A Whiff
I have a sensitive nose, or so people tell me. I don’t think anything of it, sometimes it’s more of a curse than a blessing. As a kid, I complained about things that I unconsciously picked up from the smell. If I pick up even the faintest smell of garbage going bad, rotting fish, vomit, or anything unsanitary, it would freak me out. And growing up in Taiwan, those were very REAL concerns, a survival mechanism. So anyway, my nose is sensitive, and that can be helpful sometime.
When I walk by or walk in to a restaurant, I can pretty much assess the everything from the smell. The scariest restaurants are ones where neither the outside nor the inside smells like food. These are the retort / nuke everything restaurants that don’t actually cook anything. Even if food comes out in to the dining area, it doesn’t smell like anything because everything about it has been cooked to death, nuked to death, and it’s pretty much just a pile of soulless, flavorless, useless dead things. Those types of things don’t smell like anything, so that is the most dangerous kind of restaurant, because it is in fact, NOT a restaurant. No cooking happens, no real food comes out.. so wtf is anyone doing there? Evacuate!
There are some universal good signs. These are elementals.. components that indicate you may be in the presence of something great.
1. Seared meats. That’s always a good thing. There is a precise smell of meat a the perfect sear. Sear a bunch of meat a home, and learn that smell. It’s very distinct, and I can pick it up from miles away. Learn it. Identify it. Go near it. Eat it.
2. Wines, alcohol. Not to drink, but used in cooking. When you can smell the wine in cooking, and it’s being handled sensitively enough that you can still recognize it as wine, there is a high chance the food is going to be good. Go in to any great restaurant, and I can guarantee you it will smell like wine. Much wine will be imbibed by the guests, and most times you can already smell it from the outside.
3. Fresh herbs and produce. This is somewhat rare, but some restaurants smell like raw herbs. It’s faint, but you can pick it up. And of course, the cooking is going to use lots of fresh herbs. You probably won’t see any dried herbs in any dish. Sometimes you can smell fresh produce too. Fresh celery, fresh leeks. Those are great signs. You don’t want to just smell celery though. You need to learn what “fresh” produce smells like, as in when the produce is healthy and raw. It should be vibrant and full of life. It’s like a switch for me. When I smell it, I feel blessed, loved, and I smile.
4. Fresh spices. This is a hard one. You go to an Indian curry place and just get bombarded with spices right. That’s not what I’m talking about. When it’s fantastic, even in an Indian curry place, you’d be able to pick apart the spice bomb to its individual elements. When spice is handled with skill and care, it doesn’t just become a mush of noise and mystery. It’s supposed to retain definition, stay sharp. It’s like smelling flowers, or freshly cut fruits. I used Indian cooking as an example, but this pertains to so much of any cooking. Sausages? 99% of humanity has not tasted fresh sausage. It’s not supposed taste like it’s filled with “goodness” that you can’t identify. That’s just white noise. Great sausage with very clearly tell you what’s in it, and what is going on. Like, in full color HD with surround sound. IMAX, even.
5. Mystery. From earlier observations, you may think that mystery is bad. I think if everything is jumbled together and becomes unidentifiable, that’s bad. That’s not mystery, it’s just chaos and anarchy. Mystery is actually something precise. It’s something you can pick out and clearly identify as something you do not know. When I walk in to a restaurant, and can identify 6 things in the air, their temperature, and what’s being done to them... but find 2, 3 things where I’m like, wtf?? That’s jackpot. I’m eating there. If the whole place is a mystery, but I can separate them into distinct things and say, ok, there are 6 things but it’s all a mystery to me. That’s probably a jackpot too. It’s all unknown, but not chaos. That shows promise. It’s intrigue, or enchantment. If it’s just a sludge of chaos and mystery food stuffs, get out. Egress, egress.
Smell is very convenient for me, and very helpful. I’m surprised not everyone smells in as much detail as I do. I mean, all humans smell right.. and I don’t think I’ve particularly trained my nose (ok, other than going to culinary school). Aren’t all our noses trained? Well, I have to admit though, sometimes when I smell people cooking at home, I quietly make an assessment. Sometimes I come across excellently cooked food that I’m quite certain would beat 90% of all restaurants out there. Most restaurants are not only un-great.. they’re very, very bad. They’re covered in chaos, anarchy, and self deception. I mean, they serve what doesn’t really pass as food, and they’re called restaurants, so plenty of deception there. Train your nose. It will guide you to real, good food.
BTW, the word “fresh” is overused. Yelp, Google reviews, everywhere. People are like “the food tasted fresh”, “the sushi was fresh”. Eff you right. Eff all these people. People do not know what fresh means. Most people’s palate is completely destroyed, and of course their nose is effectively not there. People eat saw dust, garbage straight out of the compost bin, chew on cardboard, drink battery fluid mixed with antifreeze, and give 4, 5 star reviews. It’s sad, because part of it is not the guest’s fault. Well prepared food that is actually fresh, AND also tastes fresh is extremely rare. It’s technically difficult to do, and it’s also more expensive. So, ya, people don’t know fresh. How can they if they’ve never come in to contact with fresh. I think you can use how many times the word fresh was used in a review to rate its level of BS. And on the cooking side man... we need to provide more fresh. People need to know.













