Hating Mr. Chow is practically a right of passage for most food writers.
This is understandable because the food at Mr. Chow has always been pretty much beside the point. Because Mr. Chow, for the uninitiated among you, has always been about the scene. But it’s also about a certain slice of social history, and the “exaggerated elegance” (Frank Bruni’s words) of Chinese cuisine. But most of all, Mr. Chow is about status. But that is about to change, at least in Vegas. Allow us to explain.
A man cannot be too serious about what he eats. – Confucius
Now that Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to pause, collect ourselves, relax a bit, and reflect upon…Chinese food!
Yes, Chinese food. The world’s oldest and greatest cuisine.
For as big a Francophile as we are, there is no gastronomia that competes with China’s for venerability and deliciousness.
To put things in perspective, China cooks were selling food to strangers, and codifying their cuisine, 500 years before Romans started feeding Christians to the lions. It is fairly undeniable among food historians and anthropologists that Chinese culture is the most keenly food-oriented in the world. And it’s no coincidence that the phrase “Have you eaten?” is the most common of daily greetings in the Chinese language.
ELV — the man, the myth, the Asian food maven — has been a bit under the weather recently. Actually, what he’s really been under is a number of dentist’s, dental hygienist’s, periodontist’s, and oral surgeon’s hands, as he’s struggled mightily to correct some malfunctioning molars in the back of his mouth.
And by “struggled mightily” we mean he’s been so full of novocaine, Xanax, diazepam, general anesthetics and Tramadol over the past ten days he barely knows his own name…much less what he’s chewing on.