When I first opened up Bang Bang Burgers, figuring out how we would serve the burgers, sauces, fries and sides all had to be painstakingly considered.  I needed to decide whether or not to serve lettuce and tomato with every burger and whether or not to serve the burgers with the sauces already on the burgers or on the side.  Guests rarely think about these things, but as the restaurant owner, these details can sometimes make or break you.

I can share that whenever I wasn’t sure about how I should do something when it came to food presentation or recipes, I would think back to how I would make the food for myself.  Growing up in an Taiwanese American family, eating pizza, spaghetti with meatballs, mac and cheese, hamburgers were all treats that I would savor.  My grandmother would make me snacks when I came home from elementary school and she would prepare American style meals with dinner rolls, meat and potatoes and I loved it.

What makes a great meal for me is variety in flavors, textures, and temperatures.  Putting sauce all over everything you’re eating to make everything uniform in flavor takes away some of the enjoyment in my opinion.  So, what does this have to do with the little spoon you will find in the ramekin when we serve the sauce on the side?

My idea had always been to have guests put the sauce a bit at a time in the area where they were biting.  So, the sequence might be one bite without sauce, another with sauce, another without and so on.  I’d argue that the reason why people slather sauce over everything at one time is for convenience like if you were driving and eating for example.  If you only have one hand to eat, putting sauce over everything might make sense.  But if you’re sitting at a dinner table and are looking to really enjoy your meal as opposed to eating as quickly as possible, my suggestion for enjoying yourself is to put a little bit of sauce at a time.

That’s what the little spoon is for.

Thanks for reading…

Joe