先週、昼食を買いにシカゴのミツワマーケットへ行ったところ、特別企画として牡蠣弁当が販売されていた。知り合いに勧められて購入してみたが、飲食業に携わっている立場からすると、25ドルを超える価格設定はかなり高く感じた。写真を見ると分かるように、カキフライも入っている。しかし、この程度のクオリティであれば、今どきは冷凍品でも見分けがつかないレベルだ。むしろ、使われているのは冷凍のカキフライではないかと思う。最近の冷凍食品は非常によくできており、味も十分においしい。今回の牡蠣は、冷凍牡蠣の特徴がよく表れているように感じた。特に、大きさが均一であることと、衣の仕上がりが冷凍品特有の見た目をしている点だ。なぜそう思うかというと、私のレストランでも冷凍のカキフライを使用しているからである。牡蠣一つひとつに手作業でパン粉を付けた場合、このように均一な形にはなりにくい。そのため、見た目からも冷凍品である可能性が高いと感じた。そして実際に食べてみると、ご飯は1インチもないほど薄く広げて盛り付けられており、卵焼きも冷凍品が使われていた。もちろん食材の仕入れ価格や人件費の高騰は理解できるが、価格と内容のバランスを考えると満足度はあまり高くなく、個人的には次回購入することはないと思った。
Last week, I went to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Chicago to buy lunch and noticed they were selling a special oyster bento. A friend recommended it, so I decided to give it a try. However, coming from a restaurant business background, I felt that the price was quite high—over $25 for a bento.
As you can see in the photo, it also came with fried oysters. That said, the quality was at a level where it would be difficult to tell whether they were freshly made or frozen. In fact, I suspect they were frozen fried oysters.
To be clear, today’s frozen foods are very good and can be quite delicious. In this case, though, the oysters showed several characteristics that are common with frozen products. In particular, they were all very uniform in size, and the texture and appearance of the breading looked exactly like frozen fried oysters.
The reason I can tell is because we also use frozen fried oysters at our restaurant. When each oyster is breaded by hand, they usually don’t end up looking this perfectly uniform. Based on the appearance alone, I believe there is a good chance they were frozen products.
When I actually ate the bento, I noticed that the rice had been spread very thinly—less than an inch thick—and even the tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet) appeared to be a frozen product.
Of course, I understand that food costs and labor expenses have increased significantly. However, considering the overall value for the price, I wasn’t very satisfied. Personally, I don’t think I would buy it again.
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