Category: Openings

Waiter, There’s a HERRINGBONE Stuck in My Throat

Sometimes, you just know too much.

There comes a time when there have been too many meals in too many restaurants over too many decades. So many, in fact, that you can take the measure of a place within minutes of sitting down.

You get to where you can see the wheels turning and hear the exact conversations that went into the concept, the menu, and the cooking.

You get to the point where you spot the corporate calculation in every corner, and all you can do is sigh.

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Dumbed Down Ducasse

They come in waves, but it begins as a trickle. First a couple, then another, then a four-top of salesmen in cheap suits slides by. A few curious souls from the bar pop their heads in. “Wow,” you hear them say, “this place is one of those famous French chefs (sic).” Then the elevators expel four, six, eight, a dozen hungry souls in various stages of convention dress: the obligatory Dockers and Rockports —  adorned with the customary jewelry of the day: name tags, badges and lavalieres. Before long a group of twenty streams in — dressed for a big night at the Outback — all ready to spend the company’s money at this hi-falutin’ joint 64 floors above the Las Vegas Strip. “Gol-o-ly,” you can practically hear them saying to themselves. “This place ain’t like nuthin’ back home.” Before too much longer they’re presented with a menu of familiar sounding items that appear at their tables as small Trojan Horse plates of food that sounded like one thing, appeared as another, and tasted like something else entirely, and before they know it, the mind-numbing bill is presented to someone who will willingly pay it because it ain’t comin’ out of his pocket and a rape will just have occurred without the victim even knowing they were penetrated.

Welcome to Rivea.

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ELV Dreams of HIROYOSHI

My respect for Asian chefs — Japanese in particular — has always surpassed my feelings for many of their European and American counterparts. Not because they work harder or are better cooks (which may or may not be true), but because they readily make sacrifices we round eyes are unwilling to suffer.

Everyone from Wolfgang Puck to your average line cook loves to give lip service to opening a “small, personal restaurant where I can cook my food for friends and others who appreciate it,” but that’s a bunch of hooey (dished to credulous critics and such) and they know it. Truth be told, once you’ve got a taste for casino money — whether as an employee or owner — the idea of risking it all for the uncertainty of running your own, barely profitable business is a gamble very few want to take.

Except for Asian chefs — Japanese in particular.

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