The Delicious Dilemna

This unit is about how mechanics and technology play their roles in processing our food. Throughout this unit, we also discussed how mass producing corporations get their profits. In this assignment, we were asked to pick any dish and write a review on the dish when it came from the restaurant and then we were supposed to make it at home and compare the two. It was amazing to me how similar the two dishes were, it makes me realize that I can make my favorite dishes at home and know what's in my foods because I made it! After this unit, I like to analyze foods a lot. To know what these industries are doing with our food is astonishing. I definitely am more careful with the foods I put into my body, now.

Food Review 1 (Restaurant):

LR, "BBQ Bacon Cheddar Wedges at The Italian Pizza Kitchen" 5/23/14, Chicago

This is my view on the dish from the restaurant: I ate at the Italian Pizza Kitchen on 1433 N. Dayton St. My dish was one of their big money makers: The Chipotle Bacon Cheddar Wedges. They used to be a bit too spicy for my liking. I asked around and some people thought it would be smart to substitute the Chipotle sauce for Barbecue sauce. It was such a brilliant idea that I tried it the next time I went. These wedges with the BBQ sauce are quite soggy, but not too soggy. It feels as if it was drenched in sauce with a layer of different ingredients on top. The dish seems to have an assortment of different ingredients. The bacon gives the dish a wonderful kick of salt and crunchy texture. Since I like bacon a lot, it came to my attention that everything else on the dish stood out more in taste than bacon did. You could feel the bacon in your mouth, but you couldn’t taste it. It gave the wedges a crunch but all you taste is Barbecue sauce and cheese. Now the smell is a whole different story, you can definitely smell the bacon in the dish. It had a Barbecue bacon smell. The barbecue outweighed everything in the smell department but you could still smell the bacon. The two smells combined, making some type of barbecue bacon smell.


The tangy taste from the Barbecue sauce made the dish a bit sweet also. This dish, being more salty than anything, is definitely unhealthy. I’m sure when we think of healthy foods, pigs, cheese, and potatoes don’t come to mind but we do have to keep in mind that good, healthy food is hard to come by nowadays. Aside from my dish being unhealthy, it was quite fresh. As opposed to any dish from McDonalds’ industrial food choices, it looked steaming hot and the holding container was foggy. When you open it up, smoke comes out immediately, unleashing the beautiful aroma of the Barbecue bacon. Imagine crispy wedges with melted cheddar cheese spread across the top of them. Smoke coming off of the well-cooked bacon like it just came off the stove, on top of everything happening, the wedges are also drenched in barbecue sauce.


At the Italian Pizza Kitchen, Home of The Barbecue Bacon Cheddar Wedges, the wedges cost $5.00 +tax. For my homemade version of the wedges, the bacon alone costs more than the dish at the restaurant ($5.99)! The prices speak for themselves; the quality determines the price, which determines the profit. If a restaurant knows that they have low quality ingredients then they can sell their food at a price that will guarantee them a profit. These restaurants are focusing on “quantity over quality.” This means that these people that work for these companies are mass producing food at the expense of nutritional value. Most of us don't take into consideration the quality of our food but just look at the price. A reason why it was better to make my food at home is because I know what I'm putting in my food. I thought the restaurant dish had too much salt, so I bought better quality, low-sodium bacon instead. 

Food Review 2 (Homemade): 

DR, "Homemade Loaded Wedges" 5/26/14, Chicago

The homemade version of my Loaded Wedges were quite tasty. Although I didn’t acquire all the ingredients of the restaurant version, I think I did a pretty good job. They tasted similar. The biggest difference had to be the barbecue sauce; it wasn't the taste, it was the amount! Although Garland Jack's Barbecue Sauce is not very unique, I taste a little bit of a difference in the two barbecue Sauces. The barbecue sauce I used for the homemade dish was sweeter, as opposed to the restaurant’s BBQ sauce which had a stronger taste. One ingredient in my barbecue sauce was Potassium Sorbate which is actually safe to consume and is used to prevent the growth of mold. Maybe the restaurant BBQ sauce is homemade, that could make a huge impact on the comparison of the two. My homemade dish was not organic but pretty fresh. The BBQ sauce was pre-made and processed but the cheddar had a very strong smell. When I picked up one of the fries it started to break apart and fall off the fork. The freshly cut wedges hit your mouth with a very cheesy taste. As barbecue dripped off the wedges, you could smell the fresh potatoes. 

Recommendation/ Preference:

I would prefer the homemade meal over the restaurant meal because of the freshness of the ingredients. When I bite into the very delicate, fresh cut, potato wedges you can taste all the ingredients working together. As opposed to the restaurant meal, you can taste the fresh cheddar and you feel more secure eating food that you make your self.