Invisible ceilings at ethnic restaurants?

Mod Note: This discussion was split off from the main Spoon Thai thread, as to not derail discussion on that thread.

Thanks,

=R=
for the moderators

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I was one of the people who had lunch with Vital Info at Spoon. While my meal was perfectly fine (the mudfish soup ws the best dish I thought), it did remind me of the following story. Suvir Saran, the chef at the Indian restaurant Devi in New York City, and an accomplished French chef, once told me the following story. I had asked him what he thought about the ethnic category of Indian restaurants. He responded by telling me a story about how he used to do consulting for a number of Indian restaurants, but he quit because they made every dish using the same 5 sauces. Even worse, the sauces were made with a spice mix base that they purchased from a supplier. He went onto say that pretty much every cheap eats Indian restaurant in the city used the same base to make their sauces, and that this type of uniformaty, plus relying on ingredients that were less than stellar, soured him on neighborhood ethnic restaurants.

Since he told me that story, I can't eat at an ethnic restaurant without submitting it to his test. And like with every other ethnic restaurant I eat at, regardless of the specif ic ethnicity, they uniformally fail this test. In fact the attributes that Suvir outlined are what makes them inexpensive in the first place. If someone had to make fresh spice mixtures out of expensive spices every day your curry couldn't cost $12.99. So while dishes at Spoon like the raw shrimp with spicy sauce were good, you will find the very same sauce on other dishes. In fact Szechuan restaurants are some of the biggest culprits as they douse everything in that hot oil.

Now this doesn't mean that an ethnic meal can't be enjoyable and I will submit that i had a fine lunch with Rob and crew. But it was like driving a car that won't go faster than 55 MPH. It gets you there and it can be an enjoyable drive. But it's not like driving a Porsche. In fact rarely do I find an ethnic restaurant that overcomes these limitations.

Steve Plotnicki wrote:I was one of the people who had lunch with Vital Info at Spoon. While my meal was perfectly fine (the mudfish soup ws the best dish I thought), it did remind me of the following story. Suvir Saran, the chef at the Indian restaurant Devi in New York City, and an accomplished French chef, once told me the following story. I had asked him what he thought about the ethnic category of Indian restaurants. He responded by telling me a story about how he used to do consulting for a number of Indian restaurants, but he quit because they made every dish using the same 5 sauces. Even worse, the sauces were made with a spice mix base that they purchased from a supplier. He went onto say that pretty much every cheap eats Indian restaurant in the city used the same base to make their sauces, and that this type of uniformaty, plus relying on ingredients that were less than stellar, soured him on neighborhood ethnic restaurants.

Since he told me that story, I can't eat at an ethnic restaurant without submitting it to his test. And like with every other ethnic restaurant I eat at, regardless of the specif ic ethnicity, they uniformally fail this test. In fact the attributes that Suvir outlined are what makes them inexpensive in the first place. If someone had to make fresh spice mixtures out of expensive spices every day your curry couldn't cost $12.99. So while dishes at Spoon like the raw shrimp with spicy sauce were good, you will find the very same sauce on other dishes. In fact Szechuan restaurants are some of the biggest culprits as they douse everything in that hot oil.

Now this doesn't mean that an ethnic meal can't be enjoyable and I will submit that i had a fine lunch with Rob and crew. But it was like driving a car that won't go faster than 55 MPH. It gets you there and it can be an enjoyable drive. But it's not like driving a Porsche. In fact rarely do I find an ethnic restaurant that overcomes these limitations.

Fine, since my last post got pulled.

I don't think I disagree more with anything else I have read on this site, ever. But then, I've never driven a Porsche.

Which part do you disagree with?

Just asking.

If Steve Plotnicki cannot tell the difference between Spoon and an Ameri-Thai pad thai slinging place, then I guess I can't believe or take seriously anything he says about food. He also seems dangerously cavalier about painting Thai, Szechwan, and South Asian places with the same brush. Maybe they all look alike to you?

Can this fight be split into another thread now so this thread doesn't become completely useless when the inevitable 7 pages of back and forth get tacked on?

Steve Plotnicki wrote:Since he told me that story, I can't eat at an ethnic restaurant without submitting it to his test. And like with every other ethnic restaurant I eat at, regardless of the specific ethnicity, they uniformally fail this test. In fact the attributes that Suvir outlined are what makes them inexpensive in the first place. If someone had to make fresh spice mixtures out of expensive spices every day your curry couldn't cost $12.99.

I'll bite: why does expensive = good? If I go down to Spice House and buy a bunch of whole spices, roast what needs roasting, and grind them all together, I'll end up with a pretty damn good garam masala that won't costing very much per spoonful (50 cents? A buck, at most? Something in that range, even without bulk discounts), which is all I really need to make a single Indian dish. If I store my garam masala properly, or better yet, store the whole spices property and only roast/grind what I need for the day every morning (which would take me a few minutes, tops), I could have pretty damn good garam masala everyday. It won't be made with hand-stripped, fair trade, organic Ceylon cinnamon bark, sustainably harvested from a plantation outside of Colombo by Sri Lankan civil war widows, but it'll turn out perfectly fine. Great even. And affordable enough to be used in a $12.99 curry dish.

I completely agree with you that many "ethnic" (and just as many "non-ethnic") restaurants cut corners and take the lazy way out entirely too often by buying commercial sauces, spice blends, etc.. But I strongly disagree with the assertion that price alone is a reflection of quality - in fact, I think it's close-minded and misguided, and I hope I misinterpreted what you were saying.

This will be my last post as I am leaving for the North Pond dinner in a few minutes.

Octarine I didn't say I can't tell the difference between different ethnic restaurants. I said that the difference isn't enough to move me due to the limitations I outlined in my prior post. So just because Spoon is a better Thai restaurant than XYZ Thai, that doesn't mean that it's a good restaurant when compared to a better restaurant.

Do you think that shrimp from the A & P and doctored sauce from a bottle makes for a good restaurant? Good for you if you do. I don't, although I am quite happy to eat it when I want a casual meal. But I assure you that if we went to 25 Thai restaurants in this city, including some that the people on this forum favor, you will find that they are 98% alike and the discussion revolves around the 2% that makes a difference.

Khaopaat - I didn't say that expensive means good. Suvir's story was about the limitations that are inherent with NOT buying things that are high quality. If you can find high quality shrimp for a cheap price than that's great. But like I said above, what they use at Spoon is A & P quality. How you feel about that is up to you. But it is what it is.

Steve Plotnicki wrote: So while dishes at Spoon like the raw shrimp with spicy sauce were good, you will find the very same sauce on other dishes. . .

Perhaps you did not order widely enough from the menu.

Steve Plotnicki wrote: Now this doesn't mean that an ethnic meal can't be enjoyable and I will submit that i had a fine lunch with Rob and crew. But it was like driving a car that won't go faster than 55 MPH. It gets you there and it can be an enjoyable drive. But it's not like driving a Porsche. In fact rarely do I find an ethnic restaurant that overcomes these limitations.

I think you need to, as they say, "check your assumptions," Mr. Plotnicki. I find this assessment overly broad, uninformed, and though an opinion, offensive. Can't food-interested people like ourselves update our views just at tad and get with the 20th-ooops-21st century? To lump together a varied group of restaurants as "ethnic" is beyond ignorant. Or perhaps in you have lost sight of certain truths in your epicurean quest.

Josephine wrote:I think you need to, as they say, "check your assumptions," Mr. Plotnicki. I find this assessment overly broad, uninformed, and though an opinion, offensive. Can't food-interested people like ourselves update our views just at tad and get with the 20th-ooops-21st century? To lump together a varied group of restaurants as "ethnic" is beyond ignorant. Or perhaps in you have lost sight of certain truths in your epicurean quest.

Joshephine, I'm confused by your response. Isn't Steve telling you about his experiences? What assumptions is he making? He isn't assuming anything about restaurants he never visited.

Darren72 wrote:

Josephine wrote:I think you need to, as they say, "check your assumptions," Mr. Plotnicki. I find this assessment overly broad, uninformed, and though an opinion, offensive. Can't food-interested people like ourselves update our views just at tad and get with the 20th-ooops-21st century? To lump together a varied group of restaurants as "ethnic" is beyond ignorant. Or perhaps in you have lost sight of certain truths in your epicurean quest.

Joshephine, I'm confused by your response. Isn't Steve telling you about his experiences? What assumptions is he making? He isn't assuming anything about restaurants he never visited.

Steve Plotnicki wrote:But I assure you that if we went to 25 Thai restaurants in this city, including some that the people on this forum favor, you will find that they are 98% alike and the discussion revolves around the 2% that makes a difference.

gleam wrote:

Darren72 wrote:

Josephine wrote:I think you need to, as they say, "check your assumptions," Mr. Plotnicki. I find this assessment overly broad, uninformed, and though an opinion, offensive. Can't food-interested people like ourselves update our views just at tad and get with the 20th-ooops-21st century? To lump together a varied group of restaurants as "ethnic" is beyond ignorant. Or perhaps in you have lost sight of certain truths in your epicurean quest.

Joshephine, I'm confused by your response. Isn't Steve telling you about his experiences? What assumptions is he making? He isn't assuming anything about restaurants he never visited.

Steve Plotnicki wrote:But I assure you that if we went to 25 Thai restaurants in this city, including some that the people on this forum favor, you will find that they are 98% alike and the discussion revolves around the 2% that makes a difference.

Ok, that's an assumption. But it isn't the bit that Josephine quoted. Plus, putting aside that 2% of 25 is a half, he's undoubtedly right that most Thai restaurants in Chicago are fairly similar to one another and are roundly derided on this board as being Americanized or worse. It's only the a handful of truly great places that we talk about. I think that's the point that he's making. I would go further and say that his observation applies equally well to "non-ethnic" restaurants. Most just aren't that good and a lot of the blandness is because they are all buying the same crappy ingredients and using them poorly.

Darren72 wrote:I would go further and say that his observation applies equally well to "non-ethnic" restaurants.

Except that Steve has made it quite clear both here and elsewhere that he does not believe that observation applies equally well (emphasis on equally). He stated quite clearly that this is something that, for him, separates ethnic restaurants from other restaurants.

Dmnkly wrote:

Darren72 wrote:I would go further and say that his observation applies equally well to "non-ethnic" restaurants.

Except that Steve has made it quite clear both here and elsewhere that he does not believe that observation applies equally well (emphasis on equally).

I guess I've just eaten at more bad restaurants than he has.

Darren72 wrote:

Josephine wrote:I think you need to, as they say, "check your assumptions," Mr. Plotnicki. I find this assessment overly broad, uninformed, and though an opinion, offensive. Can't food-interested people like ourselves update our views just at tad and get with the 20th-ooops-21st century? To lump together a varied group of restaurants as "ethnic" is beyond ignorant. Or perhaps in you have lost sight of certain truths in your epicurean quest.

Joshephine, I'm confused by your response. Isn't Steve telling you about his experiences? What assumptions is he making? He isn't assuming anything about restaurants he never visited.

Let me clarify my response. I characterized Mr. Plotnicki's expressed view as an opinion. As such, it may indeed be based on his experiences. What I find offensive is his lumping together of a a very wide and diverse universe of restaurants and denigrating all with the statement, "In fact, rarely do I find an ethnic restaurant that overcomes these limitations." I take issue with his reifying "limitations" out of his own disappointing experiences, turning these into givens.

It seems useful in response to Mr. Plotnicki's comments, to examine whether the very idea of the "ethnic" restaurant is irrelevant and outdated. (Some might argue that it was never accurate, pointing to the common or parallel origins of dishes across oceans and continents.) Two places I have been reading about today suggest that we have in fact moved past this sort of dichotomizing in the world of what is good to eat. Both offer a menu based on classic dishes common to two cultures: corn in one case, and roast pork in the other. Alexander Filippini attempted, with his "International Cookbook" (1906, published by Mark Twain) to invite Americans to consider the universe of dining. His menus for every day of the year blend dishes from across the globe. My view is that in 2011, we have come a great distance toward achieving the broader view of what constitutes good cooking and that comments such as Mr. Plotnicki's have a regressive quality that is well, somehow, ancient history.

Steve Plotnicki wrote:This will be my last post as I am leaving for the North Pond dinner in a few minutes.

Well, given your high falutin' view of restaurants other than Spoon (where I eat regularly, and it is damn good), maybe I should drive my Porsche up to North Pond (that's good food?) and organize "Occupy Plotnicki" - geez, man, where you comin' form?

Steve - I don't mind you suggesting that Spoon uses the same sauce or base for multiple dishes. That's Thai food and many sauces/bases are very similar if not identical. What bothers me is the suggestion that Spoon is simply using commercially available sauces, pastes and powders that are unaltered, and you offer absolutely no evidence to support this conclusion.

As to your suggestion that Spoon is using inferior ingredients to make their sauces, let's look at some of the typical Thai ingredients found in sauces and pastes: fish sauce (who's making their own?), shrimp paste (who's making their own?), lemongrass, Thai shallot, Thai garlic, lemongrass, kafir lime zest and leaves, galangal, coriander stems (okay, Chicago Thai restaurants use stems rather than roots). So with respect to which of the above ingredients is Spoon cutting corners? Please elaborate.

In my opinion, what separates Spoon, Aroy, TAC and the like from Ameri-Thai places is their willingness to make their own curry pastes and sauces from scratch using the above ingredients, their willingness to use more authentic Thai ingredients (such as galangal being preferred generally to ginger), and their willingness to season the dishes as Thais would season them without using ketchup and the like.

And if you are suggesting that any restaurant that incorporates to any degree ground herbs/spices or readily available spice/herb mixtures is not worthy of visiting, I believe you are sorely mistaken in singling out ethnic restaurants. You can certainly add steakhouses, bbq places, and even some fine dining destinations to your list of offenders.

BR wrote:Steve - I don't mind you suggesting that Spoon uses the same sauce or base for multiple dishes. That's Thai food and many sauces/bases are very similar if not identical. What bothers me is the suggestion that Spoon is simply using commercially available sauces, pastes and powders that are unaltered, and you offer absolutely no evidence to support this conclusion.

In responding to what I perceive as the arrogant and mean-spirited nature of Mr. Plotnicki's comments, I passed over a key issue: what data does he have that support his suspicion that Spoon or any other restaurant cuts corners in the seasoning department? I suspect that Mr. Plotnicki regularly falls prey to the most pedestrian of pitfalls. If he aspires to a high level of criticism, he must address these issues.

Josephine wrote:what data does he have that support his suspicion that Spoon or any other restaurant cuts corners in the seasoning department?

I think this is a higher level of evidence than the usual stuff posted here:

Steve Plotnicki wrote:Suvir Saran, the chef at the Indian restaurant Devi in New York City, and an accomplished French chef, once told me the following story. I had asked him what he thought about the ethnic category of Indian restaurants. He responded by telling me a story about how he used to do consulting for a number of Indian restaurants, but he quit because they made every dish using the same 5 sauces. Even worse, the sauces were made with a spice mix base that they purchased from a supplier. He went onto say that pretty much every cheap eats Indian restaurant in the city used the same base to make their sauces, and that this type of uniformaty, plus relying on ingredients that were less than stellar, soured him on neighborhood ethnic restaurants.

Sure, it doesn't speak the Spoon specifically. It isn't based on Steve's own observations of what goes on behind the scenes. But it is a story told by someone who has direct experience with a segment of the market. You might say that Suvir is wrong. You might say that the Indian restaurant business is alone in this or that the NYC restaurant scene is different. But that isn't plausible. There are a lot of bad restaurants out there. There are a lot of bad Chinese, Indian, Thai, Mexican, American, etc. restaurants. 90% of them are doing some variation on what Suvir describes.

While I disagree with Steve's take on Spoon Thai based on my experiences, it sounds like it's certainly possible to go to Spoon on an off day and come away with a less-than-stellar impression of it.

That said, I do agree with Steve and Darren - there are plenty of Thai restaurants around town that serve food so similarly generic that I imagine their kitchens are connected by a system of vacuum tubes to a central Thai food production facility. Like Steve, I still willingly order from these generic places once in a while, and am generally happy enough with their food...one might make great crab rangoons, another one will get consistent, piping hot pad khee mao to my door in 11 minutes. But they don't offer anything that really excites me, the way Spoon, Sticky Rice, or TAC Quick might.

BR wrote:And if you are suggesting that any restaurant that incorporates to any degree ground herbs/spices or readily available spice/herb mixtures is not worthy of visiting, I believe you are sorely mistaken in singling out ethnic restaurants. You can certainly add steakhouses, bbq places, and even some fine dining destinations to your list of offenders.

This is something that astounds me when I watch shows like Diners Drive-Ins and Dives, and these down-home-style chefs are using jars of garlic paste, liquid smoke... these things are of various levels of short-cut. I don't use those at home, I hope they're not used in my restaurant meals.

Khaopaat wrote:While I disagree with Steve's take on Spoon Thai based on my experiences, it sounds like it's certainly possible to go to Spoon on an off day and come away with a less-than-stellar impression of it.

That said, I do agree with Steve and Darren - there are plenty of Thai restaurants around town that serve food so similarly generic that I imagine their kitchens are connected by a system of vacuum tubes to a central Thai food production facility. Like Steve, I still willingly order from these generic places once in a while, and am generally happy enough with their food...one might make great crab rangoons, another one will get consistent, piping hot pad khee mao to my door in 11 minutes. But they don't offer anything that really excites me, the way Spoon, Sticky Rice, or TAC Quick might.

I agree. My wife and I have a saying that even bad pizza is still pizza and is still pretty good. I think the same goes for "strip mall Chinese" and Ameri-Thai.

Another example: Years ago, after eating a lot of bad Mexican food in a medium-sized town where I used to live, I became convinced many of these restaurants served the exact same pre-frozen dishes. The dishes look too similar to one another and all taste bland. Maybe they were made by Sysco.

One could also rightly claim that at the highest end of French dining, chefs are all using the same base sauces with the same base ingredients. That's why their called mother sauces. It's a ridiculous test of a restaurant's quality. The best Thai restaurants use the same fish sauce. The best Parisian restaurants use the same heavy cream. Who gives a sh*t?

Who's paying thirteen bucks for curry?

ndgbucktown wrote:Who's paying thirteen bucks for curry?

Me at the Haute Sausage truck by mistake. Phuket Duck "pot pie," WTF.

Kennyz wrote:One could also rightly claim that at the highest end of French dining, chefs are all using the same base sauces with the same base ingredients. That's why their called mother sauces. It's a ridiculous test of a restaurant's quality. The best Thai restaurants use the same fish sauce. The best Parisian restaurants use the same heavy cream. Who gives a sh*t?

Actually this is misguided. First of all French restaurants make their sauces from scratch. Every day. And there are French chefs who source their cream from specific farms. In fact some try to get their dairy products from a single herd of cattle that have been grazing on the same pastures for hundreds of years. The reason for this is that what customers are willing to pay for is the expression of specific terroirs that have unique qualities. Ethnic restaurants do not go to this trouble. They get their sauces from jars. The reason for this has nothing to do with their being ethnic restaurants. It has to do with the price point being cheap. Because Thai restaurants are cheap to eat in, they can't afford to hire people to make fish sauce etc. in house. That doesn't mean that you can't have an enjoyable meal in a cheap restaurant. But it does mean that the price point imposes certain limitations on the meal. The point I was trying to make about Spoon is that while I enjoyed my meal there, I also noticed those limitations. I would have enjoyed it more if those limitations weren't there.

BR - I don't accept your premise that Thai food is about using the same sauces. In fact that is exactly the point that Suvir was trying to make. In a good Indian kitchen, the spice mixture is made from scratch for every dish, as is the accompanying sauce. I am sure it is the same in good Thai kitchens as well. But cheap restaurants use shortcuts, and 99.9999999% of ethnic restaurants are cheap.

Steve Plotnicki wrote:Ethnic restaurants do not go to this trouble. They get their sauces from jars. The reason for this has nothing to do with their being ethnic restaurants. It has to do with the price point being cheap. Because Thai restaurants are cheap to eat in, they can't afford to hire people to make fish sauce etc. in house.

Do you know how fish sauce is made, Steve?

Invisible ceilings at ethnic restaurants?

I thought I had run across a long nerdy old-school discussion on murals on ceilings of ethnic restaurants (led by ReneG and leading me to the best tacos by Midway) and I ended up getting Plotnicki'd. Can we get a designation for these threads much like the NWSF designation on other sites?

* and yes I know I've participated in Plotnicki threads in the past but I'm trying to cut conflict and stress out of my life

My initial suspicion was that the OP's rant was nothing more than thinly veiled elitism and snobbery, by the time I hit the business about the terroir of the heavy cream, my suspicion was confirmed.

Haha. To me the funniest part of the whole thing is where you had dinner last night. There is certainly no other fine dining restaurant in Chicago that uses such "cheap" artisanal ingridents to make it's food.

A chef who "negotiates" pricing with the farmers that he rules over at the Green City Market.

Regards,

Bourbon

I woke up this morning and reread this thread and I tried to figure out why people get upset at someone who is (or might be) pointing out facts that differ from their own percepetion about a restaurant. It would seem to me that one could absorb those facts without taking them as intending to deride what they like. When that happens to me, I try and use the information to recalibrate my knowledge of whatever food type that tidbit applies to. Yet others get out of sorts and start name calling, claim you are being mean-spirited etc. It's weird. Look at AlekH's post above. He has characterized my post explaining the difference between house made sauces at French restaurants and store bought sauces at cheap ethnic restaurants as "elitism and snobbery." I have to say that's a rude way to describe someone who was not offering an opinion but merely trying to relay the factual difference between what happens in a French kitchen and at a place like Spoon.

One can argue that the single best item of inexpensive ethnic food available is David Chang's pork bun at Momofuku Noodle Bar. Yet David serves his delicious Berkshire pork (which is why it is so good) on store bought, once frozen rice buns. I had enjoyed them for years without knowing this about them. But one day a chef told me they were store bought. To him that made a difference and he was implying that they weren't as good as they could be had they been served on home made buns. But to me it didn't matter because when I thought about it, the experience was about the pork, not the bun. But that didn't stop me from learning that the dish wasn't perfect and depending on your point of view, it had a flaw. And it also taught me that the potential existed to find a better version of what David was serving. In fact I became a better diner for having gotten that information and I certainly didn't get angry with the person who told me about it. It would be like getting mad at someone in the 15th Century for their telling you that the world really isn't flat.