Sripraphai Gets Stars in Times

The difference between food writing in Chicago and other places continues to amaze.

A popular but modest Thai restaurant in NY gets 2 NYTimes stars, which many high-end chefs would kill for.

I've never been to Sripraphai, so I can't say anything one way or the other. It's widely said to be very good. On the other hand, some trusted LTHers and Chowhounds that have been around say it stands in the culinary shadow of certain places here, in LA, Vegas, etc.

The West Coast places get their due, thaks to Jonathan Gold. Now the most important food critic in this hemisphere has decided to treat seriously the neighborhood ethnic restaurant in NYC. (Quite the contrast to his brief-but-too-long-tenured predecessor, who infamously elevated form over substance.)

Who will do the same here? The Reader is trying, I think. Surprisingly, Chicago Magazine does its part, 1-starring a few well-documented asian places. Forget about the papers, where Eng can talk about these places, but only forks are allowed. Maybe Time Out Chicago? Who's the critic there going to be?

I moved this to Shopping & Cooking because I think it's going to be a "food media" thread, not a Sripaphai thread. Starting with me.

There was some comment on the 20 finest restaurants thing in the current Chicago magazine which this calls up for me. Basically, 20 finest restaurants has become synonymous with 20 most expensive restaurants. This will not seem surprising to most people, one assumes that finer cuts are being served at these places with more labor to prepare them just right, and while there may be some truth to that, I think it is just as easily refuted by two facts: that upscale restaurants are using downscale ingredients these days, like Blackbird's pork belly, partly to show what they can do but also to save money, and some ethnic restaurants, as family-run businesses, clearly put more labor into dishes than is reflected in the price by industry standards.

Once you accept those facts it is no longer obvious to me that there is a quality difference-- as opposed to a class difference-- between these restaurants and the best ethnic or neighborhood spots, nor is it obvious to me having eaten at many of them that some of these places deserve a place on that list any more than it is obvious to me that the Spoons and TACs of the world don't belong there. The meal I recently had at TAC, like many of the meals at Spoon, stands far above my experience at Crofton on Wells or Spring, to name two. I don't mean it hit the spot like a good cheeseburger does, I mean it was a more artful meal, more accomplished in its balance of bright, fresh, interesting flavors. It competed on the four-star turf and did better.

So that's one of the things I find dismaying about food media-- it is almost hard to open a place at a certain price point and NOT end up on this list of the 20 best restaurants in town. So good for the Times to put a place like this on the same basis as the fancy clip joints; it should happen here too.

P.S. Here's the Timeslink.

I agree, especially with the premise in the 2nd paragraph (although I suppose I disagree on the moving of this thread, is not really a NAF kinda topic?)

Anyways, I cannot resist opportunities to pile on Arun's that this thread affords me. There was so little to be impressed with at Arun's. Their menu was not original (nearly the exact meal that JeffB had a year earlier). They served pad thai for christ sake, so there was no adventure either. The bulk of the sauces were riffs on bottled sauces, so there was no great level of preperation. Besides from some lobster, there was no luxury in the meal. But also, the service was haphazard at best, at best. And the vaulted decor was nothing special either, certainly not in the side annex where we sat. On no level would I find Arun's better than other Thai places.

Now, we went to Ixcapulzalco the other night. Granted, while we spent a lot, we still spent 1/2 of what we spent at Arun's. Still, I found Ixca well worth the price. Lamb in the lamb chops was amazing. The sauces were all well produced--my new theory is that Bayless/Bahena concentrate on the Southern Mexican idiom because the labor intense sauces of Puebla, Oaxaca, etc., match their chefly aspirtions. The service was "ethnic" if you know what I mean, but English was not an issue, and it was warm and professional very much. Not formal, but good service for sure. And the room there, while suffering a bit from its we could not afford walls base, exudes some style. So, I a do think it can be done.

As Mike sez, it is just not being done at the places endorsed by Chicago Mag.

Well, I'm not saying it isn't happening at ALL of those places. Obviously some of them are outstanding restaurants, and I wouldn't leave, say, Moto off that list even though it had low points, because the highs were outstanding. (Though I am tempted to say that the highs were his Trotter training, and the lows were his own contributions.) Blackbird is highly deserving, to name another. And others, well, it's just been too long for me to offer an opinion. There's no question that when everything's right, a four star restaurant is a wonderful thing.

But there is such a thing as expense account or hotel dining, too-- uninspired upscale food, nice presentation but just not a lot of excitement happening in the kitchen. And I would say that at least two or three places on their list come close enough to that that there's no reason they shouldn't have been knocked off for some place smaller and less heralded-- no reason, that is, except that a list like this exists only because it's attractive on a newsstand to casual buyers in Streeterville or Winnetka, not because it says anything very useful about the state of cuisine in Chicago.

Vital Information wrote:Now, we went to Ixcapulzalco the other night. Granted, while we spent a lot, we still spent 1/2 of what we spent at Arun's. Still, I found Ixca well worth the price. Lamb in the lamb chops was amazing.

Was the lamb served in the mole negro? That remains one of my most favorite meals ever - perfect lamb chops in outstanding smoky, spicy black mole.

-ed

gleam wrote:

Vital Information wrote:Now, we went to Ixcapulzalco the other night. Granted, while we spent a lot, we still spent 1/2 of what we spent at Arun's. Still, I found Ixca well worth the price. Lamb in the lamb chops was amazing.

Was the lamb served in the mole negro? That remains one of my most favorite meals ever - perfect lamb chops in outstanding smoky, spicy black mole.

-ed

It was called on the menu, something like inky-pasilla sauce. I forget. I think it was not "technically" a mole as it had no nuts. It was, however, quite intense, spicy, and also hinting ever so slightly of mint I believe (or obviously something mint like).

The dish was great on two levels, both the perfectly cooked lamb and the sauce. One did not really need the other. It was not like they were bad together, just unnecessary together.

To continue, the other main course, a duck in a peanut sauce was not nearly as good. The duck ended up in some no man's land of not so rare and not so cooked, and the sauce was awkward and one-dimensional in its peanut-iness.

I still really like Ixcapulzalco a lot. Right now, my Valentine's Day dinner thee was my best meal of 2004.