Many years ago I saw a Japanese TV program that explored the food of southern Taiwan and one of the stops was a restaurant that had a 106-year old vat of broth. It was tall and narrow and had a giant hump of crust on one side.
If it's still open, it would be going for 130+ years at this point.
ETA: Found it. Established 1895, the year Taiwan was annexed by Japan. It's not soup, it's a meat sauce (滷肉) used on a noodle dish. Scroll down to the middle of the page, which shows the chef with the pot in front of him.
This was something I was genuinely excited to try while in Bangkok, took a Grab across town to make it happen, but it was it is honestly not good, the Google reviews seem to coincide with the consensus that while the concept is cool, the execution isn't and it tastes very meh.
I do wonder if there’s some pluralistic ignorance going on, where travelers convince themselves it must be amazing because everyone else seems to think so.
It didn't give off the vibe of years of collected flavors; it was a thin broth and it didn't taste like much else other than beef broth from a fancy instant noodle packet and a ton of MSG (and to be clear, I'm normally a proponent of MSG but it genuinely was overdone here).
Maybe it really is just the volume that they're going through that's affecting the taste and composition, because they were doing decent business, but this was the biggest disappointment on my short visit to Bangkok.
Actual customer reviews are less gushing than the WSJ article....
embedding-shape [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Long time since reviews on the internet mattered one squat. Reviews can be because of everything from a jealus competitor, the platform asking the restaurant to pay to unblock favorable reviews/remove unfavorable ones, doing the opposite when you don't pay, or simple a bunch of people who basically fill the web with junk.
More often than not I have a great experience in restaurants with 2-3 out of 5 in ratings, and shit experiences with restaurants with 4-5/5 ratings, I've simply stopped reading reviews at all, anything with numbers on the internet is basically fuddled with nowadays.
voakbasda [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I discovers this 10 years ago with Yelp. I refused to pay, but still kept an account linked to Faceboook. When I deleted that account, apparently Yelp knew that and released some old negative reviews that previously had been hidden. One review was filled with lies, and I never had the chance to see it (much less respond to it) when I still had the account. That was the day that I learned what legal online extortion looks like.
x______________ [3 hidden]5 mins ago
When publishing, it's always important to get a fresh viewpoint from an unrelated account/device to ensure nothing looks amiss!
flir [3 hidden]5 mins ago
City-level reddit subs have a fair idea where to avoid, I find.
tedeh [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Its on Ekkamai rd, "Wattana Panich"
rkozik1989 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Is this like how Italian families sometimes a forever pot of tomato sauce continuously on a low heat on their stoves?
pif [3 hidden]5 mins ago
This Italian here has never heard nothing like that. Tomato sauce can be simmered for several hours, but there is no refill.
ch4s3 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I've never heard of anyone doing this among any Italian Americans I know. Is this something you've seen first hand?
tuvix [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Haven’t heard of forever sauce but my family makes sauce by cooking it pretty much all day. If we ate it every day then yeah we might as well keep a pot on the stove all the time
ch4s3 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
If you cook the tomato too long you lose the tomato flavor[1]. My Italian-American neighborhood has a sauce competition at the community center every year, and the winners never do an all day cook.
Interesting! I’ll have to try a cooking the recipe for shorter. I am a bit skeptical since my family’s sauce is the best in the world already :)
guessmyname [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Why Italian Americans instead of just normal Italian? Aren’t Italian Americans just regular Italians? Or are you asking about the customs of Americanized Italian families or people who were born and raised in America but with Italian ancestry?
ch4s3 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Because those are the Italians I have experience with, and the Italian Sugo al pomodoro isn't to my knowledge ever cooked for hours. The slow cooked variety in Italy is the ragù which is cooked up to 4 hours. If you cook any tomato sauce much beyond 4 hours you lose the actual tomato flavor[1]. So I sincerely doubt forever tomato sauce is a real thing.
Italian-american cuisine is quite distinct from Italian cuisine (which is really a lot of regional cuisines with a shared language and some shared staples)
BenjiWiebe [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Probably because they don't know any Italians (in Italy), just Italian Americans.
madcaptenor [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I am an Italian-American and would presume to speak for Italian-American foodways but not the foodways of Italians living in Italy.
ch4s3 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I do or have, but they aren't tomato sauce Italians if that makes sense.
ButlerianJihad [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Are you a non-American?
It is typically the custom of Americans to hyphenate our ethnicity and claim descent from some European country or another. (Or African or Asian, or wherever the family had migrated from.)
Indeed, an Italian-American is not a "regular Italian" because they enjoy neither citizenship nor residence in that sovereign territory. Italian-American cuisine is also unique, and distinct from "regular Italian" cuisine. Sure, they draw a lot of ideas from the Old Country, but c'mon: tomatoes originated in the Americas!
I could be known as an "Irish-American" but really, I was adopted by a non-Irish family, and the Irish clergy/religious who educated me were fully inculturated into the United States, so we learned a patriotism for our homeland, along with a very American faith and culture, and not a futile nostalgia for some long-lost European territory. There was not a trace of Celtic spirituality or "Irish Republican rebellion" taught to me or my classmates.
I do appreciate Irish culture from afar, and I enjoy the St. Patrick's Day festivities that are not drunken orgies, but I am constantly reminded that I was never "Irish" and I do not derive my identity from hyphenating such things.
bescob_ar [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I've seen this done for a few years (2-3?) but only in a crockpot sized container, honestly still tasted alright. Not sure I'd have a full bowl of stew 52 but seems [great] for fermenty-salty dipping sauce like saltwater.
manoDev [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The grime around the pot convinced me they’re telling the truth about 52 years :)
HN.zip
If it's still open, it would be going for 130+ years at this point.
ETA: Found it. Established 1895, the year Taiwan was annexed by Japan. It's not soup, it's a meat sauce (滷肉) used on a noodle dish. Scroll down to the middle of the page, which shows the chef with the pot in front of him.
https://ksdelicacy.pixnet.net/blog/posts/5067270713
I do wonder if there’s some pluralistic ignorance going on, where travelers convince themselves it must be amazing because everyone else seems to think so.
It didn't give off the vibe of years of collected flavors; it was a thin broth and it didn't taste like much else other than beef broth from a fancy instant noodle packet and a ton of MSG (and to be clear, I'm normally a proponent of MSG but it genuinely was overdone here).
Maybe it really is just the volume that they're going through that's affecting the taste and composition, because they were doing decent business, but this was the biggest disappointment on my short visit to Bangkok.
Could perpetual stews over decades act in the same manner?
Actual customer reviews are less gushing than the WSJ article....
More often than not I have a great experience in restaurants with 2-3 out of 5 in ratings, and shit experiences with restaurants with 4-5/5 ratings, I've simply stopped reading reviews at all, anything with numbers on the internet is basically fuddled with nowadays.
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-slow-cooked-italian-ame...
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-slow-cooked-italian-ame...
It is typically the custom of Americans to hyphenate our ethnicity and claim descent from some European country or another. (Or African or Asian, or wherever the family had migrated from.)
Indeed, an Italian-American is not a "regular Italian" because they enjoy neither citizenship nor residence in that sovereign territory. Italian-American cuisine is also unique, and distinct from "regular Italian" cuisine. Sure, they draw a lot of ideas from the Old Country, but c'mon: tomatoes originated in the Americas!
I could be known as an "Irish-American" but really, I was adopted by a non-Irish family, and the Irish clergy/religious who educated me were fully inculturated into the United States, so we learned a patriotism for our homeland, along with a very American faith and culture, and not a futile nostalgia for some long-lost European territory. There was not a trace of Celtic spirituality or "Irish Republican rebellion" taught to me or my classmates.
I do appreciate Irish culture from afar, and I enjoy the St. Patrick's Day festivities that are not drunken orgies, but I am constantly reminded that I was never "Irish" and I do not derive my identity from hyphenating such things.
Oh, you mean the flavoring!