Our 30 Under 30 LA Honorees Share Their Least Favorite Ingredients

Our 30 Under 30 LA at Playa

By Kelly Dobkin

We hung out on Google+ with 10 of our 30 Under 30 LA honorees during our party at Playa on Monday night to get their thoughts and opinions on a variety of topics. Building off of our post this week about ingredients chefs dislike (but have to work with anyway), we polled some of our 30 Under 30 LA to find out their least favorite ingredients, and got some surprising answers. One had a disdain for bananas, another is not the biggest fan of lamb and yet another has a full-blown phobia of ketchup (maybe it's the high fructose corn syrup)? Read on to find out what ingredients our LA 30 Under 30 can't stand. And click here to vote for your favorite restaurants in our LA Restaurants Survey!

Kyle Ackley: "A lot of people say vodka, but I don't know I feel like that's a little cliché. I mean if you want to really taste everything else in the drink, put vodka in there. I can't stand Jager. I'm more of a Fernet guy. Also people that want things like Red Bull in their cocktails - I don't know, I don't get the fascination. Just give me a stir whiskey cocktail with some bitters. I don't like when people muddle it up too much either or throw 1200 ingredients in and think that it's going to be better. Just keep it simple. Show some creativity, but don't kill it."

Joshua Drew: "I'll pretty much eat anything, but there's one food - and I'll try it every time - I can't get past okra. I will eat it but I still don't love it. As a chef you have to separate yourself and be objective but I don't know, I can't get behind it."

Adam Horton: "I'm not the biggest lamb fan - I like goat but I don't like lamb. I understand the flavors that work with it but it's definitely not my favorite."

Jeff Mahin: "Actually the two ingredients I don't like I never work with. Caraway and dill - I wanna love rye bread so much and order a reuben, but the minute they put those seeds in there…I try it every time and I just can't embrace it."

Christina Olufson: "I will say that I really don't like bananas, but I mean it's not something that's found at the farmer's market, so it's not something that i have to use. I think banana bread is the only exception but in general, it's not an ingredient I really care for."

Ross Pangilinan: "An ingredient that we don't use too much but that I hate, I can't even look at it or smell is ketchup. I have a ketchup phobia so if I have to open a bottle of it, I would put on gloves. If someone asked me at the table to pass them the bottle, I would have someone else do it."