When someone from Portland discovers that I review restaurants
as a profession, the first inquiry is inevitably, "What is
your favorite place?" After that comes a series of questions
about the nature of the job: What do you look for? How do
the mechanics of reviewing work? Who pays?
I don't want to weep crocodile tears, but restaurant reviewing
can be hazardous to your health (I'm obliged to consume
more food than is nutritionally sane, blatantly defying
Miss Piggy's rueful command, "Never eat more food than you
can lift"), disastrous to your social life (absolutely no
one invites you home for dinner), a risk to your well-being
(I've been threatened by angry restaurateurs and received
ominous letters from patrons of places I've attacked in
print), and a deceiving massage of the ego (I am tempted
to think I have more power than I do).
What do I look for on the hustings? Mostly I search for
authenticity, for ingredients and a cooking style appropriate
to a particular cuisine, for fidelity to what characterizes
dishes from a region or a nation. I'm not a great fan of
fusion cooking; I prefer food that genuinely reflects what
the French call terroir or locale, the native grounds
that give birth to the food. My heart sinks when I see a
description of a dish that takes four lines of prose. What
can one say about a filet of tilapia with lemon-blueberry
sauce and shiitake mushrooms that have been marinated in
an apricot-vinegar chardonnay and glazed with cognac, accompanied
by garlic-mashed ginger chutney and nested on fig-infused
fennel? I am not a fan of Malibu rococo. I am not delighted
by incongruous, misconceived and pretentious combinations
of ingredients that express a chef's ego rather than their
inherent values and potential. I respect the integrity of
a dish, and I like to see flavors come through clearly,
unmasked by heavy saucing. Though I admire inventive cooking,
it's important that deviations make culinary sense and are
faithful to the nature of the food. I prefer a respect for
tradition and classical standards to reckless improvisation
and experimentation for its own sake. The palate must not
be sacrificed for the eye. Nothing galls me more than restaurants
that sniff out trends the way pigs sniff for truffles, and
nothing is more distressing than to see ostentation substitute
for authenticity, whether it's foot-high stem goblets or
equally towering masses of food that collapse at the touch
of a fork.
I admire the honest, earthy place whose food stems from
a knowledgeable and passionate devotion to a particular
style of cooking; a restaurant that does a few things well
rather than attempting to be all things to everyone; an
ethnic place that refuses to adulterate its flavors for
fear that Americans will be frightened away by ignorance
of unfamiliar tastes. If political imperialism demands that
all systems resemble our own, and linguistic imperialism
expects everyone to speak English, then culinary imperialism
assumes that all nations will Americanize their menus. Happily,
this attitude is fading.
I like restaurants that exude a sense of joy and pleasure
in the food, its preparation and its reception, and share
that enthusiasm with customers--even educating them, though
without condescension. That means I look for different things
in different places. A Greek restaurant that acts like a
3-star establishment probably has inappropriate delusions
of grandeur. Tavernas should be noisy, energetic, ebullient,
slightly mad. If the food is made in the same spirit, all
will probably be well. Generally, ethnic restaurants need
indigenous ethnic populations, not so much to support them
as to assure the quality that emerges from what we might
call the gastronomic unconscious, a fancy way of referring
to hand-me-down recipes and techniques. What I seek in a
restaurant that claims an ethnic identity is an uncompromising
commitment to old-country values, even when inflected with
new styles.
As a reviewer I judge particular dishes, but nothing is
more boring than descriptions of one dish after another,
or even of the meal itself. I try to capture the overall
ambition of the kitchen, the "shape" of the cuisine you
may expect, some quality that is essential and special about
that restaurant. I also focus on the culture of the cuisine,
offering a sort of low-key culinary anthropology, if you
will. I want to educate readers a bit, advocating a sense
of adventure and enhancing an appreciation for a particular
cuisine or style of cooking.
For me the food comes first; I speak about decor because
it places us in a setting and determines how we feel long
before we taste anything. But I don't say much about the
service unless it is spectacularly good or bad. Livelihoods
are at stake, and this is a sobering thought that compels
me to be as responsible as possible, however tempting it
might be savage a dish or the restaurant itself for the
sake of a metaphor. Nevertheless, writing is important,
and I try to make of the review genre something interesting
in itself.
Mechanics? This newspaper reimburses me; I make reservations
with a pseudonym or the name of my dining partners; I have
a credit card in a false name; I take occasional notes;
I steal menus. I don't go to a place until it's been open
three to four weeks and ironed out the kinks. In a small
town like Portland, I'm probably recognized on occasion
(I do have friends in the restaurant business), but if that
happens, there's little the restaurant can do to change
the dishes on the spot. At most, someone can make sure a
dish coming to our table looks as good as possible. The
service might perk up a notch, but not much more.
We don't give stars, partly because people will tend to
look at the ratings, not at what's written. I never talk
with the chef or the owner, though I may interview the chef
after I've eaten enough times to warrant a review. As former
New York Times critic Ruth Reichl says, "I'm the
representative of the person who's spending money, and it's
my obligation to be as fair as I can." I try to be a passive
customer, asking a few questions if necessary, but hoping
for an experience that is much like what most customers
will have at that place. If I can give the reader a sense
of what it's like to be there, I have succeeded. I try to
visit a restaurant on three occasions, preferably both during
the week and on a weekend. The first time I get a general
sense of the cooking, and later I zero in on particular
dishes to see what works and what doesn't. I go with one,
two or three other people, and I take tastes of their dishes.
I try to eat my way through most of the menu, looking for
both unusual dishes and classics to see how that kitchen's
treatment differs from other versions I have had. I'm lucky
to have a fairly good food memory for, say, that osso
buco in Siena a few years ago.
I read cookbooks from cover to cover. I myself cook seriously,
but, more importantly, I believe I have a good palate from
the experience of living and eating around the world; I
think I know how food tastes. Someone can be a competent
cook but have little idea about how to eat.
Nothing is more pleasurable than a visit after I've reviewed
a place, where I can order just what I want, not a little
of this and a little of that, and without a mélange
of discordant tastes interfering with one another. If there
is an ultimate criterion, it is whether I'd be happy spending
my own money at the restaurant.
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Willamette Week | originally
published October 13,
1999
|
