In case you missed it: here’s my review of Temescal’s FOB Kitchen, a neighborhood restaurant redefining what it means to be “fresh off the boat.”
It’s been fascinating reading and hearing the reactions to my first reviews at The Chronicle, now published about a week ago. I delighted in both the praise (Thank you!) and the pushback (Thank you again!). It’s such a privilege to be writing for the Bay Area, and it was amazing to be so quickly folded into the vibrant debates and dialogues within our food culture.
One highlight: I was told off by legendary New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton, which made me feel like a toddler winning a lifetime achievement award.
My review of Chez Panisse turned out to be a lot more polarizing than I’d anticipated — not a bad thing at all. Some were glad that a local critic gave it an honest evaluation as a restaurant that exists in 2019; others were put off by that concept entirely, arguing that, because of its cultural impact, it deserves to be treated differently. (I got a lot of private messages from both sides!) Obviously, I wrote the review, so you know where I stand.
But the arguments got me thinking: when does a restaurant stop being a restaurant? When does its obligation to the dining public change in a way that shifts the terms of the transaction? Does it matter if they’re worth a diner’s time or money after a certain point?
Like I wrote in the review, most diners, especially the ones making a special trip out just for the experience, aren’t going to be terribly worried about how well-executed the food actually is. Despite that, I thought it was important to note that I had mediocre experiences there, and to contextualize those experiences within the restaurant’s stated purpose.
As long as a restaurant — or any business — is charging money for a product or experience, I think it’s fair game. That’s not to say that I won’t let restaurants get their sea legs when they’re fresh and new, or that I won’t consider restaurants’ contexts and missions when thinking about what value they add to our culture: I know what In-N-Out Burger is for, and it’s not about pushing any conversation forward (or making good fries).
And an announcement: I’m also working with The Chronicle on a podcast series about how the food culture of the Bay Area exists in dialogue with the world at large, which I hope we can debut in the next few weeks! We’ll be talking about fried chicken and the Great Migration; hofbrau houses and detective fiction; and Soylent and visions of the future. Can you help me think of a title?
Best Song I Heard in a Restaurant
This past weekend, I went on a taqueria crawl around Menlo Park with some friends. Our last stop was Las Parrillas, which has some beautifully soft tongue tacos. The music was blasting, with old-timers queuing up at the jukebox to put on their favorite banda song. “Dámaso” by Gerardo Ortiz was the standout banger: a song about the glories of drug trafficking (Note: I do not endorse this.) that just happened to have some killer synthetic horn riffs.
Photo of the week
I’ve been coming across bookshelves in restaurants a lot lately, and each one seems to have a different function: as a brand’s vision board, reference library or art piece. Some at more established venues, like the one at Chez Panisse, above, are dedicated to the owner’s own work; others, like the shelf I saw at the Fillmore’s Isla Vida, are a collection of cookbooks and nonfiction that reflect the cuisine at the restaurant in broad strokes. (At my mom’s restaurant in Mexico, she displays books that I wrote or am featured in. Sigh.) It’s worth taking a look if you notice a shelf while you’re dining out—what are they trying to say with it? How deliberate are the choices they’ve made with each book?
What I’m reading
There’s been a wave of debate online — and even among my own friends — about online recipes that begin with essays or journal-style prose. Some people think it’s an inconvenience when all they want is to make some chicken; others, mainly food writers, find the preceding sentiment invalidating of their whole schtick. But it’s not like food bloggers invented this format: cookbook authors like Simon Hopkinson, who wrote the classic, “Roast Chicken and Other Stories,” have been doing it for ages. Last week, Nik Sharma wrote a sweet essay about this very thing (and chutney!) for The Chronicle.
• In case you missed it: The Chronicle’s pop culture critic, Peter Hartlaub, investigates the apocryphal story of Julia Child’s visit to local Vietnamese food dive, Tú Lan. Child’s final word on the place: “The food was very good. ... It was a very dirty place, but I enjoyed it and had no ill effects.”
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• At GQ, writer Brett Martin profiles Tunde Wey, the chef and performance artist and my occasional co-conspirator. I love this quote from Tunde, which I think sums up my modus operandi pretty well: “In critique, you have to be hyperbolic. In practice, you need to be nuanced. But one feeds the other. It’s hyperbole that creates the space for the nuance. ... And what is the role of the critic? To state the obvious? Or to point to the hidden and understated?”
Bite Curious is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle’s restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, delivered to inboxes on Monday mornings. Follow along on Twitter: @Hooleil
https://www.sfchronicle.com/restaurants/article/When-does-a-restaurant-stop-being-a-restaurant-13678152.php 2019-03-11 21:10:00Z
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