A great article marked the reappearance of the New York Times De Gustibus column in the middle of May. Chef Daniel Patterson of Coi in San Francisco enumerated some of the shortcomings of truffle oil:
“I used to use white truffle oil a lot, but now I only use a little bit in my liquid black truffle ravioli,” Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago told me. “It adds a little more perfume, a slightly different flavor. I cut my teeth cooking at the French Laundry, and when we were using truffles there was always a bottle close by. But after I was on my own for a while I started to ask myself why I was using it, and I didn’t have a good answer. It doesn’t even taste like truffle.”
It might be OK for a molecular cuisinier like Achatz to play with truffle oil for nefarious creative purposes, but I think it's frankly scandalous that somewhere like the French Laundry would even think about inflicting the stuff on its patrons. They should be doing this:
...Mr. Palladin was enraged to walk into the kitchen and find that in his absence bottles of truffle oil had cropped up everywhere. Grabbing two of them, he called the staff out to the alley behind the restaurant where the garbage was held. He hurled the oil at the side of the building, smashing the glass bottles against the wall. “It’s full of chemicals,” he screamed at his confused and frightened staff members, who scrambled back to the kitchen through the gathering scent of truffle oil mingled with the fetid air of the alley. “No more!”
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