans! Yes, I was unable to get the legendary Cafe du Monde beignets because I had no cash, they wouldn’t take credit at the walk-up, and NO’s 8,000 ATMs were all closed that early in the morning. I had them in the cafe across the street, which took plastic, and… well, the hotel’s were better.
But my biggest disappointment had to be the BBQ shrimp at Pascale’s Manale. My friend insisted, up, down and sideways, that I had to get these shrimp, that no matter how inconvenient it was to get to Pascale’s, I needed to get there and eat them. (And did it ever end up being inconvenient!) I knew, going in, they weren’t “BBQ” in my East Coast sense, and more of a butter-based scampi-thing. And to be fair, the shrimp were huge and (by themselves) delicious. But that sauce… I thought it tasted like dirt.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Turkish Delight broke my heart. After years of reading the Narnia books, and Edward being seduced by the Queen’s delicious Turkish Delight, I was thrilled to find some in a sweet shop on my first trip to London. I was shocked to find out that it tasted like soap. Sweet, rose flavored soap.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
kimdog, the craveable Turkish Delight of the Narnia books does exist! I once had AMAZING Turkish Delight at a Middle Eastern restaurant — and I’ve never been able to find anything nearly as good in any sweet shops, although for a while I bought Turkish Delight at every small candy store I ran across, trying to replicate what I’d eaten at the restaurant. Alas!
November 15th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Cafe mocha. I love chocolate. I really love coffee. I tried this twice recently (admittedly, the first one was out of a vending machine).
It tastes like hell’s sweat. How can two such lovely things taste so bad when put together ?
November 15th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Don’t give up, Ponytail! Bad mocha tastes like deep-fried ass, but the good stuff combines the best of coffee with the best of chocolate and makes life worth living.
And never, ever, EVER get it out of a vending machine or you will get precisely what you deserve.
November 16th, 2008 at 2:13 am
First off, I really would love a copy of that calendar…
But as to the food, my biggest disappointment has to be celery. It looks so tasty with the peanut butter and raisins and chocolate chips that they used to serve as “ants on a log” in pre-school. It’s also really temptingly crunchy and delicious and guilt free when all you actually need is the ‘crunch’ factor. I was horribly let down when I realized that I can’t even smell it without feeling sick, let alone eat it. It’s the texture, the scent, everything. People try to tell me that celery “has no smell” but man are they wrong. I’ve started to think I’m allergic to it, and am thus super aware of it…
November 16th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Ponytail, I’ve found that when it’s vending machine mocha or none, it’s much better if I mix half regular coffee and half mocha. The machine mocha is far too sweet and far too chocolaty straight. Even my local coffee shop will make it that way, and it’s excellent.
November 16th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Crewbie, anyone who tries to tell you celery has no smell must not have a working nose. It has a very definite scent of its own.
November 17th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I’m with Kimdog on the “Turkish Delight” When I went to Britain on study abroad I was delighted, after years of Narnia, to see a Turkish Delight candy bar. It turned out to be an oddly gelatinous raspberry goo in bad chocolate. Sadness.
However , I was in a Turkish grocery in north Chicago a few years ago and they had Turkish delight in the bakery case. I ordered two little squares, and was happily surprised. They wouldn’t turn me to the dark side or anything, but it turns out that a well made one tastes like a very soft gummy bear made of very fresh fruit. Pretty yummy. The soapy problem is probably a westerner’s response to things flavored with rose water. If you see them again Kimdog- don’t buy one unless they have flavors other than rose!
November 18th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Crab cakes, I don’t want to taste bready filler! I want the sweet delicateness of crab. Instead I am always horribly let down.
November 18th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Blue crab. My mother waxed poetic for years about the little critters. I’ve eaten Dungeness crab every Christmas Eve for half of my life, so this all sounded pretty good.
We attended a blue crab boil on the eastern shore of Virginia with a huge chunk of my dad’s family, and I managed to get through 2-3 crabs before giving up and eating a cheeseburger. They are incredibly labor intensive for what you get and I was afraid I’d starve to death in front of a pile of food. Argh.
April 5th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
This site covers almost identical stuff… That’s strange…
April 25th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
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