Crabby Andy Rooney rant No. 1

“Formal dining is dead,” declares Dean Fearing, the chef who spent two decades at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas. “I think people want to be wowed, but I don’t think being wowed is formal dining any more,” he adds.

So began a recent Zagat.com article.

I don't know if it's true, but I do know that the concept of tiered prix-fixe menus is increasingly lost. It used to be you'd go to a highfalutin bastion of gastronomy and there would be several prix-fixe menus offered at different prices. It meant that the meals reflected different levels of complexity. Essentially, that the different price levels convey a different opulence of ingredients—foie gras for the workhorse menu, hummingbird tongues or thymus gland of woodland caribou for the pull-out-the-stops menu.

Recently, though, it often just means "lots of food," "a huge amount of food" and "so much food it's scary." Many of the same dishes appear on all three menus, there are just more of them as the price steepens. What's wid dat?

Comments

[ken]

No doubt. The USA has gone completely to hell.

[A. Smedley]

Hey, Mouth –

What’s your feeling about decorative squiggles of assorted squeeze-bottle “goo” liquids as a garnishment on food … soup to nuts? This seems like a very dated culinary embellishment … whose day may have come and gone by 2007, at least by the standards of most dining establishments in the more cosmopolitan, “hip” cities across the nation. However, word hasn’t been telegraphed yet to the kitchens of Tampa Bay!

One can imagine giant tanker trucks making daily deliveries to sunken storage “sauce-vats” in restaurant parking lots across the Tampa Bay, filled with something identified, as example, as “balsamico,” but in reality is some mock mahogany colored syrupy GOO concoction over which some shameless manufacturer paused to whisper "balsamic vinegar." Assuredly, when extruded artfully out of a plastic squeeze bottle and squiggled into lovely herringbone patterns with the end of a toothpick as the budding chef learned in Garde Manger 101, one can camouflage a multitude of sins or jazz up an otherwise ho-hum presentation … but does the decorative element add ANYTHING of value to the flavor of the dish it’s been oozed onto so heavy-handedly? And I challenge the food purveyor to verify that the contents of said squeeze bottle is solely unadulterated balsamic vinegar, or whatever colored flavor it’s purported to be!

I cite an experience this evening of dining in a well-reputed Tampa Italian trattoria. The tiramisu I ordered for dessert could have stood with its head held high as a perfectly acceptable paragon of coffee-infused, sponge-cake/lady finger based mascarpone delicacy. But when delivered to my table, it almost needed transport on a flat-bed truck, arriving with an excessive, yeah almost overwhelming OVERKILL encirclement of whipped cream (probably real and not Redi-Whip from an aerosol can … but definitely uncalled for by any classic standards of tiramisu!), squeeze-bottle squiggles of BROWN AND RED - chocolate sauce and that ubiquitous red sweet stuff that one is hard-pressed to confirm as raspberry, cherry or strawberry. Whichever, it imparts virtually zero flavor, but has sufficient body to it to be extruded into those predictable, lasting decorative waves that someone in the kitchen has decreed makes the whole dish eye-catching. Frankly, it was a visual abomination that I wanted to ask be removed to the kitchen and a good scrape job performed to remove all the excessive goop! Better would have been a dainty helping of perfectly delectable tiramisu … hold the whip, hold the brown and red squiggles, and simply dust ever so lightly with a delicate grating of fine chocolate.

Tampa, just say “oh, so passé” to the squeeze bottle squiggles. Little to be gained flavor-wise and as for visual presentation, only makes the diner wonder what the kitchen is trying to distract us from on the plate!!!!