I'm sitting in Coco's having a bite to eat and trying to cool off. I've done lots of the recent Coco's shops but tonight it is on my own dime. Without thinking I ordered a salad with ranch dressing.

When the waitress brought my salad, she says, "You've had our house dressing before, right? You do know those are chunks of sour cream and not blue cheese?". Well, yes the whole walnut-sized chunk is definitely sour cream. I wished I knew it was supposed to be this way before I included comments about improperly mixed dressing in I'm not sure how many reports.

Now I ask, who wants large chunks of sour cream in their dressing with almost no seasoning? This is a bad idea.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2014 10:53PM by whiterosie.

whiterosie Wrote:
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> I'm sitting in Coco's having a bite to eat and
> trying to cool off. I've done lots of the recent
> Coco's shops but tonight it is on my own dime.
> Without thinking I ordered a salad with ranch
> dressing.
>
> When the waitress brought my salad, she says,
> "You've had our house dressing before, right? You
> do know those are chunks of sour cream and not
> blue cheese?". Well, yes the whole walnut-sized
> chunk is definitely sour cream. I wished I knew
> it was supposed to be this way before I included
> comments about improperly mixed dressing in I'm
> not sure how many reports.
>
> Now I ask, who wants large chunks of sour cream in
> their dressing with almost no seasoning? This is
> a bad idea.



That sounds disgusting, and it's false advertising.

Chunks of sour cream? Is that even possible at refrigerator temperatures?

That just does not sound right.

> That sounds disgusting, and it's false
> advertising.

Oh, I really love their sour cream house dressing. And it's not false advertising, because they tout it as such, not as bleu cheese.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2014 04:40AM by JenW.

I don't understand why people quote a post and then don't make any comment about it. Is this blog-code for "you can say that again"?

Sorry, that was a mistake; I did not think the post had gone through. I have made an edit to include my comment.

LOL. Now if all the others who have done that will come explain. It happens a lot here. I seriously wondered if this was some kind of code I didn't know about.


Oh, and I think all dressings are disgusting. I battle with weight and I don't see the point of taking something that is inherently low-calorie, fat-free, and healthy and pouring fats and oils all over it.

A little salt and pepper and may some grated parmesan cheese is all I ever eat on a salad.

Not all dressings are full of fats and oils.

One of my favorites is a fresh lime, raspberry, cilantro, and mango dressing. No oils. I like it over a mixed baby green salad with grilled shrimp.

I ate at another chain a few years ago and the item I ordered came with blue cheese. Yes it said blue cheese right on the menu listing. Well blue cheese has a very distinct flavor and I could not taste it at all. I asked the server since I thought they had totally left it off and she took a look and then went into the kitchen. She came back with some little cups of cheese and proceded to taste test them in front of me and agreed it definitely was not blue cheese. Then the manager came out and sat down and told me that they had changed the item due to cost. He had brought the package of the new cheese with him and read the ingredients and was very surprised himself to see it was not blue cheese at all but cottage cheese or some other very mild cheese. I cannot remember now exactly which. This had been going on for a few months and the menu was never changed and I guess I was the only one to order it mainly due to the fact it had blue cheese in it. We had a long chat and a nice lunch and luckily he did not out me as a shopper when my report came through. I did not mention the specifics of our conversation in my report but did say the manager came to my table to chat for a while.

I'm confused---ranch dressing around here never has blue cheese in it...is this a regional thing like some parts of the country call all soda "Coke" and will order a "Coke" but really want Mountain Dew? Ranch dressing is different then blue cheese dressing here.

Ranch dressing does not have blue cheese in it where I live - have never even heard of that dressing. We either order ranch or blue cheese - with a soda - haha.

dspeakes Wrote:
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> Oh, and I think all dressings are disgusting. I
> battle with weight and I don't see the point of
> taking something that is inherently low-calorie,
> fat-free, and healthy and pouring fats and oils
> all over it.

The point is flavor! Also, fats are essential; several vitamins are fat soluble. Putting olive oil on a salad is both tasty and "healthy."

I ordered "Ranch" but they automatically substituted "House" without asking as though House was just their version of Ranch. This happens every time. It would not be a problem if "House" was simply a home made version of Hidden Valley "Ranch.". But it is not. Their "House" is a completely different dressing than what one would expect when ordering "Ranch". I guess guests think they are getting Blue Cheese when they see the chunks of sour cream so the waitress addressed it with me when she brought the salad rather than telling me at the time I placed my order.

Since I've been getting these chunks on shops, I've been putting it reports. For these shops you have to photograph all your food. The last shop I did "where the dressing wasn't fully mixed" had so many chunks of sour cream that I actually mentioned in the report I had a photo if they wanted it. Now I find out that's how it is supposed to be. This was just the first waitress to tell me they put chunks of sour cream in their dressing.

The other thing is that I've had their dressing many times and there were no chunks so I really thought there was some large batch of the stuff delivered to the local restaurants that didn't meet quality control standards. This dressing really did not have good flavor to it as it was mostly sour cream. I love sour cream but not like this.

Now that I know I will be ordering a different dressing in the future. I thought I was doing the right thing by telling them!!

I do one of these shops out in the middle of nowhere. The scheduler was getting desperate because no one else was taking it and there was a 45-day rotation period on it. I ended up doing the shop three times in about 60 days. On my last shop I overheard the staff discussing the manager's orders to them because there had been a "complaint" and they needed to change the way they were doing some things. It was practically verbatim from my report. I don't believe I was outted. I think it was just coincidence as my last report had been submitted less than a week before. It was nice to see we make a difference.

If you are ordering Ranch and they are not giving you Ranch, that needs to be mentioned. "House" dressings are normally some special recipe that might be "like" Ranch or Italian or French or whatever but is not exactly that. So you were right to mention the discrepancy in your report. I've never heard of Ranch dressing having chunks of sour cream in it.

Ranch, to my knowledge (since I don't eat dressings) has a buttermilk component to it, doesn't it? Sour cream is not buttermilk.

Coke is not Pepsi. Mr Pibb is not Dr Pepper. If you order one, they shouldn't serve you the other without asking first. I don't see why dressings should be any different. If you order a veal chop and they don't have any, will they give you a pork chop instead?

Keep putting it in the report, although now you can add, "I ordered Ranch and they served me some bland lumpy stuff full of sour cream that is nothing like Ranch dressing."

Real Ranch is generally buttermilk and mayo. At home, I make all my own dressings because I really despise the taste of Soybean oil (or soy anything) plus about 80 percent of all soy is GMO. I've been on a kick lately trying to find a mayo that is not soy based. Even the olive oil and safflower oil mayos are full of soybean oil. You can get mayo that is organic and GMO-free but it still has soybean oil in it, albeit a much healthier version.

So, Wendy's has this salad that includes a Pomegranate vinaigrette that I love. Since I failed on the soy-free mayo quest and just do not feel like making my own mayo from scratch, my next project is to find a recipe where I can make the vinaigrette with all GMO-free, organic ingredients.

I agree with the above comment about topping an otherwise healthy meal with a fat-ladden creation. Although I only use a couple of tablespoons of dressing on a very large salad, I would prefer a healthier option.

But back to the topic at hand, yes, now I know what I need to put in future reports.

I make my own mayo and aioli and it is very easy. You just have to add the oil a drop at a time so that it will properly emulsify. I do use safflower oil, as I dislike the heavy feel of olive oil mayo. Safflower oil does not contain soybean oil. I have used walnut oil and almond oil on occasion and that turned out very light and great. I just don't do it too much because it's too darn expensive.

Some restaurants use cottage cheese in place of Blue Cheese, but can not state Blue Cheese dsg.
You need to look for those little blue veins.
I don't believe that Ranch has to have buttermilk.

Dspeaks

Good fats do not make you fat. We need fats in our diet. Olive oil, first cold pressed is healthy. You do not need to use a lot.
Artificial ingredients, low-fat, fat substitutes, margarine are worse for your health, because they use fillers that are not digestible.

whiterosie,

Do you live near a Wegman's? Their blueberry pomegranate vinaigrette is out of this world good. I like to make a salad with mixed spring greens, chopped apple, candied pecans, feta cheese with that dressing. Mmmmm.

Believe me, I get plenty of fat in my diet. I just prefer it in the form of ice cream, not salad dressing.

I would have ordered Ranch, however, at home I make salad dressing with mayo and cut the calories with low fat sour cream,
or yogurt. Guess I have gotten used to cutting calories, taste fine to me. You were told, so, I don't see the problem, unless I missed something.

I worked somewhere years ago where they would make blue cheese dressing by adding blue cheese crumbles to ranch dressing.

dspeakes Wrote:
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> Believe me, I get plenty of fat in my diet. I
> just prefer it in the form of ice cream, not salad
> dressing.


Ice cream is chock full of hydrogenated fats. Haagen Dazs has the lowest of the "big-name" ice creams, though... and in general it's a good idea to steer clear of the peanut-butter ice creams.

I used to work as a taste tester, well actually as a texture expert. We tested a lot of ranch dressing. Now I can't bear the stuff.