Saltier Foods? Or is it just me?

I’m supposed to be posting on the last segment of my Macau trip. But I thought I’d write about this issue first.

Now, my family and I eat out quite a lot. And in general we tend to lean towards foods that are more full bodied and stronger in flavor. We like our food creamy, salty, sweet, sour etc. No bland stuff for us thank you.  Of course over the years, we’ve mellowed out a bit and have taken to switching to healthier options (less salt, less oil, less sugar) but most of us haven’t totally transcended to healthy eating and we still enjoy our sinful roast porks and as for me… I still love my desserts.

So… it is to my utter surprise that of late, I find myself complaining that the food served outside is very salty!

Its not just at one or two place, but quite a few. Some at restaurants, some at hawker stalls. At one particular outlet, our soup was just too salty that all of us couldn’t stomach it. The outlet gladly changed it for us (i think by watering it down), but commented that their chef thought it was fine!

My grandpa is champion of salty foods. He has a very high threshold for salt. And yet, even he is finding his food salty!

I am appalled. Is this the current trend? Why the heavy hand in using salt? Is it to cover up for the lack of flavor? Is it to slyly encourage us to order more drinks?

So what I’m curious to know is, do you my dear readers, agree with me that our restaurants and hawkers are being too overly generous with their salt? Or have my tastes buds gone haywire? What say you?

17 comments

  1. The best way is to tell the server that we take less salt less oil 🙂 they probably will come out something suite us. Most commercialized kitchen are over flavoured , so to play safe for our meal, we should tell them our requirement.

  2. I agree that nowadays foods are becoming more and more salty and occasionally you will find that you are thirsty after meal. Some of the places i visited are very popular but leaving you extremely thirsty too (many MSG involved) like KhunThai Thai Restaurant in Prai area, buffet spread in E&O Hotel, and many more that i couldn’t remember now. Some of the food are not good (which explain the reason of high salt content) and some are just plain lazy to taste it to know the exact amount needed.

  3. I think both ways. We are getting more health conciuos thus we are adding less or no salt to our home cooked meals plus outside food is adding more salt or the chef smokes cigarette and his taste buds is whacked more and more each day thus unconsiously add extra salt to their receipe

    More salty means more stronger taste to the dish and make you more thristy and buy more drinks from them???? that’s evil…..

    Alan´s last blog post..Invite: Te Chang You Tiao Wang

  4. I personally think it’s the overdose of MSG. A lot of people are using it instead of salt and pepper. But I’ve been eating a lot at the same places so it still tastes the same to me! It sould just depend what type of dish it is.

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