Don't nuke my muffin!

Okay, there are lots of worse things in life - wars, famine, Justin Bieber - but the thing that outrages me the most is when I order a muffin and it is given to me microwaved. Instead of a fresh pastry to go with my morning coffee, I get a bubbling, soggy mass of goo. This is even worse when it comes to chocolate muffins. I assume it is ploy by the likes of Starbucks to either pass off stale muffins as fresh, or recreate that 'freshly baked' taste by bombarding the muffins with neutrons. I really am angry about this... I am so angry.

I hate restaurants that cut corners.

no mayo in a BLT.

order the finest Kiwi lamb chops, only to get a rush nuken job a tough as boots.

worse breakfast in HK ever... Toast box! I'll never return!

and then there are the shops that will give you the Gwai-lo special.

under weighting and over changing...

would love to start making examples of the really bad culprits.

White Kiwi Trash. Yes, I have worked that one out. My problem is that nuking is now the default setting for muffins. This wasn't always the case. I could walk into Starbucks without a care in the world, order a choclate muffin and a coffee - and that's what I'd get. Now I have to introduce a whole new raft of syntax - which is always checked by the assistant ("Are you sure you don't want it warmed up?") - before I get anywhere close to the realtive simple 'one coffin and a chocolate muffin' oredr. I suspect it's the result of some crap brainstorming session at Starbucks. By the way, have you seen that film with Michael Douglas - the one where he goes into a fast-food restaurant with a gun and demands a fresh-looking burger? I'm not quite in that position yet but if you ever see a Hong Kong police SWAT team surrounding Starbucks, you'll know what is happening.

The rot is now spreading. CitySuper now default toasting baguettes which contain lettuce. Who toasts lettuce?

I think all this toasting and nuking is done on food that the server can't relate to or understand, so hasn't a clue how it's supposed to be served. How many times have you ordered something you know and love from "home", such as mushroom soup or Caesar salad (two of my recent examples) and what you get hasn't even the remotest basic similiarity to what it should be?


Mushroom soup: a weak, greyish broth made of (I think) sweetened tapioca with two or three tiny bits of dried mushroom floating in it, along with what appeared to be croutons and were, I guess, croutons, but made from stale sweet bread. So basically a bowl of cold, thin, tapioca liquid masquerading on the menu as mushroom soup.


Caesar salad: Limp, watery lettuce soaked in a white sweet and sour "dressing" of unknown origin with bits of tomato on top. Served with a shaker of Kraft (alleged) Parmesan cheese.


I firmly believe that some restaurant cooks, in wanting to appeal to westerners, look at a photo in a book of a food item and then try to create the recipe without having a clue what's really in it. That is backed up by the time my friend ordered "tomato soup" and got a bowl of red sweet and sour sauce.

KateInHongKong. I don't think this is the problem. I think there is some management directive from above because it is applied acroos the board. ANyway, no more muffins for me. I'm switching to an Asian diet.