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Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

One year ago I was in an Italian region famous for truffles in truffle season and went to a high level restaurant that specialized in truffles and meat.

After tasting different varieties I concluded I liked fake truffle taste more.

A lot more.

A simple spaghetti dish with real truffles tasted okay, but not as good as the one with fake truffle oil.

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Reminds me of how many people prefer artificial vanilla to the genuine thing in blind taste tests.

Yeah vanilla was the second example I could think of.

That's really interesting. For me, I very much do NOT enjoy the taste of truffles in restaurant dishes because it's often so overbearing. I just don't find the flavor interesting, and it's very singular.

Perhaps I would enjoy the "real" experience more...

A lot of restaurants also just overdo how much they add in an attempt to make it seem like they put a lot of truffles into the dish and so there's a strong aroma from the dish. Whenever I use it, in something like my attempts at a mushroom truffle risotto, I will usually use a drop or two for a whole pan. Maybe a little more if I plan to cook the dish for a while after, such as if I am making a sauce that will simmer for a bit. Usually even a teaspoon is too much.

Oh very interesting, as for me it is the complete opposite: I grew up only knowing real truffle and am now in a position where the fake stuff is just too intense for me, which is kinda sad as some "higher class" restaurants happily combine the two, to get you the look (eg by grating in front of you) and the taste (via some oil in the sauce)

I'd be very grateful if they started labelling it accordingly as they do it with other synthetic flavours (eg strawberry, GER)

Couldn’t you just add less of the intense stuff?

I feel like they probably over do it so you can specifically taste it rather than let it blend in at a normal level.

Absolutely agree. Never been in a big truffle region (unless Oregon counts), but have had generously covered white and black truffle dishes from a Michelin ** restaurant. The real thing is very tasty, but the oil is better. Certainly not worth the price premium when you can get an incredible bottle of wine and an excellent pasta for less than a teal truffle dish.

Oh man, you totally beat me to it!

I was so excited to make up some fake story about how I went to Italy and had real truffles on pasta. My story was almost identical to yours: coming out in favor of truffle oil!

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