Sultans of ping: microwaves in restaurants | Life and style | guardian ...

Cooking vegetables in a microwave oven. Photograph: Neil Holmes/Alamy

It was billed as a "warm goat's cheese tart" ? an innocuous enough item on a pretty undistinguished menu. But when it eventually arrived, the goat's cheese was molten lava and the puff pastry sinking into soggy submission. It was clear that my starter had been subjected to an intense encounter with a microwave oven, and it was so unpleasant, and boded so ill for the rest of the meal, that we cancelled our main course order, paid the bill and ? there's no other word for it ? flounced. To this day, when my partner and I walk past the restaurant in question, we make a point of saying "ping!" as loudly as we can. We may forgive, but we do not forget.

It appears that I'm not alone in my intolerant stance on the use of microwaves in restaurants. In a 2011 review of The Rose and Crown in Snettisham (which, incidentally, succeeded in mortally offending the entire population of Norfolk), the critic AA Gill wrote: "The staff were charming and friendly. The menu is, they say, 'a mixture of the traditional with a contemporary twist'. I suspect the twist is the timer on the microwave." Ouch.

A 2010 documentary for French television lamented that standards of cooking are collapsing as industrially produced ready-meals, untrained cooks and microwave ovens take the place of traditional skills and fresh ingredients in high-end restaurants. And who hasn't perused the menu at a "gastro-pub" and noted with a sinking heart the lack of anything grilled and the tell-tale inclusion of cottage pie, lasagne and "authentic" curries that suggest the absence of any actual cooking and the lurking presence of a well-stocked freezer and much-used microwave?

But there are restaurants at both ends of the scale that nuke with pride. Gaby's Deli on Charing Cross Road is a favourite with celebs and foodies alike ? so much so that its threatened closure earlier this year spawned protests, petitions and a Facebook page. But place your order for salt beef or falafel and the food is put into the microwave ? there, right before your eyes! ? and seems none the worse for it. The legendary Ferran Adri? of El Bulli cooks a sponge cake using a plastic cup, nitrous oxide and a microwave. Heston Blumenthal has extolled the virtues of the microwave for producing perfectly cooked fennel, and Daniel Galmiche of The Vineyard at Stockcross has gone so far as to enter into a Faustian pact with Panasonic that sees him blogging enthusiastically about microwaved potato gratin, mussels and even chocolate tart.

Whether it's because of concerns about the health effects of microwaves on food (almost universally discredited but perpetuated by David Icke and the like), or the more sensible belief that microwave use is a way for restaurants to cut staff costs by dispensing with the skills required to cook food ? la minute, with attendant disregard for quality, it can be hard to persuade restaurateurs to fess up to the presence of a microwave in the kitchen. Heston Blumenthal's PR office told me loftily that the technology used at The Fat Duck is "far above that level" ? so no more perfect fennel, then? A query to the Tragus Group, operator of Strada, Bella Italia and Cafe Rouge, met with a coy, "We have a very limited of number [sic] dishes and ingredients which require microwave use."

Guy Awford, chef and founder of two of my favourite local restaurants, Inside and Guy Awford at the Guildford Arms, was more forthcoming. "We have small microwaves in both restaurants," he says, "and they're useful for warming up small amounts of couscous and rice, which needs to be kept in the fridge until just before service." Ian Riley, chef at the much-praised Cornercopia in Brixton Village Market, is similarly pragmatic. "At Cornercopia we work as sustainably as possible, and to save using the stove I melt and clarify butter in the microwave. It's indispensable for that; it melts the butter quickly and evenly. But ... It's a cheat to use them a lot."

Some of the best home cooks I know happily turn to their microwaves for scrambling eggs, defrosting batch-cooked chilli and bolognese sauce, melting chocolate and cooking porridge. Although I don't have one in my own kitchen, I'm rather partial to nuked Innocent Veg Pots and sometimes think it would be worth sacrificing some counter space for the convenience of quickly warming a bowl of soup or defrosting vegetables.

But in a restaurant? I still feel uncomfortable. Perhaps it's just snobbery. Should we embrace the microwave as a planet-friendly, economical piece of kit in the professional kitchen? Or would you, too, be tempted to call for the bill and leave in a huff if you heard the tell-tale ping before your starter arrived?

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/aug/28/microwaves-in-restaurants

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