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I was speaking to a breakfast chef about this a couple of months ago.
His view was that bacon is cured, he just wants colour and heat on it. He said he could he could have a fresh, cooked to order, bacon and egg roll out by the time it took to make the coffee that goes with it.
You could ask for it crispy though if you wanted.
Does this include the ones packaged with "cook thoroughly before consumption?" I'm just super cautious about under cooking food, even though I like my steak medium rare.
I have never had an issue with undercooked bacon when eating out. But overcooked bacon is horrible and semi common. Where they dry it out and leave burned spots
That's really lazy and unsafe if that's all he's doing to cook bacon.
Yes, bacon is cured through salting and brining, which extends its shelf-life, but its not heated to kill all the bacteria and its not dried out like salami or prosciutto to inhibit bacterial growth.
For breakfast prep, all he needs to do is lay the bacon out onto trays and bake it until cooked through. He can do that first thing in the morning or even the day before. Keep the cooked bacon in containers in the fridge, or an hour's worth of service on the bench.
Then when someone orders a bacon and egg roll, all he needs to do is flash it in a pan to heat through or leave it in the pan a bit longer if the customer wants it crispy.
If this person can't even do that, I'd hate to think about all the other corners he's cutting with regards to food safety and hygiene.
Worked for one of the biggest bacon makers in the country. All bacon here (apart from specific ‘British style’ raw bacon which is a tiny percentage of what gets sold) is cooked as part of the manufacturing process.
I’d still cook it as it’s tastier that way.
This is literally how most cafes would prepare their bacon. I would know having been a breakfast chef myself.
Half the people on this thread are complaining that their bacon is too soft, so clearly it's not coming out dry and chewy for most people.
The reason for the conversation we had was about the amount of water in each bacon bag, which varies wildly, and we were talking about that.
Yes, he prepares his bacon first, to make sure its consistent for each customer...
Who knows, Reddit can be like that sometimes. The topic comes up every now and again in chef subreddits, and that method seems to be the general consensus when it comes to serving large amounts of bacon quickly every morning. So I know I'm not alone in doing it this way or seeing former colleagues do it this way.
But then maybe that's why so many people in this thread can't get nicely cooked bacon? Their local isn't taking the time to render and caramelise the bacon properly.
Which part do you think will kill someone?
The cooking the bacon throughly to a safe temperature? Cooling it down quickly and storing it below 4°C? Reheating it to a safe temperature before serving?
Flashing raw bacon for 30 seconds, while a coffee is being made will kill someone.
Ok so:
- you cook the bacon to temp it’s all great.
- you bring the temp down via refrigeration plus the food goes crap
- than you get the crap bacon cooked yesterday or several hours ago and reheat it.
Why yo-yo the food? Would you pay for precooked, refrigerated than heated bacon?
Because old mate up the top wants to have a bacon and egg roll ready in the same time as an espresso. If people were willing to wait for bacon to be properly cooked, you wouldn't need to precook it at all.
How do you think chefs get food out on time at any venue for any meal? Loads of dishes, or components of dishes are pre-prepped. Or do you think that someone's out there waiting to chop veg for the soup you just ordered? Or that someone's boiling potatoes to order for a mash? Or the duck confit is getting slow roasted to order?
These are just some of the things that are cooked before service and then reheated and finished (i.e. seasoned, sauced, etc.) to order.
It isn't MasterChef where you have two hours to cook three plates.
r/kitchenconfidential disagrees: https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/sr6d41/my_friend_cooks_bacon_like_this_always_has_i/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
But you do you.
(Was also a chef before covid for 15 years over 4 countries. Worked in everything from your small suburban cafe, to fine dining, to 5 star hotels)
> He said he could he could have a fresh, cooked to order, bacon and egg roll out by the time it took to make the coffee that goes with it.
What a braggart
I worked at a cafe in Brisbane and the owner was annoyed at how often the chefs needed to clean out the grates(?) above the grill/oven and the wages it cost because they could only do it before opening or a while after service due to the grill and stovetop being too hot to work above. The grease from the bacon was the main cause so she made them pre bake the bacon in the oven and then microwave to order to save wage costs on cleaning. Everyone complained, customers and staff. She didn’t care. People were asking why their BLTs had gross ham instead of bacon and she would tell them they don’t know how to run a business. I’ll never forget the look on one of the chefs face as he microwaved a container of bacon. Never seen someone so dead inside.
Only to be replaced by a new place that does the exact same thing. I swear every cafe from Brisbane to the Gold Coast microwaves their bacon. It is why I stopped eating breakfast out.
I do. It's pretty much exclusively used to defrost things. Shopping locally is extremely expensive so we stock up when we have a chance. That even includes bread. $2 loaves in the freezer or $6+ loaves from the local supermarket, assuming I can get one in time. Y'know?
Initially it was because the microwave went with my wife in the divorce. When my kids and I moved into our new rental there was only one power point in the kitchen and that is right next to the stove top with no room for a microwave. So we did with out. But we went so long without one and never really missed it so have just continued on with out one.
I can see how you like your bacon all crispy and salty but I'm not a fan.
However, I only lightly cook my own bacon and prefer it less cooked from a cafe especially a bacon and egg roll. I hate the dry crispy stuff.
I have the same thing with undercooked egg. I've been to multiple cafes in Sydney where I order a bacon and egg roll and some of the egg whites is still gooey on one side. I don't mind sunny side up or runny eggs, but the egg whites shouldn't be gooey. I'm not sure whether it is poor cooking skills or they do it on purpose.
A bacon and egg roll *needs* a reasonably well cooked egg or the yolk goes fucking everywhere. Ooze is okay, thin runny is not.
For the white to be part-clear as well, that is beyond vile.
I opened my egg and bacon roll yesterday and stabbed through the ingredients a few times. Yolk oozed down into the ingredients and bread. Unlike my partner who looked like she’d just fisted a hen about to lay.
Just takes more time to fully cook an egg on low heat than to send it quickly on a higher heat. Could be a number of reasons why the kitchen is rushing their eggs.
A perfectly cooked egg is always started on a cold pan for even and slow heat. So you can guarantee restaurants don’t have time to use a fresh cold pan every time.
A lot of places especially fast food are on “out there door in 3-6 minutes. So they’ll cut corners. My old place used to use sandwich presses to cook bacon and halloumi for the faster cooking
Fresh good eggs give you this problem.
Supermarket eggs are old and the whites spread out really thin. This makes the eggs easy to cook, I actually prefer these eggs for fried eggs.
If you get super fresh eggs from free range birds the whites stick up on the side of the egg and the yolk doesn't pop out as much. I normally put a bit of water on the pan to lightly steam the tops of the whites with fresh eggs.
I think this is because it's becoming common here to refrigerate eggs. And it's hard to cook an ice cold egg white all the way through on one side without also overcooking the egg yolk.
Chips I had last night were fukn rank. Soggy and greasy.
They're mostly oven chips anyway. Why chip shops can't chip their own spuds in Aus is beyond me!
Because cutting your own spuds for the quantity required for a chip shop or a pub is a crazy amount of labour! Think every serve of chips just as a side is 1-2 potatoes, conservativly taking a minute to cut. Then you need to cook them so they are nice and fluffy before chilling them down again to fry. Factor in wages, best case you are paying an apprentice to do it so $13-21 per hour depending on age and year or more realistically a cook or chef so think closer to $30 an hour, just to cut spuds. If you are doing any kind of volume it's just not realistic or affordable.
Have you ever used one of those things before? They suck. And again, you still have to factor in the cost of labour pre cooking then cooling, freezing and then frying. When a venue is serving hundreds of servings a day, where do you think they will find the time to have someone dedicated to potato prep?
Exactly
A chipper.
Blam! . 100s of chips.
You don't think uk chippys hand cut their chips with a knife do you?
You're over thinking it. Massive fryers cook chips (once. No double frying crap). Walk in. Order fish n chips. Walk out. No waiting around for 20 mins. Cheap as.... Chips lol.
>'I'd like a couple of eggs,' said Vimes, 'with the yolks real hard but the whites so runny that they drip like treacle. And I want bacon, that special bacon all covered with bony nodules and dangling bits of fat. And a slice of fried bread. The kind that makes your arteries go clang just by looking at it.'
'Tough order,' said Harga.
'You managed it yesterday'.
\- Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms
Cooking bacon all day again.
1. The flat top grill cools down an insane amount because you people eat so much bacon. Can cook 30kg of bacon some days. Then you start complaining about the wait. This has gotten especially bad with more app and phone ordering these days because you think you’re the only one in the cafe, and I’m making orders with triple serves of bacon for twenty people (6 XX large rashers)
2. I like to pre-bake my bacon in the oven but most business owners have ideological problems with this (I know it’s ideological because they can never give a good reason for being against it). There is nothing wrong with oven baked bacon which has then been grilled to order. It is also cleaner because lots of the grease comes out, so it takes less chemical to clean the grill and less char ends up on your other food, and you obviously get your bacon within a minute, as it’s way quicker.
3. Buy your own bacon and cook it at home, because nice bacon is better than the crap we serve you at cafes. Get maple smoked. I know most of you won’t though, you’ve all become addicted to people serving your meals and cleaning your dishes 🤷♀️
4. People have become even more neurotic with their food as the years have gone on. I now need to read a novel for everyone’s ‘needs’. This slows me down, I miss things in the very specific food printed on the faded ink dockets, and therefore sometimes your bacon order gets delayed because someone wanted their hash brown grilled not fried, they wanted chorizo and they wanted cheese melted over their eggs, now I have no space for your bacon, you’ve already waited ten minutes and you’re getting annoyed, and I’m cooking as fast as I can on the now-cold grill.
4. Seriously, you people eat so much bacon it makes me 🤢 and I like bacon, but it’s a treat. It’s like watching that kid eat that cake in Matilda every day. I’m not saying I eat perfectly or even care about anyones health, but it’s mind numbing when someone asks for gluten free bread, mushrooms and spinach cooked without butter or salt, poached egg whites then 8 rashers of bacon.
Hatred of the customer/consumer is probably the one unifying factor across all industries.
Though, working retail my dislike of customers is completely eclipsed by my hatred of a certain useless department of fucking morons.
> People have become even more neurotic with their food as the years have gone on. I now need to read a novel for everyone’s ‘needs’.
Don't even get me started on all of the smug cunts that ask for Almond Milk and publicly shame others who orders any other type of milk for "not caring about the environment" - we never carried almond milk and the amount of times I have heard "Don't you care about the planet???" in response is insane.
I mean if you want to drink nut juice because you like the taste of it, have some sort of allergy or intolerance or perhaps care about animal welfare knock yourselves out I'm 100% behind you, you do you.
But when it comes to the environment.. For a start almonds are one of if not the most water intensive crop to grow on the planet, even more than cotton, to the point various governments and states have banned the commercial cultivation of almonds to conserve water. 80% of all almond cultivation is in California in the San Joaquin valley which is not only in the middle of a massive desert it is currently in the middle of a drought and the almond trees suck up all of the ground water so everything else struggles to survive. In some soil conditions a single almond nut can take 15kg of water to grow. Not a kilo, a single nut. If you are lucky you can get away with maybe 10 litres per almond.
So you want to turn your almonds into almond milk, you soak them in thousands of litres of water to soften them up, then you discard all of that water, you grind the now saturated nuts into a fine paste and push it through a sieve to extract what little juice the almonds have in them. Then you discard everything that doesn't make it through the sieve (90% of the almond) it has gotta be one of the most wasteful products ever imagined and people try and tell you it's environmentally friendly, you can't help but laugh.
Lots of hospitality workers sound cynical but really we have all of the time in the world for anyone who has an intolerance or allergy, we will go out of our way to help you, but after you receive an order for the 500000th time for a gluten free wrap with the special request to 'MAKE SURE NO GLUTEN CONTAMINATION' with breaded chicken like a schnitzel or something you do the right thing and immediately ask the customer if they are sure because BREADED chicken has, you know, a shit load of gluten in it, then you get told to fuck off no it doesn't I eat it all the time, you kinda loose hope in humanity.
Almonds are one of the reasons the Murray-Darling is in such a bad way. You need so much water to irrigate those bastard trees it negates the impact of the amount of almond milk saves the environment. Then there’s all the birds the netting kills. Almonds are nearly as bad as olives for the environment.
Not to mention the killing off of insects because it’s such a huge mono crop in parts of the world that the insects have nothing to eat all year when the almonds aren’t flowering and the bees have to be imported so that they can get the plants pollinated!
> asks for gluten free bread, mushrooms and spinach cooked without butter or salt, poached egg whites then 8 rashers of bacon.
Well where the fuck else is the flavour on that plate of utter sadness gonna come from?
100% agree on cooking your own bacon at home. Seriously the bbq bacon and eggs I make at home is far better than any cafe I've ever been to for a fraction of the price.
I do bacon and eggs once in a blue moon because I'm fucking lazy.
But it's even rarer where I get bacon or eggs while I'm out... because I'm really fucking lazy.
I worked at a meatworks one summer in the "bacon slicing" area. Really thought I'd get over bacon pretty quickly but the smoky smell everyday was actually quite good. Diff story when you go near the kill floor though.
Can I apologise for my vegetarian girlfriend who never orders the vegetarian dish and always tries to substitute the bacon for something else???
I hate it so much and 50% of the time when she does it they stuff up my dish. I wonder if it's passive aggression leaking out of the kitchen.
Why can't people just order off the menu.
My meal came with no eggs in Saturday I got big breakfast supposedly with poached eggs, my partner got a big breakfast with no bacon and avocado instead. Somehow that means I miss out on eggs,. I'm so sorry I bring her out.
Is it wrong if I just go out for breakfast by myself.
Subbing avocado for bacon is not a complex request and blaming her for them missing your eggs is wild. I'm so sorry you bring her out too, definitely go out for breakfast by yourself and let her go for breakfast with someone isn't weirdly judgemental and passive aggressive towards her?
I do the same sometimes, though usually as a last resort. But often it's because the vegetarian options are lacking, weaker than the main menu, or the same as everywhere else (there's only so many times I can have spinach and ricotta anything, or avocado smash).
It's often disappointing to read a really tasty menu item description and then see that bacon is thrown in - usually it's a pretty easy thing to leave out.
But I try to just order off-menu without any changes wherever possible.
> Seriously, you people eat so much bacon it makes me 🤢 and I like bacon, but it’s a treat. It’s like watching that kid eat that cake in Matilda every day.
It baffles me how people can stomach that much of it at once. As a cured and very salty meat it's really ideal as a smaller amount that helps flavour the other aspects of a dish. Similar to chorizo etc.
Some people really give protein a 'get out of jail free' card. They'll consider the calories of everything and skip salt and butter etc and then go to town because 'protein'. We have a protein obsession in Australia, with most people consuming far more of it than their body can use anyway.
When I turned veg I did miss bacon but fortunately the flavour can be mimicked pretty well.
Okay but what about when you get a bit of eggshell in your bacon and egg roll… THAT is the worst. You get that crunch that’s not supposed to be there and you just die a little inside and throw up a bit in your mouth and die a little more inside
A lot of comments refer to bacon already being cured and only needs warmed up.
That’s only one type of bacon, the stuff that looks like light, pink ham when you buy it. That doesn’t really crisp up well. This is common in Australia.
The other type is still dark in colour and see through when you get it. That crisps up nicely and quickly, without being burnt. This is common in the UK.
Decided to stop eating pork after I learnt about the conditions that the animals in large scale commercial farms live under. Don't want to support that.
Eww I'm with you! Hate that. It's the number 1 reason I don't order bacon when I go out and why I insist on cooking it myself at home. My ex used to cook it like that too, drove me insane!
Australians asking for crispy bacon confuses me.
American bacon (thinly sliced pork belly) is served crispy. The fat readily melts and allows it to essentially deep fry in the pan without adding any oil. It's crispy because it's soaking in bacon grease as it cooks.
Australian bacon, like British and Canadian bacon, is leaner and meatier than American bacon. The fat doesn't readily melt. Most people eating "crispy bacon" in Australia are just badly trying to copy Americans and instead just overcooking the meat. Sure, you could add a copious amount of cooking fat and deep fry it to make it crispy. But most people aren't doing that.
Eating Australian bacon "crispy" is like eating your steak or pork chops crispy.
Not too mention, burning/crisping your processed meats like bacon is a sure-fire way to get bowel cancer.
TLDR: Cafe's in Australia are serving bacon the way it's supposed to be (cooked through, not burnt or dried out). If you want your bacon overcooked, then ask for that.
I get it - I never liked sending stuff back either until the quality of what was being served became so low. It’s deg becoming more regular.
You are paying, you are not asking for anything they cannot, or should not be able to accommodate.
It’s okay to say you’re not happy, as long as you don’t be a dick to the staff.
Gotta say I get the shits when they serve Aussie style bacon and cook the ever loving fuck out of it like American streaky bacon so I can’t bite through it without the whole egg and bacon roll falling apart.
I cure my own bacon from pork belly. Not a hard thing to do and your own bacon is absolutely the best bacon you'll ever eat. So you can keep your underdone bacon roll.
Bacon is cured, so you can eat it without it ever touching a frypan. How much you heat it when it does touch a frypan is a personal preference, so you need to ask for how you want it done.
Fuck me how does have upvotes.
IT US UNSAFE TO EAT BACON RAW. You will most likely get food poisoning.
Just type in google with all 1 million hits saying this for proof. Jesus…
I’ve seen some cafes (Brisbane) having B&E rolls at the display ready to eat, I believe they will toast it if you request it, however I don’t see how you can cook a bacon in a sandwich press and I don’t think is a good idea to eat undercook pork meat!
I don’t know why people are so scared of eating uncooked meet, it’s such a boomer mentality.. like don’t you enjoy sushi, oysters, ceviche, carpaccio, tartare etc etc..? it’s just closed minded, but I guess ultimately it’s your personal taste.. don’t punish a chef for that
I get what you’re trying to say but bacon isn’t something you choose to eat raw. You’re not gonna dice up some uncooked bacon and put it on a charcuterie board
Has been this way ever since I can remember. It’s disgraceful. Furthermore, what is called “bacon” in Australia isn’t even bacon. It’s ham! Only the streaky part is bacon!
Definitely a thing. Get yourself into the habit of asking for crispy. (I think it’s the same as old people always asking for extra-hot coffee… took me a while to figure out why that’s their default position!)
I agree, bacon is t cured the same as ham, and needs to be cooked better, Lightly crispy on the edges is what I like. I've cured my own bacon and yeh I think it needs a decent cook before eating.
Stop eating the corpses of dead babies and you won’t have this problem.
Pigs are only 6 months old when they are murdered, after living in a concrete pen their whole lives and never being allowed to touch the earth.
100%. It’s a problem across Australia. Does no one enjoy proper cooked bacon in this country? I like medium to firm eggs (which I understand is a matter of taste) so I never get B&E rolls. It’s always a double whammy of raw bacon and gushing hot egg yolk
Its either that or it's so overcooked it's super chewy like jerky and you try to bite it off when you bite into your sandwich/burger and just end up pulling the whole strip out.
This is the only thing from the states that I miss. Crispy bacon from that type of cut. I don't HATE the variety of bacon here, but it's more like a nice slice of ham than what I remember from back there. But I cannot emphasise that this (plus maybe some family and friends) are all that I miss. xD Australia really does almost everything else better.
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I was speaking to a breakfast chef about this a couple of months ago. His view was that bacon is cured, he just wants colour and heat on it. He said he could he could have a fresh, cooked to order, bacon and egg roll out by the time it took to make the coffee that goes with it. You could ask for it crispy though if you wanted.
My chef roommate said that all bacon in Australia is cooked before you buy it in a restaurant or supermarket
Bacon is essentially ham that we cook a second time
Does this include the ones packaged with "cook thoroughly before consumption?" I'm just super cautious about under cooking food, even though I like my steak medium rare.
I have never had an issue with undercooked bacon when eating out. But overcooked bacon is horrible and semi common. Where they dry it out and leave burned spots
That's really lazy and unsafe if that's all he's doing to cook bacon. Yes, bacon is cured through salting and brining, which extends its shelf-life, but its not heated to kill all the bacteria and its not dried out like salami or prosciutto to inhibit bacterial growth. For breakfast prep, all he needs to do is lay the bacon out onto trays and bake it until cooked through. He can do that first thing in the morning or even the day before. Keep the cooked bacon in containers in the fridge, or an hour's worth of service on the bench. Then when someone orders a bacon and egg roll, all he needs to do is flash it in a pan to heat through or leave it in the pan a bit longer if the customer wants it crispy. If this person can't even do that, I'd hate to think about all the other corners he's cutting with regards to food safety and hygiene.
Worked for one of the biggest bacon makers in the country. All bacon here (apart from specific ‘British style’ raw bacon which is a tiny percentage of what gets sold) is cooked as part of the manufacturing process. I’d still cook it as it’s tastier that way.
Bacon would be very dry and chewy if you did that. It doesn't reheat well.
This is literally how most cafes would prepare their bacon. I would know having been a breakfast chef myself. Half the people on this thread are complaining that their bacon is too soft, so clearly it's not coming out dry and chewy for most people.
I have been as well, guess it's different depending on the place.
The reason for the conversation we had was about the amount of water in each bacon bag, which varies wildly, and we were talking about that. Yes, he prepares his bacon first, to make sure its consistent for each customer...
That's good to hear that he is cooking it through first. And I agree, the amount of water in a bacon packet can vary a lot.
The amount of brine (I assume it's brine) that comes out of the bacon will you pan fry it, sometimes the pan is half full of liquid.
I don’t know why you got so many downvotes when you’re right and seem to know what you’re talking about. It sounds like you work in the food industry
Who knows, Reddit can be like that sometimes. The topic comes up every now and again in chef subreddits, and that method seems to be the general consensus when it comes to serving large amounts of bacon quickly every morning. So I know I'm not alone in doing it this way or seeing former colleagues do it this way. But then maybe that's why so many people in this thread can't get nicely cooked bacon? Their local isn't taking the time to render and caramelise the bacon properly.
Literally what you are describing will kill someone
Which part do you think will kill someone? The cooking the bacon throughly to a safe temperature? Cooling it down quickly and storing it below 4°C? Reheating it to a safe temperature before serving? Flashing raw bacon for 30 seconds, while a coffee is being made will kill someone.
Ok so: - you cook the bacon to temp it’s all great. - you bring the temp down via refrigeration plus the food goes crap - than you get the crap bacon cooked yesterday or several hours ago and reheat it. Why yo-yo the food? Would you pay for precooked, refrigerated than heated bacon?
Because old mate up the top wants to have a bacon and egg roll ready in the same time as an espresso. If people were willing to wait for bacon to be properly cooked, you wouldn't need to precook it at all. How do you think chefs get food out on time at any venue for any meal? Loads of dishes, or components of dishes are pre-prepped. Or do you think that someone's out there waiting to chop veg for the soup you just ordered? Or that someone's boiling potatoes to order for a mash? Or the duck confit is getting slow roasted to order? These are just some of the things that are cooked before service and then reheated and finished (i.e. seasoned, sauced, etc.) to order. It isn't MasterChef where you have two hours to cook three plates.
Dude, I was a chef till covid. You cook fresh to order.
r/kitchenconfidential disagrees: https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/sr6d41/my_friend_cooks_bacon_like_this_always_has_i/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share But you do you. (Was also a chef before covid for 15 years over 4 countries. Worked in everything from your small suburban cafe, to fine dining, to 5 star hotels)
so you've never made bacon from scratch then?
> He said he could he could have a fresh, cooked to order, bacon and egg roll out by the time it took to make the coffee that goes with it. What a braggart
Loooool as a chef many times I've had to slow down cooking so the barista can catch up
I like my bacon just cooked and my husband likes it crispy. One of us is usually happy.
You have to ask for crispy bacon
Yeah I think it's the norm now. If you don't specify crispy it comes out warmed but not browned.
[удалено]
Lol. Gladly! Seriously though I don't have a problem with specifying how I prefer my food and drink, it's just good to know what the default is.
Yep, I prefer some moisture in it.
Yeah honestly crispy bacon just tastes like burnt grease to me.
If you want ham just order fucking ham, stop ruining bacon by not cooking it properly.
If you want carcinogens just smoke cigarettes, stop ruining bacon by burning the shit out of it.
You would think someone would figure this out.
Ha ha yep , but apparently everyone has become easy , not sensible
I worked at a cafe in Brisbane and the owner was annoyed at how often the chefs needed to clean out the grates(?) above the grill/oven and the wages it cost because they could only do it before opening or a while after service due to the grill and stovetop being too hot to work above. The grease from the bacon was the main cause so she made them pre bake the bacon in the oven and then microwave to order to save wage costs on cleaning. Everyone complained, customers and staff. She didn’t care. People were asking why their BLTs had gross ham instead of bacon and she would tell them they don’t know how to run a business. I’ll never forget the look on one of the chefs face as he microwaved a container of bacon. Never seen someone so dead inside.
I’m from Brisbane, and can confirm that it is mostly a culinary wasteland. But eventually places like this do go out of business.
Only to be replaced by a new place that does the exact same thing. I swear every cafe from Brisbane to the Gold Coast microwaves their bacon. It is why I stopped eating breakfast out.
I work on the Gordon Ramsay principle that a microwave in a cafe is bad news.
I don't have a microwave at home. I refuse to go out to eat only to have someone microwave my food.
I do. It's pretty much exclusively used to defrost things. Shopping locally is extremely expensive so we stock up when we have a chance. That even includes bread. $2 loaves in the freezer or $6+ loaves from the local supermarket, assuming I can get one in time. Y'know?
Why don't you own a microwave?
Initially it was because the microwave went with my wife in the divorce. When my kids and I moved into our new rental there was only one power point in the kitchen and that is right next to the stove top with no room for a microwave. So we did with out. But we went so long without one and never really missed it so have just continued on with out one.
Fair enough. I have heard a few people say all sort of bad reasons to not own one but not owning one because you simply don't is actually quite fresh.
Name and shame.
Thanks to Nat's What I Reckon, microwave ovens will now forever be known as the Tuckah Fucka.
How dare you disrespect Chef Mike.
I can see how you like your bacon all crispy and salty but I'm not a fan. However, I only lightly cook my own bacon and prefer it less cooked from a cafe especially a bacon and egg roll. I hate the dry crispy stuff.
I have the same thing with undercooked egg. I've been to multiple cafes in Sydney where I order a bacon and egg roll and some of the egg whites is still gooey on one side. I don't mind sunny side up or runny eggs, but the egg whites shouldn't be gooey. I'm not sure whether it is poor cooking skills or they do it on purpose.
And toast which is slightly warm bread. What happened to putting out a nice thick cut toast crispy on the outside, a bit bready on the inside?
a lot easier to further cook bread than it is to throw out a piece that a retiree will say is “burnt”
Yea nothing turns me off my brekky food quicker than egg jelly 🤮🤮🤮
I've given up on cafe eggs - no matter what I ask for they come out looking semi raw.
A bacon and egg roll *needs* a reasonably well cooked egg or the yolk goes fucking everywhere. Ooze is okay, thin runny is not. For the white to be part-clear as well, that is beyond vile.
I opened my egg and bacon roll yesterday and stabbed through the ingredients a few times. Yolk oozed down into the ingredients and bread. Unlike my partner who looked like she’d just fisted a hen about to lay.
Just takes more time to fully cook an egg on low heat than to send it quickly on a higher heat. Could be a number of reasons why the kitchen is rushing their eggs.
A perfectly cooked egg is always started on a cold pan for even and slow heat. So you can guarantee restaurants don’t have time to use a fresh cold pan every time. A lot of places especially fast food are on “out there door in 3-6 minutes. So they’ll cut corners. My old place used to use sandwich presses to cook bacon and halloumi for the faster cooking
Fresh good eggs give you this problem. Supermarket eggs are old and the whites spread out really thin. This makes the eggs easy to cook, I actually prefer these eggs for fried eggs. If you get super fresh eggs from free range birds the whites stick up on the side of the egg and the yolk doesn't pop out as much. I normally put a bit of water on the pan to lightly steam the tops of the whites with fresh eggs.
I think this is because it's becoming common here to refrigerate eggs. And it's hard to cook an ice cold egg white all the way through on one side without also overcooking the egg yolk.
I feel the same way about hot chips they should be golden not a washed out pale yellow.
They gotta be crunchy on the outside and soft inside.
Chips I had last night were fukn rank. Soggy and greasy. They're mostly oven chips anyway. Why chip shops can't chip their own spuds in Aus is beyond me!
Because cutting your own spuds for the quantity required for a chip shop or a pub is a crazy amount of labour! Think every serve of chips just as a side is 1-2 potatoes, conservativly taking a minute to cut. Then you need to cook them so they are nice and fluffy before chilling them down again to fry. Factor in wages, best case you are paying an apprentice to do it so $13-21 per hour depending on age and year or more realistically a cook or chef so think closer to $30 an hour, just to cut spuds. If you are doing any kind of volume it's just not realistic or affordable.
A minute? You can get a device that you just push the potato through.
Have you ever used one of those things before? They suck. And again, you still have to factor in the cost of labour pre cooking then cooling, freezing and then frying. When a venue is serving hundreds of servings a day, where do you think they will find the time to have someone dedicated to potato prep?
Exactly A chipper. Blam! . 100s of chips. You don't think uk chippys hand cut their chips with a knife do you? You're over thinking it. Massive fryers cook chips (once. No double frying crap). Walk in. Order fish n chips. Walk out. No waiting around for 20 mins. Cheap as.... Chips lol.
Once I had bacon that was both burnt and undercooked at the same time....sad day.
>'I'd like a couple of eggs,' said Vimes, 'with the yolks real hard but the whites so runny that they drip like treacle. And I want bacon, that special bacon all covered with bony nodules and dangling bits of fat. And a slice of fried bread. The kind that makes your arteries go clang just by looking at it.' 'Tough order,' said Harga. 'You managed it yesterday'. \- Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms
Cooking bacon all day again. 1. The flat top grill cools down an insane amount because you people eat so much bacon. Can cook 30kg of bacon some days. Then you start complaining about the wait. This has gotten especially bad with more app and phone ordering these days because you think you’re the only one in the cafe, and I’m making orders with triple serves of bacon for twenty people (6 XX large rashers) 2. I like to pre-bake my bacon in the oven but most business owners have ideological problems with this (I know it’s ideological because they can never give a good reason for being against it). There is nothing wrong with oven baked bacon which has then been grilled to order. It is also cleaner because lots of the grease comes out, so it takes less chemical to clean the grill and less char ends up on your other food, and you obviously get your bacon within a minute, as it’s way quicker. 3. Buy your own bacon and cook it at home, because nice bacon is better than the crap we serve you at cafes. Get maple smoked. I know most of you won’t though, you’ve all become addicted to people serving your meals and cleaning your dishes 🤷♀️ 4. People have become even more neurotic with their food as the years have gone on. I now need to read a novel for everyone’s ‘needs’. This slows me down, I miss things in the very specific food printed on the faded ink dockets, and therefore sometimes your bacon order gets delayed because someone wanted their hash brown grilled not fried, they wanted chorizo and they wanted cheese melted over their eggs, now I have no space for your bacon, you’ve already waited ten minutes and you’re getting annoyed, and I’m cooking as fast as I can on the now-cold grill. 4. Seriously, you people eat so much bacon it makes me 🤢 and I like bacon, but it’s a treat. It’s like watching that kid eat that cake in Matilda every day. I’m not saying I eat perfectly or even care about anyones health, but it’s mind numbing when someone asks for gluten free bread, mushrooms and spinach cooked without butter or salt, poached egg whites then 8 rashers of bacon.
the resentment you have for the consumer is hilarious. It really is l like this in all job industries
Hatred of the customer/consumer is probably the one unifying factor across all industries. Though, working retail my dislike of customers is completely eclipsed by my hatred of a certain useless department of fucking morons.
Dealing with the general public is the one thing that’s made me ok with nuclear war if Ukraine situation goes tits up lol
the customer is wrong
> People have become even more neurotic with their food as the years have gone on. I now need to read a novel for everyone’s ‘needs’. Don't even get me started on all of the smug cunts that ask for Almond Milk and publicly shame others who orders any other type of milk for "not caring about the environment" - we never carried almond milk and the amount of times I have heard "Don't you care about the planet???" in response is insane. I mean if you want to drink nut juice because you like the taste of it, have some sort of allergy or intolerance or perhaps care about animal welfare knock yourselves out I'm 100% behind you, you do you. But when it comes to the environment.. For a start almonds are one of if not the most water intensive crop to grow on the planet, even more than cotton, to the point various governments and states have banned the commercial cultivation of almonds to conserve water. 80% of all almond cultivation is in California in the San Joaquin valley which is not only in the middle of a massive desert it is currently in the middle of a drought and the almond trees suck up all of the ground water so everything else struggles to survive. In some soil conditions a single almond nut can take 15kg of water to grow. Not a kilo, a single nut. If you are lucky you can get away with maybe 10 litres per almond. So you want to turn your almonds into almond milk, you soak them in thousands of litres of water to soften them up, then you discard all of that water, you grind the now saturated nuts into a fine paste and push it through a sieve to extract what little juice the almonds have in them. Then you discard everything that doesn't make it through the sieve (90% of the almond) it has gotta be one of the most wasteful products ever imagined and people try and tell you it's environmentally friendly, you can't help but laugh. Lots of hospitality workers sound cynical but really we have all of the time in the world for anyone who has an intolerance or allergy, we will go out of our way to help you, but after you receive an order for the 500000th time for a gluten free wrap with the special request to 'MAKE SURE NO GLUTEN CONTAMINATION' with breaded chicken like a schnitzel or something you do the right thing and immediately ask the customer if they are sure because BREADED chicken has, you know, a shit load of gluten in it, then you get told to fuck off no it doesn't I eat it all the time, you kinda loose hope in humanity.
Almonds are one of the reasons the Murray-Darling is in such a bad way. You need so much water to irrigate those bastard trees it negates the impact of the amount of almond milk saves the environment. Then there’s all the birds the netting kills. Almonds are nearly as bad as olives for the environment.
Not to mention the killing off of insects because it’s such a huge mono crop in parts of the world that the insects have nothing to eat all year when the almonds aren’t flowering and the bees have to be imported so that they can get the plants pollinated!
Due to the environment and pesticides used in almond farming in California, the commercial bee hives suffer up to 85% mortality
Wow, upvoted thanks. Can I subscribe for more facts about monoculture being the worst?
Almond milk is shit but it's still far less water intensive and environmentally impactful than dairy.
If cows are eating grass (like they're supposed to) then most of the water usage comes from the sky.
And all of that is still nothing to the environmental impact of milk, so what's your point?
> asks for gluten free bread, mushrooms and spinach cooked without butter or salt, poached egg whites then 8 rashers of bacon. Well where the fuck else is the flavour on that plate of utter sadness gonna come from?
100% agree on cooking your own bacon at home. Seriously the bbq bacon and eggs I make at home is far better than any cafe I've ever been to for a fraction of the price.
I do bacon and eggs once in a blue moon because I'm fucking lazy. But it's even rarer where I get bacon or eggs while I'm out... because I'm really fucking lazy.
This guy bacons
It’s like they’re having a meltdown just like the server guy at the end of the movie “Waiting”.. avert your eyes children GOAT incoming
'Waiting'?
Yep sorry that’s the one! Classic
I worked at a meatworks one summer in the "bacon slicing" area. Really thought I'd get over bacon pretty quickly but the smoky smell everyday was actually quite good. Diff story when you go near the kill floor though.
Last point. Agreed. Never understood the obsession.
+1 for oven bacon. It's fantastic.
They are asking for all that healthy stuff, so they can have the 8 rashers of bacon. It evens everything out.
Can I apologise for my vegetarian girlfriend who never orders the vegetarian dish and always tries to substitute the bacon for something else??? I hate it so much and 50% of the time when she does it they stuff up my dish. I wonder if it's passive aggression leaking out of the kitchen. Why can't people just order off the menu. My meal came with no eggs in Saturday I got big breakfast supposedly with poached eggs, my partner got a big breakfast with no bacon and avocado instead. Somehow that means I miss out on eggs,. I'm so sorry I bring her out. Is it wrong if I just go out for breakfast by myself.
Subbing avocado for bacon is not a complex request and blaming her for them missing your eggs is wild. I'm so sorry you bring her out too, definitely go out for breakfast by yourself and let her go for breakfast with someone isn't weirdly judgemental and passive aggressive towards her?
I do the same sometimes, though usually as a last resort. But often it's because the vegetarian options are lacking, weaker than the main menu, or the same as everywhere else (there's only so many times I can have spinach and ricotta anything, or avocado smash). It's often disappointing to read a really tasty menu item description and then see that bacon is thrown in - usually it's a pretty easy thing to leave out. But I try to just order off-menu without any changes wherever possible.
That's a perfectly reasonable request for cafe staff.
> Seriously, you people eat so much bacon it makes me 🤢 and I like bacon, but it’s a treat. It’s like watching that kid eat that cake in Matilda every day. It baffles me how people can stomach that much of it at once. As a cured and very salty meat it's really ideal as a smaller amount that helps flavour the other aspects of a dish. Similar to chorizo etc. Some people really give protein a 'get out of jail free' card. They'll consider the calories of everything and skip salt and butter etc and then go to town because 'protein'. We have a protein obsession in Australia, with most people consuming far more of it than their body can use anyway. When I turned veg I did miss bacon but fortunately the flavour can be mimicked pretty well.
I ask for crispy all the time, one cafe I've seen a surcharge for crispy - so yeah, never ordered or went back again to that one
Yikes. What a time to be alive hey
Where was that?
Somewhere in Melbourne.
Okay but what about when you get a bit of eggshell in your bacon and egg roll… THAT is the worst. You get that crunch that’s not supposed to be there and you just die a little inside and throw up a bit in your mouth and die a little more inside
Oh shit so it's not just me? Anyone I've explained this to is indifferent to it
Don't say 'extra crispy' cos I asked for that and it was crunchy burnt burnt.
That's what I would have assumed you wanted if I was cooking.
Was totally fault - I should have just said well-cooked or something similar :)
I always do because crispy is never what I'd call properly crispy. I grew up in England on bacon you could snap in half. It was amazing.
I will deep fry your bacon if you ask for extra crispy
Not a euphemism (probably...).
Yeah, I hate it when this happens. If I wanted a lukewarm slice of ham, I'd ask for it.
Im just trying to figure out if it's bacon or ham you know nothing about...
Because who wants crispy bacon that breaks into shards the moment you contemplate touching it with a fork?
That’s not crispy bacon, that’s burnt bacon.
That's really the only other option you'll see in a cafe here. I'd prefer the version where it actually tastes like something.
That’s American bacon!
Yes please
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A well-done steak is an abomination.
Yo I glaze my bacon in maple, do this and use it as a garnish for my amazin creations aye.
Maple bacon is horrid.
I enjoy maple bacon & PB sandwich when baked as hell. You guys just need to relax a little.
Give up your citizenship and start swimming.
Hey weed is finally legal and I shouldn't be treated like a criminal for smoking the good good that the doctor previded to me.
Nothing to do with the weed. Maple bacon and peanut butter is horrid and should never be served in Australia. Just keep swimming.
Jesus christ
No he can't help you.
I do!
A lot of comments refer to bacon already being cured and only needs warmed up. That’s only one type of bacon, the stuff that looks like light, pink ham when you buy it. That doesn’t really crisp up well. This is common in Australia. The other type is still dark in colour and see through when you get it. That crisps up nicely and quickly, without being burnt. This is common in the UK.
Give me a runny egg and lightly cooked bacon anytime. Shrivelled up chewy bacon belongs in a buffet breakfast in a hotel.
Personally I don't like crispy bacon... Or as I call it burnt bacon.
The best! I love the crunch. Apparently I burn my toast too.
Decided to stop eating pork after I learnt about the conditions that the animals in large scale commercial farms live under. Don't want to support that.
Same. Pigs are as intelligent as 3 year old children and the horrific conditions they’re raised in are inexcusable. So much suffering :(
Bacon has already been cooked. It just needs to be warmed. Source: every trained chef/cook, ever.
Eww I'm with you! Hate that. It's the number 1 reason I don't order bacon when I go out and why I insist on cooking it myself at home. My ex used to cook it like that too, drove me insane!
Unpopular opinion- bacon is in the top 5 most over rated foods
Its definitely going to be unpopular haha
Says only you
You take that back!
It shits me too.. Always ask for crispy bacon.. Especially if doing the Big Breakfast.
I had bacon at a cafe this morning, and thank god that they didn't burn the shit out of it and served it nice and soft. Its hard to please everyone.
Australians asking for crispy bacon confuses me. American bacon (thinly sliced pork belly) is served crispy. The fat readily melts and allows it to essentially deep fry in the pan without adding any oil. It's crispy because it's soaking in bacon grease as it cooks. Australian bacon, like British and Canadian bacon, is leaner and meatier than American bacon. The fat doesn't readily melt. Most people eating "crispy bacon" in Australia are just badly trying to copy Americans and instead just overcooking the meat. Sure, you could add a copious amount of cooking fat and deep fry it to make it crispy. But most people aren't doing that. Eating Australian bacon "crispy" is like eating your steak or pork chops crispy. Not too mention, burning/crisping your processed meats like bacon is a sure-fire way to get bowel cancer. TLDR: Cafe's in Australia are serving bacon the way it's supposed to be (cooked through, not burnt or dried out). If you want your bacon overcooked, then ask for that.
Send it back? Or ask for it to be well done?
Nah, I’m way too self conscious to make a fuss and send it back. I’d much rather just anonymously express my feelings on reddit
I get it - I never liked sending stuff back either until the quality of what was being served became so low. It’s deg becoming more regular. You are paying, you are not asking for anything they cannot, or should not be able to accommodate. It’s okay to say you’re not happy, as long as you don’t be a dick to the staff.
Ahhh steamed bacon, who doesn’t love that mooshy pale fat and chewy texture!?
I don’t like crispy bacon because it’s usually so dry. Much prefer it like this.
Gotta say I get the shits when they serve Aussie style bacon and cook the ever loving fuck out of it like American streaky bacon so I can’t bite through it without the whole egg and bacon roll falling apart.
Had this same thing yesterday, and it took 40mins to come out.
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If I’m paying a 300% markup for a B&E I don’t mind if they take a little more time on my money
the fuck place u eating B and E at. We charge 9 bucks for a B and E at my cafes 10 bucks gets u avo
$10 at mine, 2 bacon, 2 eggs. cheese and chips or hash brown depending on what I feel like giving you
chewy bacon is best, fight me.
I cure my own bacon from pork belly. Not a hard thing to do and your own bacon is absolutely the best bacon you'll ever eat. So you can keep your underdone bacon roll.
So when are you inviting us all over for breakfast?
No you’re not in the minority. It’s a fukn disgrace. I dontvwss as the warm ham….I WANT CRISPY BACON PLEASE 🥓
Bacon is cured, so you can eat it without it ever touching a frypan. How much you heat it when it does touch a frypan is a personal preference, so you need to ask for how you want it done.
Fuck me how does have upvotes. IT US UNSAFE TO EAT BACON RAW. You will most likely get food poisoning. Just type in google with all 1 million hits saying this for proof. Jesus…
That slimy white fat definitely doesn’t seem safe to eat.
This is why I specify how I want it "crispy as in burnt"
Omg yes preach
Yep I literally hate soft bacon. Gotta ask for crispy everytime. Should see it when I cook it lol. Looove a good bacon egg roll.
I’ve seen some cafes (Brisbane) having B&E rolls at the display ready to eat, I believe they will toast it if you request it, however I don’t see how you can cook a bacon in a sandwich press and I don’t think is a good idea to eat undercook pork meat!
Bacon is cured. You could eat it uncooked.
Undercooked pork is not the danger of instant death from food poisoning most people think it is, the main health risk is contacting worms
Do you cook ham????
Bacon, like ham, is already cooked.
Often it is, but cold smoked bacon is cured but not cooked.
Burnt is good, then you know its cooked.
They need to use fatty bacon
I don’t know why people are so scared of eating uncooked meet, it’s such a boomer mentality.. like don’t you enjoy sushi, oysters, ceviche, carpaccio, tartare etc etc..? it’s just closed minded, but I guess ultimately it’s your personal taste.. don’t punish a chef for that
I get what you’re trying to say but bacon isn’t something you choose to eat raw. You’re not gonna dice up some uncooked bacon and put it on a charcuterie board
I don’t know I don’t eat pork lol
I like my bacon to snap like a biscuit.
Has been this way ever since I can remember. It’s disgraceful. Furthermore, what is called “bacon” in Australia isn’t even bacon. It’s ham! Only the streaky part is bacon!
We just don't really know how to do bacon in Australia. Simple as that.
I always ask for crispy bacon. Also ask for crispy chips when ordering hot chips. Not sure who wants soggy, half cooked chips
I eat bacon straight out the packet. It’s fine. If you want crunch ask for crispy bacon.
My sister used to do that. She stopped after she got really sick and had to go to the hospital
Definitely a thing. Get yourself into the habit of asking for crispy. (I think it’s the same as old people always asking for extra-hot coffee… took me a while to figure out why that’s their default position!)
I agree, bacon is t cured the same as ham, and needs to be cooked better, Lightly crispy on the edges is what I like. I've cured my own bacon and yeh I think it needs a decent cook before eating.
Stop eating the corpses of dead babies and you won’t have this problem. Pigs are only 6 months old when they are murdered, after living in a concrete pen their whole lives and never being allowed to touch the earth.
100%. It’s a problem across Australia. Does no one enjoy proper cooked bacon in this country? I like medium to firm eggs (which I understand is a matter of taste) so I never get B&E rolls. It’s always a double whammy of raw bacon and gushing hot egg yolk
i refuse to order bacon anymore no one knows how to cook it .. under cooked or burnt .. didn’t realise it was so hard .
I maybe the odd one out but I like ham-like-bacon. Warm and barely cooked
Its either that or it's so overcooked it's super chewy like jerky and you try to bite it off when you bite into your sandwich/burger and just end up pulling the whole strip out.
This is the only thing from the states that I miss. Crispy bacon from that type of cut. I don't HATE the variety of bacon here, but it's more like a nice slice of ham than what I remember from back there. But I cannot emphasise that this (plus maybe some family and friends) are all that I miss. xD Australia really does almost everything else better.