Former Hook chef Barton Seaver and I were trading e-mails on another subject when he hit me with this rant on truffle oil. It was so goddamn funny (and on-target) that I asked him if we could publish it on City Desk. He agreed.

Another rant for you off subject. Truffle oil. What the fuck!  I simply do not understand for the life of me why chefs, good chefs, use truffle oil. It is a fake product that smells like the distorted reality of a bad acid trip. The overwhelming majority of the truffle oil used is actually cheap oil perfumed with chemicals. Real truffles are too expensive to make oil out of them and are much better when used fresh. Do chefs really think that we the guest are fooled by this fake luxury? It’s like buying your girlfriend a louis vuitton bag off the streets of Georgetown.

Mind you these are chefs who only use ‘the freshest ingredients’. And oh, by the way, truffle oil tastes and smells like pure poo poo. I have had fresh truffles of every type and they are worth the money. But truffle oil is not a quality product. If it were it would cost lots and lots of money just like the truffles that it is supposedly made from.

Sorry for the rant but I nearly threw up in a restaurant because of truffle oil that I did not expect. It really is like morning breath. Gross.