Gimmicks: Moto & Minnies

Gimmicks: Moto & Minnies

The word ‘gimmick” implies a dishonest trick, so I was surprised and delighted when Chef Cantu, speaking to us after we had an LTH dinner at Moto last year, said something to the effect of “I like gimmicks.” At first, this seemed to be a slightly self-deprecating admission, but I think Cantu was probably using the word “gimmick” in the sense of “ingenious devices.” Moto is a showroom filled with cleverly designed serving/cooking tools: Plexiglas boxes of simmering fish, coiled silverware to hold nose-tickling spices, huge hollow globes of vegetable or fruit paste inflated using some weird kitchen science.

Minnies, the tiny sandwich joint on Halsted, is built on a gimmick, serving allegedly higher-end versions of sammies like cubanos, toasted cheese, etc….but get this: the sandwiches are REALLY SMALL! Hoo-hah! The food is numbingly mediocre, but the servings are teeny-weeny, so I guess there’s some consolation in that.

I tend to accept gimmicks, as I’m as up as the next guy for a cheap thrill. Eating out is, after all, entertainment, and a big part of entertainment is being “tricked” (willing suspension of disbelief, atmospheric perspective, etc.). So I think there’s a place for food gimmicks; people certainly respond well to them (Minnies was packed) and some businesses are driven by them (the novelty ice cream industry has one of the highest rates of new product introductions because every year, they have to bring out many new types of frozen confections to please a public that craves the new).

Skepticism regarding gimmicks reminds me of the argument that this or that work of art is “manipulative,” like that’s a bad thing. All art manipulates; if you like the way you’re being manipulated, then you like the art; if you don’t, you don’t. Sometimes it’s hard to draw the line between gimmick and innovation, though usually we tend to disparage one and praise the other.

Gimmickry can go too far (Eat Sushi off the Chest of Real Rodeo Clown!), but if the basic ingredients are good, and capably prepared, then gimmicks are just part of the show, so what’s not to like?

One thing’s for sure: whether “gimmickry” refers to the inventiveness of Moto or the inanities of Minnies, you’re going to pay for it – in the case of Moto, it’s pretty much worth it; in the case of Minnies, definitely not.

Hammond

David,

But how were the portions?

"Eat Sushi off the Chest of Real Rodeo Clown!"

Now there's an LTHforum subheader if ever I saw one.

And...while I've managed to avoid body sushi over it's decade or so lifespan(in the U.S.)...offered a rodeo clown upon which to partake of my toro, I'd have to rethink my intital objections. Tasty.

To be truly postmodern I think it would have to be "Eat sushi off the shest of a burly pitmaster."

Here's a "gimmick" that I recently enjoyed.

The Wife and I were eating at Indian Garden/Mysore Woodlands in Westmont, and we spotted some dishes made with a kadhai, an iron wok "said to enhance flavor by releasing magical qualities embedded in the metal."

Well, to most consumers this would sound dubious (unless you believe in magic, which I don't), but it was Saturday night and we gave it a shot. The yellow lentils we had from the kadahi were simply fabulous, really good, with ginger and other spices in a rich oil, done just right with some tooth and lots of flavor, probably the best thing I had there.

Just because it's a gimmick doesn't make it bad, is all I'm saying.

The problem with Moto is that sometimes the gimmicks get in the way of a good meal.

The edible menu? Nice, but it did not taste good. I could say the same for a few other dishes that I had.

Alinea did gimmicks, but they worked.

Don't get me wrong -- I am a big fan of Moto. I think that in two years it will be on par with the great restaurants in Chicago. But now, it is still a work in progress.

I look forward to dining at Moto in 2007 when he has sharpened his menu, and comparing it to the meal I had last year there.

DML wrote:I look forward to dining at Moto in 2007 when he has sharpened his menu.

If the menu continues to be edible, I hope he doesn't sharpen it also.

johnny wrote:

DML wrote:I look forward to dining at Moto in 2007 when he has sharpened his menu.

If the menu continues to be edible, I hope he doesn't sharpen it also.

Good catch.

Looks like Cantu is a far better chef than I am a critic.

"Had I read my own second paragraph . . ."

DML wrote:The problem with Moto is that sometimes the gimmicks get in the way of a good meal.

I know what you mean, but I think in some ways that a meal at Moto goes beyond the taste of the food (I realize I'm treading on very dangerous terrain, here).

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:

DML wrote:The problem with Moto is that sometimes the gimmicks get in the way of a good meal.

I know what you mean, but I think in some ways that a meal at Moto goes beyond the taste of the food (I realize I'm treading on very dangerous terrain, here).
Hammond

If I am on the right wavelength here, you guys have zeroed in on a question that seems to come up in conversation with everyone I have spoken to about experiences at Moto. (Forgive me if I am inadvertently re-creating some earlier discussion on this-- I have yet to read all the Moto posts, and I hesitate a bit, noting Hammond's "dangerous terrain" above). Nevertheless. . .

There seem to be two camps: those that feel the inventiveness takes away a kind of direct experience of the superb ingredients and combinations, and those that feel that the inventiveness enhances the experience, taking it "beyond" the threshold otherwise defined by the superb ingredients and combinations. Each of your statements (quoted above) seems to reflect one or the other response to dining at Moto.

I am far from the first person to suggest that in dining, as in other areas of life, one person may prefer direct sensory experience unmediated by language, symbols, and interference from the other senses not central to their enjoyment of the moment. Another person may welcome such mediation, and find that a transformation occurs in his or her experience of the sensation in question such that it "goes beyond" everyday enjoyment. There is no value judgement here, as surely we all go back and forth between these two modes of experiencing. We all know the feeling of the other position, and yet we lean to our own ways of knowing and enjoying life. To borrow a phrase, Vive la difference!

One thing that strikes me as particularly interesting is that the "direct experiencers" among my Moto dinner companions felt that their enjoyment of the dinner was increased by detailed accounts from other diners of (intuited) rationales for the ingredient combinations, as well as by the second group's sense of the reverberations of the gimmicks used. (Sorry if this sounds sooooo precious, folks, I'm just trying to capture some tricky points as best I can.)

Vive Cantu! (for letting us think about this in the first place.)

Don't get me wrong -- I don't have the slighest problem with gimmicks. Tru's staircase of caviar is of course a gimmick. The small piece of lamb in a bed of eucalyptus at Alinea is a gimmick. The foie-pop at Avenues is a gimmick. I enjoy them, but they need to have a purpose.

With the lamb buried in the euclyptus, you get that great fragrence. With the orange-infused pillow, you get a real sense of orange (brilliantly met with the suggested wine). The odd forks at Moto work to enhance the flavors.

However, where I see the edible menu, I think it is interesting and creative, but the dish just doesn't work. Nothing is enhanced. Nothing tastes good.

Moto is an interesting and eye-catching presentation which is fun to experience, but still, a few of the dishes just did not work as food.

Finally, let me stress that although I have some criticisms for the food at Moto, I look forward to returning. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience although some dishes were not successful and the meal as a whole does not rank, completely subjectively for me, with Alinea, Avenues, or Tru. Cantu is an oustanding chef with real skills that go beyond gimmicks. I look forward dining there again.

Josephine wrote:One thing that strikes me as particularly interesting is that the "direct experiencers" among my Moto dinner companions felt that their enjoyment of the dinner was increased by detailed accounts from other diners of (intuited) rationales for the ingredient combinations, as well as by the second group's sense of the reverberations of the gimmicks used.

Josephine,

I think that the enjoyment you're referencing is directly due to the "beyond taste" aspects of the meal that I was trying to describe. Moto is cerebral -- it's challenging in a way that most meals are not -- and whether the gas-infused grapes actually taste good is almost beside the point (though, as a matter of fact, I did like the way they tasted...and felt on the tongue). So, the intellectual experience of eating at Moto would be understandably enhanced if you talk about it...just like talking about a poem in literature class can enhance your appreciation of the poem.

Another angle on this (and one that I believe VI and other non-attenders raised last year) is that, in effect, if it's so cerebral, do we even need to eat the stuff to be able to talk about it? My feeling is: it couldn't hurt, but it's probably not absolutely essential.

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:I think that the enjoyment you're referencing is directly due to the "beyond taste" aspects of the meal that I was trying to describe.

I agree wholeheartely. What I should have added above is that your "beyond" group, (my "mediation-accepters") are the ones who provided the commentary that the direct experiencers found enhanced the dishes. Do you think it is a left-brain/right-brain thing? I don't know too much about the neuro angle, but I know that the fizzy orange I had was memorable as an idea, and on a sensory level-- I can taste it right now!

Anyway, thanks, David this is an interesting thread. I hope more people weigh in.

Josephine wrote:I agree wholeheartely. What I should have added above is that your "beyond" group, (my "mediation-accepters") are the ones who provided the commentary that the direct experiencers found enhanced the dishes. Do you think it is a left-brain/right-brain thing?

The Moto experience seems to demand balanced hemisphericity for full appreciation -- it's food that makes you think.

As I think about our Moto dinner of long ago, it occurs to me that one element that was generally missing (or "intentionally left out" -- I'm not suggesting this was an error) was spice or seasoning. The presentation of quality ingredients was key (a ball-and-chain chain cut from a single sweet potato, skirt steak with red wine and beet puree…in a syringe); there were seasonings, of course, but they seemed mightily played down in deference to the visualization. It’s almost as though the artistic eye behind these dishes did not wish one to become too overly involved in complex flavorings…if you just say “hmm, good,” that’s not enough. Not nearly. You need to create something that can be talked about, a text to be explicated, a conundrum to be unraveled, a gimmick to by toyed with, as we are now.