12
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Automated wok cooking machines prepare traditional Chinese dishes at reasonable prices at new LA restaurant Tigawok
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- Title
- The Robots Are Coming for Chinese Food Next at This New LA Restaurant
- Authors
- Kristie Hang
- Published
- Jun 27 2024
- Word count
- 915 words
Relevant wok kinematics research paper topic from Tildes.
Should it be tagged cooking.wok as well? I have to say, users have been praising descriptive tags but they have yet to help me unearth an old topic when searching.
Thanks - I posted that one. 🙂‍↕️. I've worked in kitchens and the automation or machine augmentation of cooking labor is one of my tiny intellectual rabbit holes.
In cooking school, one of my instructors intoned the phrase, "Consistency and uniformity are the hallmarks of the professional chef." That stuck with me as the gateway to automation. Leave the repetitive precision to machines, and the creativity to the humans with the sensory apparatus to judge what should be in the food and how it's prepared and presented.
My cynical socialist side sees that the Tigawok story elides the prep work for ingredients and sauces, the cashiers and table bussers, and all the restaurant crew, delivery workers, and others required to support the machine. Cool tech, bro, but what are the human implications?
Wow! As a hobbyist cook self-teaching on Chinese cuisine, this paper looks like a must-read.
I wouldn't want to work for pay and slave over a 100k BTU burner but I'd sure love one for authentic wok hei at home! It's pretty much impossible to do more than fake it on my pathetic little stove top!
Yeah I knew it was you as soon as I opened this article. Interesting stuff! Have you seen the Japanese vending machine video shared on here? The curry rice vending machine emptying bags of curry freshly made by humans is not so different.
No, I haven't, but pre-prepped meals in bags have been a growing concern since laminated packaging became available. [I'm not going to digress on PFOAs and other contaminants in preparation and packaging of processed foods, I promise.]
At the same time, having watched cooks laboring over a restaurant-style 100,000 BTU wok, I'm as happy to see a machine doing that job as I am at automated iron foundries. It's brutal, human-roasting work that no one should have to endure to make a living.
It does say that the prep work is done by humans working off-site, and that the ordering is done online or through a terminal and you bus your own tray, so there's no front of house staff. Delivery is an open question, but it does seem like the back of house crew are going to be next on the chopping block as systems for delivering the ingredients from refrigerated storage into the wok and out of the wok into the bowl become more effective. It doesn't seem dramatic to think that someday soon there won't be anyone other than a single person paid to watch the machines and clean the bathroom.