I have been on my official journey of learning how to cook like a chef for many months now. Since December of 2023. I have watched countless hours of cooking shows, cooking documentaries, read and listened to multiple books on cooking, and it wasn’t until now, six months later from my decision to learn how to cook like a professional chef, that it clicked. The importance of salt. Don’t laugh, it’s not like until now I hadn’t been salting my food, it has been quite the contrary. On multiple occasions have I accidentally over salted my food, but it didn’t  truly click with me, until not moments before I jumped off the couch, startling my wife to run and grab my laptop in order to start writing with frantic enthusiasm about this new, groundbreaking food epiphany. Salt is absolutely one of if not the most important ingredient in food. Practically no food exists without it. Even the sweetest desserts that we know and love have a little bit of salt in it to enhance the flavor. 

I know what you must be thinking,” well duh, ProFesSoR”! And I agree it is a ridiculous irony that the book I have been reading for the last couple of months is literally a book titled Salt Fat Acid Heat by the incredible chef, author, and icon Samin Nosrat (can you tell I’m a fan?). This book is all about the four pillars/ fundamentals of cooking and Salt is the first one! How has it taken me until now to realize this?

Well, I’m  so glad you asked (which by clicking on this post, you kind of did ask). As I said previously, it’s not that I wasn’t aware of the importance of salt in a dish, for many months I have been studying and learning how to salt my food, and for the most part, I’ve felt like I’ve just been guessing. Salting to taste, which is as any good cook should do. I’ve been studying when to salt, where to salt, how to salt, what salt to use (If you’re curious, I’d recommend reading Samin’s book, it’s really useful. But for simplicity’s sake, the chef and cook standard tends to be Diamond Crystal Kosher salt. I’ll go into detail about why later. And yes, I’ll most likely cite Samin because she is a genius.).

 Anyway, I have done my due diligence, and I felt like I have made headway. I have recognized how my food tends to taste better when I add salt, but more often than not I struggle with balancing it with everything else. It wasn’t until today, when my wife and I had gone to a mall for an impromptu date to the apple store to pick up a computer we had brought to the apple store for repairs. It was then we decided to grab lunch at a nearby restaurant that from a quick google search had pretty solid reviews. I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I should put this restaurant on blast, and in the process of writing this sentence, I have made the decision to go ahead and name them and if anyone working there or in ownership sees this, they can no I mean no ill will towards them or their restaurant but hope maybe as I have learned from my experience, they can learn from it as well…

So we went to Doc B’s. A classy but still casual dining restaurant. The building has a really interesting atmosphere, it is sharp and clean, with a warm moody lighting, a sense of modernism but the hardware and the seating has almost a fifties diner style. The seats are all a deep diner red, but the walls are shades of gray with some low glow neon- like signs. There’s a sense of minimalism and nostalgia about it. It’s tough to describe but if a space could be lowkey but also somehow be a bit loud (visually) then that is the best way I could define this place. They wanted you to feel like you were in a fine dining restaurant, but that you could still dine in flip flops, shorts and a tank top and not feel unwelcome.  The bar is immaculate and filled to the brim with a gorgeous variety of spirits and liquor. Each table has a bright red pepper shaker, a bottle of delicious Louisian Crystal hot sauce and salt shaker with kosher salt instead of the usual table salt inside. This blew my mind. It was a genius decision in my opinion, because many people will mindlessly add salt to a professionally made dish, that should already be salted to perfection, and the use of this kosher salt, may help prevent some salt happy customer who doesn’t know any better from oversalting with regular table salt. 

Well, I guess it’s time for me to explain why most chefs and cooks like to use Kosher salt. I won’t go too deep into describing how different types of salt work the way they do, for that I once again will refer you to Salt Fat Acid Heat (Shoutout Samin!) Essentially because of how they are produced there are some salts that are saltier than others. I know, it’s crazy, but all those different salts you see at the store, if you took the time to taste them, they would of course all taste salty, but they would taste different. Some salt would taste stronger, some would taste lighter, or in the best of terms, less salty. If you take table salt for instance, which often has iodine in it, the iodine will add a slightly metallic taste, but the table salt in itself will be intensely salty. Table salt in simplicity is very dense, whereas Diamond Crystal Kosher salt is less dense, hence less salty, and therefore it is easier to control salt levels in your food. Which is why chefs and cooks like it, because it allows them to really fine tune just how much salt goes into your food. Now, there is also Morton Kosher salt, which should be noted is not the same as Diamond Crystal salt. Morton Kosher salt is twice as salty as Diamond Crystal. So no, not all Kosher salt is the same, Morton and Diamond Crystal have different methods in order to produce salt, hence the difference in saltiness. I do not know what makes the salt itself kosher, but if I ever find out, I will be sure to tell you. Once again, if you want a less butchered version of this explanation see Samin.

Now that you understand that Kosher salt and table salt are different, we can get back to the table. You might be wondering, Drew, how did you discover that the salt in the salt shaker was kosher salt? Well, I tasted it. Do I taste the salt on the table at every restaurant I go to? No, but I may start doing so now!

I will say I did notice that the salt in the shaker did look flakier than regular table salt, so I tasted to be sure and I am pretty sure, but I can’t be 100% if it was specifically Diamond Kosher salt, but it was about the same level of saltiness. This was an incredible detail! Not something that I feel like many restaurants pay attention to. Every restaurant should do this. Diamond Crystal Kosher salt isn’t much (if at all) more expensive than table salt. And it is, by almost all accounts, a better quality salt. It is more precise because of its lower saltiness, a person can really hone a dish to their preference without risking oversalting their food as much. Now you still can oversalt with Diamond Crystal, but it takes a lot more than regular table salt. 

This little attention to detail and the quality of the hot sauce on the table (I tasted it too, it’s simple but delicious) made me think I was about to have a truly incredible meal! The kitchen was also completely visible behind a huge wall of glass. It looked immaculate behind there, and I even asked my wife if she thought they might let us take a look at the kitchen after lunch. She didn’t really have an answer. We never ended up asking. 

Their menu, I will admit, felt like it was a pretty standard american cuisine with a little bit of asian fusion thrown in. The menu wasn’t particularly themed, but it did seem dishes were deliberately picked rather than just thrown onto the page. Their most popular dish was the buttermilk fried chicken, hence the Louisiana hot sauce at each table, which I was eager to try, as I am an absolute sucker for good Louisiana fried chicken. Willie Mae’s Scotch House being my favorite, with Coop’s Place as a close second. 

I had my mind made up, until I let our waitress convince me to try a different dish, the Honey Truffle pan fried chicken. It was still fried chicken even though it wasn’t southern style, but had a creamy  honey, butter truffle sauce, with yukon gold potatoes and arugula with balsamic vinegar and some italian cheese I can’t remember off the top of my head. The waitress had mentioned that it was one of the best items on the menu. I had appreciated her insider knowledge so I decided to give it a shot. While my wife picked the Ahi Tuna Mango and Ginger salad. 

I ordered an unsweetened iced tea, which tasted pretty good. It’s always nice when a restaurant brews a good batch of iced tea. 

The tea was a good sign, a good attention to detail. Our waitress brought out our dishes, which were plated beautifully. The panko coated butterflied chicken breast sat in a pool of the honey truffle sauce, topped with perfectly roasted yukon gold potatoes and a dressing of arugula, and a drizzle of balsamic. I have to take points off because the edges of our plates were both speckled with dressing, and in a restaurant as casually fancy as this one, it would have been nice to see them pay attention to that little detail. That being said, a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar dripped on the edge of the plate, is not a dealbreaker, nor is it even close to the end of the world. But I do think it was a sign of the kitchen dropping the ball a bit with attention to detail. 

It smelled heavenly, and I was very excited to take my first bite. I tried to get a little bit of everything onto my fork so I could get the full range of flavor in one bite. I took a bite ready for a rush of flavors to light up my taste buds… but it never did. It fell flat, besides maybe the balsamic vinegar. I instantly knew that the dish was missing something. I had an idea of what it was, but I examined the plate, the chicken, the potato, the sauce. I tasted every component individually and came to the same conclusion every time. The food was cooked to perfection. The panko crust was crunchy and a perfect golden brown, the chicken was deliciously moist. The sauce was smooth and creamy. The potatoes were crisp on the outside and fluffy and creamy on the inside. The arugula was fresh, the balsamic delicious, the cheese I’ll admit, not very noticeable, but didn’t detract. The texture was perfect, and I could tell that this was a well cooked dish, and back in that kitchen, they knew how to freaking cook. But every single element, besides the balsamic, was severely lacking in salt. I could taste maybe a bit was added to the chicken, but not nearly enough. The potatoes, while cooked well, were also lacking in salt. And finally, the sauce, the one part of the dish that felt like it could have been the saving grace of the dish. Bringing the salt to the other ingredients to give that punch of flavor the dish desperately needed, was alas, also completely void of salt. A dish that by all accounts was cooked perfectly, all fell flat because of one tiny, seemingly inconsequential ingredient, salt. I would have been able to forgive the chicken and potatoes for not having salt, if the sauce itself had enough to carry its saltiness to the other components of the dish, and bring out more flavors in them, balancing the whole dish together. That would have made perfect sense! And I would have really enjoyed that journey of flavor. This dish would have blown my mind, if it weren’t for a very simple and yet crucial mistake. They forgot to salt the dish. 

It was at this moment, I was thankful that they had my favorite kind of salt in a little shaker in front of me, and I’m almost embarrassed to say how many times I reached for that salt shaker in order to add the proper amount of seasoning to the dish. I first only added the salt to the sauce. It was at this moment, upon tasting, that all the flavors that were muted by the lack of seasoning, exploded. This sauce was incredible. It tasted even more buttery than before, I got more notes of the honey and the truffle. I tried it with the chicken and potatoes and my perception about the sauce being the most important component to season, was confirmed. I added some more salt to the chicken and the potatoes as well and it made everything taste a thousand times better. It absolutely brought the dish to life! I ate the whole thing.

My wife’s salad was decent. The Mangos were not ripe, but a little harder and tart. My wife wasn’t a huge fan of this, but I acknowledged that it may have been intentional to use less ripe mangoes to have a more tart flavor. The dressing was delicious and the best part of the salad. And I can agree with my wife’s criticism that the ginger and the dressing were already pretty tart and acidic, so having more ripe mangoes would have added a bit more depth to the dish. The Tuna was pretty decent, my wife also felt that it could have used more salt. But we both recognized that it had a nice seared flavor and there was a bit more noticeable saltiness in the seared part of the tuna that then led to the taste of the less cooked tuna in the middle that tasted more like a nice sashimi. I liked the tuna, I thought that in terms of saltiness, maybe it could have used a little more, but I felt that with tuna, it’s about tasting the freshness of the fish, which having too much salt can sometimes mask.

This whole time after eating the food and even while eating the food, we were deliberating whether or not this was an intentional choice. If it was, then someone in the kitchen really needs to talk to Samin. I felt like if she had this dish, she would have walked back into the kitchen and made the cook or  chef who made the dish taste the difference between it being salted and unsalted, and convince them to change how they prepared the food. But she would have been much nicer and direct, than I who am now writing this scathing and drawn out review of my meal. However, after having asked the waitress about if they usually add salt to their dishes. She answered to the best of her ability. I felt bad, and made sure to clarify I enjoyed the meal, but I was just simply curious about her experience with the dish. She explained that they make everything fresh, so it’s possible someone just made an oopsie (she did not specifically say oopsie). I thanked her profusely and asked her to also thank the kitchen staff for the meal, they really did cook it well. It was just unfortunate that I seemed to get the batch where the existence of salt was forgotten. It happens, and I am incredibly thankful for the kosher salt in the salt shaker. It’s not often that having salt at the ready on tables is considered an important thing, but it quite literally turned an abysmal meal into an incredibly enjoyable dish. So I will from now on pay more attention to the salt that is on the table, cause it may very well save a meal. In retrospect, I never thought to try the hot sauce with the dish, a part of me wishes I did. But it is a testament to the near perfection this dish held, because in my mind all it needed was salt, quite a bit, but just one ingredient. A little pepper too, but I’m willing to chalk that up to my own taste preferences. 

With the lack of salt, I felt the incredible urge to ask to be able to talk to the chef and ask about the dish and whether or not it was intentional. But it didn’t seem a good idea, for some nobody who is only just learning how to cook to lecture a professional chef on how to season the food they cook. But I’ll admit it did bother me. And did affect the experience I had at the restaurant. At the time, I didn’t feel all that eager to go back. While it had a good atmosphere, and the dish ended up being salvageable with the salt on the table, paying $26 for a dish, and then missing something so crucial as salt, it really stuck with me. I was deliberating in my head, and I wondered why it bothered me so much. The dish was still cooked well and I will happily admit that if I were certain the dish would be seasoned properly, I would happily order it again and I’d consider $26 a fair price. It was a solid portion and after eating I did wish I could have a little more. It was a good dish. But it could have been great!

I think a part of me was disappointed that I couldn’t talk to the chef. I didn’t want to embarrass or chastise them. I simply wanted to have a conversation and ask about their cooking philosophies and discover whether or not it was a mistake or not. If it had just been one item in the dish, that didn’t have salt. I don’t know if I would even be writing this piece. Because the other components had salt, it would have made up for and balanced the dish and maybe I’d just say,” oh, it could have used a tad more salt.”, done two shakes from the shaker and been on with the meal and my life. But it wasn’t just lacking. The entire dish was devoid of salt. 

Once again, if I had to put money on it, it was a simple and honest mistake. But throughout the day I kept thinking about it. It kept nagging at me. Until about two hours ago when I began writing this, did it click. Salt in its absolute essence is the single most important vessel for flavor. In some ways salt is flavor. Salt in itself tastes good, but it makes other foods taste even better. It enhances and brings out flavors, and as I learned today can take something from disappointing to absolutely delicious with just a few grains. 

Before today, I could have told you how salt is important, but now I feel like I truly get it, I truly understand. Because when it’s missing from a dish at a restaurant, it’s really disappointing. If I hadn’t known better, and not used the salt at the table to fix the dish, then I would have been severely disappointed in my meal. This helped me realize why I was so bothered by this mistake. I realized that it felt like there had been so much attention to detail when it came to the decor, the atmosphere and the experience of the restaurant. Going all the way down to putting a better quality salt in the salt shaker. Only to get the food, that felt like that attention to detail no longer applied. The spills on the edges of the plate. No one checked or seemed to care to take a few seconds to clean the edges of the plate. And more importantly, the salt. No one tasted the sauce to check if it needed salt. Everything was cooked to perfection. You can tell it is a well oiled machine of cooks who know how to cook these dishes to perfection. But what they lack is an attention to detail. Which is exactly what salt is. Salt is a detail that helps enhance other details. A very crucial detail that is a fundamental and a pillar of everything we cook. That is what Samin is getting at in Salt Fat Acid Heat. And I can finally say I get it. Forgetting salt is like forgetting to include exposition in a story. It is not the main character, it’s not the setting. It is not what makes the story the story, but it brings clarity and  meaning and immersiveness to the story, it helps bring out the best parts of the story, the world and the characters.It provides context. Salt does the same thing for food. It brings out the other flavors, it enhances them. It gives them purpose, it makes them more defined, it supports them so that they can truly shine. 

Salt is a crucial detail. It was a simple mistake that every chef and every cook has made. Forgetting salt or adding too much. Too much detail can be a bad thing too. I want to be clear, I have no ill will or feelings towards Doc B’s or their staff. It is not a big deal, and I can truly and honestly say I think the chefs and cooks there are very good at what they do, and if any of them, somehow see this, I hope that they can get some more perspective into the simple but incredible ingredient that is salt. And maybe never forget to salt a dish again. It is a truly understandable and yet regrettable mistake. It reminds me of the humanity of cooking and that even the most professional of chefs can make mistakes. 

It’s inspiring and I hope that any chef who has ever forgotten to salt a dish or made any other kind of simple cooking error recognizes that that mistake is inspiring, especially if they and others can learn from it. I would like to thank the cooking staff at Doc B’s for forgetting to salt my dish, because of it, I have a better understanding of salt. 

And from this day forward I will always try to remember to have the right amount of detail in my food. Cause just a few grains can make the story from, what a disappointing meal to that is one of the best dishes I have ever had. But if I don’t, I hope someone like me, who is learning how to cook and has been studying salt, can write a nearly four thousand word blog post about my blunder and how they gained some insight on the deliciousness of salt.