Is crispy bacon impossible in a restaurant?

June 6, 2018 8:47 PM

How do we get restaurants to cook bacon the way we like it?

My husband cooks the most marvelous bacon. It's not the bacon that's special, it's the way it comes out: burnished brown all the way through, no chewy fat, stiff as a board and cracklingly crisp when you bite into it.

We've tried all kinds of descriptions to get our bacon this crisp when eating in restaurants, but nothing seems to work. We've even asked for our bacon to be "burnt" but it still comes back soft and flabby, or sometimes burnt in places but limp in others.

MetaFilter people who have worked in restaurants: What are the magic words to get our bacon cooked shatteringly crisp? I love bacon and am tired of ordering sausages when eating breakfast out.

posted by Joleta to Food & Drink (25 answers total)

I ask for "crispy" or "well done" bacon.
posted by luckynerd at 8:56 PM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I can't tell you the magic words, but I can offer some explination.

Most restaurants parcook their bacon, on sheet trays in the oven, to like mid-rare. So not raw, but definitely flabby and fatty.

Then it's thrown on a very hot grill or griddle, probably far hotter than what you cook on at home. The line between hot and burnt is a fine line.

The shatteringly crisp comes from cooking it longer, and over slower heat, which often just isn't possible on the line. Like, they're cooking your bacon on the same grill that can sear a steak.

So I guess you could ask them to take their time and cook it on the coolest part of their grill until crispy, but if I got that special request as a line cook, I would roll my eyes and it would probably only be realistic if there were like no other orders.

Or, you could ask them to cook your bacon under a grill press, which I've found makes for crispier, not burnt, bacon.

YMMV.
posted by Grandysaur at 8:57 PM on June 6, 2018 [36 favorites]

Best answer: As a former line cook and breakfast cook, I'd say you could ask for the bacon "well done" or something, but it's hard to imagine how a line cook would fit it into their workflow.

Typically bacon is prepped and pre-cooked at the start of the morning shift. Cooking a breakfast order of, say, eggs, toast and bacon actually only takes about 5 minutes. An omelette or poached eggs for Eggs Benny takes a couple of more minutes.

To get bacon that crispy, it requires some TLC that may be hard to achieve with the typical harried breakfast line cook. Add in the fact that as a cook you're trying to get the orders from the table to be ready to send out at the same time, and since breakfasts are just slammin', it would be hard to achieve.

It would throw me out of my rhythm, that's for sure. It's been 25 years since I worked the line and just thinking about how to achieve crispy bacon is giving me the sweats.
posted by JamesBay at 9:00 PM on June 6, 2018 [24 favorites]

I ask for my bacon "well done," and am delivered crispy bacon.
posted by Orlop at 9:10 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Maybe try ‘crispy, well-done bacon is important to us and we’re willing to wait for it’. And then tip extra when you get it. Or just make bacon the way you like at home and keep eating sausage etc while out at restaurants.

I perfectly understand your problem and your dissatisfaction, but I don’t think there’s any way to get that slow cooked crispy bacon made to order; at least not reliably. You may have higher success rate at fancy/expensive breakfast joints, but I’ve also had plenty of experience seeing them fail at this, presumably for the reasons listed by the line cooks above.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:23 PM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

I like bacon that's in the mid-tail end of the bell curve, it's odd I know, either almost really crispy or almost approaching undercooked chewy. That said, I've never had a problem, if they aren't super busy and then all bets are off with menu requests for obvious reasons, having folks at waffle house hook me up with whatever degree of doneness that I request. Ordering the latter is harder than ordering the former by the way, at least in my experience. Saying "well done" or "crispy-hard" is generally well understood. It's never occurred to me to order bacon 'rare' as I saw referenced in a Waffle House cook AmA a moment ago... Dunno how ubiquitous that actually is but the other descriptors have always yielded good results for me.

So, trivial answer though it may be, I'd say go to Waffle House, but your profile indicates that you aren't able to do that perhaps.

Sorry.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:43 PM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Check Yelp or whatever is popular in your area and see what people say about places that have good crispy bacon. I used to work in a breakfast restaurant and we baked huge sheets of bacon. We would specifically make trays of all extra crispy, shattering bacon for people who wanted it. Lots of restaurants that don't specialize in breakfast or brunch won't do that, so there might never be magic words, so you should look for the magic place instead.
posted by masquesoporfavor at 9:46 PM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

Seconding SaltySalticid, let the server know you're willing to wait. Most of the time the kitchen sees instructions that require way more work, and do their best of apply it to the letter, but not to the spirit of the request. If you know the kitchen know you're okay with waiting longer, (aaaaaaand tip commensurately), the kitchen is much more likely to honor your request.
posted by Ferreous at 10:00 PM on June 6, 2018

This may sound insane, but I would consider bringing my own bacon to the restaurant. My gf brings her own toast crackers to our diner. She orders a full meal, just not their bread. They have no issues with it.
posted by AugustWest at 10:04 PM on June 6, 2018

I'm wondering if this is a regional/cuisine/trend-based thing, because I have the opposite problem--the default where I've been (mostly CA, Southwest, PNW) is to serve it super crisp, whereas I want it with some "meatiness" remaining. As SaltySalticid suggested, this is why I've stopped ordering bacon when at restaurants.

Perhaps you could follow up with the restaurant the next time they give you floppy bacon and find out more of why it comes out that way (not in an accusatory way, but refer back to your original request). It probably helps if you're a regular at the particular place for them to "customize" the order and understand that you're serious about the crispiness. Or go the masquesoporfavor route and find one place that does it right and stick to it.
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 12:57 AM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would just keep trying different restaurants until I find one that can do my bacon just the way I like it, and then patronize them exclusively. I used to know which breakfast joint in my area could do perfect sunny-side-up eggs, with the whites fully set and the yolks very runny. I would go there often and tip generously.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:45 AM on June 7, 2018

In the diner I used to work in, the cooks used to deep fry bacon for American customers who wanted that kind of super crispy bacon. It might not have been quite the same as the long slow cooked version, but it was a lot faster way to get from uncooked to crisp during breakfast service. I'm not sure how many restaurants would willingly do that these days, because of cross-contamination possibilities in their fryers -- might depend what else they typically cook in there, if it's just fries or if they do nuggets, shrimp, etc. -- but you can try asking.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:03 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I love crispy bacon. I find floppy, chewy bacon nearly inedible. The only way I know how to get consistently crispy bacon from a restaurant is to keep going back to the restaurants that gives me crispy bacon when I request it.
posted by The Deej at 6:18 AM on June 7, 2018

Best answer: I would tend to agree that the type of places that are okay serving only-okay bacon are also not terribly likely to listen super carefully to your special request that they do their job correctly. That said, if you thought they were going to follow your direction and not laugh, id just ask them to throw a couple slices in the deep fryer until they were ready to shatter.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 7:34 AM on June 7, 2018

I always ask politely for extra-extra-EXTRA Crispy bacon and get it about 85% of the time.
The third extra really underscores my seriousness on the matter.
posted by wowenthusiast at 7:37 AM on June 7, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks everyone for your bacon thoughts. I've marked a few as "best" answers, but everyone's comments were helpful. We have added many "extras" to the "crispy," held up a knife by one end to show how stiff the bacon should be, and returned to restaurants that did it right once only to have them give us flabby bacon another time. Last week at Denny's we sent bacon back for flabbiness, and when it returned it was brown and stiff, but not actually crisp (if you can picture that). The waitress said that the cook had thrown it into the deep fryer, so even this doesn't quite do what we want.

I will continue to tell my husband what a wonderful bacon cook he is, and order the sausages (patties preferred over links) when we eat breakfast out.
posted by Joleta at 7:45 AM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

There used to be a restaurant here with super crispy bacon, and it turns out they deep fried it. I like a little more chewiness, but it would probably have been perfect for you. If you're in a place with a deep fryer, maybe you could ask if they could toss your bacon in?

Keep in mind that I have never worked in a restaurant kitchen, so I have no idea how much a request like that would throw things off.
posted by thejanna at 7:46 AM on June 7, 2018

When I was a short order cook, we definitely parcooked our bacon in the morning, but ti achieve the crispiness you want, we tossed the bacon into the deep fryer. It crisped up wonderfully without getting overly burnt.

If your diner is willing to do this, give it a go.
posted by RhysPenbras at 9:02 AM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

thejanna has the right idea. I knew a bunch of Czech line cooks back in the day that deep fried their bacon to get exactly the consistency you're describing.
posted by Kreiger at 12:11 PM on June 7, 2018

Just like wowenthusiast suggests, I also ask for extra, super, crispity crisp bacon. Drawing attention to the fact you reaaally like it that way usually makes it onto their notepad. It probably also helps that I am super nice and usually ask it in the form of a question. "Is it possible to make it super duper crisp, like 90s gelled hair crisp?" Asking in the form of the question makes them feel in control and when I make a joke of it, they're more likely to respond to me kindly. It's super rare that I don't get stiff-as-a-board bacon.
posted by pdxhiker at 3:13 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Just go to a place that caters to people who like burnt food.
posted by ovvl at 9:06 PM on June 7, 2018

I have a friend who always asks for "tortured" bacon with good results...
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:46 AM on June 8, 2018

I ask for "extra super crispy well done bacon." It works about 75% of the time.
posted by Bunglegirl at 9:02 AM on June 8, 2018

I also came to mention deep fryer--I used to work at a diner, and this is how they bridged this gap. And it was delicious. They were willing to do it because they already deep fried in an oil blend with lard/animal fat, so it didn't change the fact that nothing they fried was vegetarian. YMMV as far as that goes. Some places will be unwilling to "contaminate" their oil, I'm sure, but many won't care.
posted by terilou at 9:25 AM on June 8, 2018

I can't believe I've had this tab open for weeks before reading about bacon, and sorry for answering so late, but the magic word that always works for me is "crunchy."
posted by jessicapierce at 5:48 PM on June 25, 2018