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In case it hasn't been brought to your attention
before, restaurant critics are jive. Taking on fuel
is vital to weekend funquests and the restaurant
reviews help you find edible food about as well as
those cretin movie critics help you find a flick
worth watching. For one thing, restaurant critics
are totally ignorant of the three basic food
groups; namely intoxicants, bodily fluids, and
chocolate chip cookies. Secondly, they are always
suggesting weird stuff to eat instead of normal,
muscle-makin' fun foods. For instance, they are big
on ethnic restaurants. Not your normal ones either;
there is, after all a well-defined line between the
exotic and the alien.
Well, we aren't going to start a restaurant
reviewer review here, because somebody would just
review THAT, then there'd be a review to the fourth
power and where would it all end, I ask you? But
neither are we going to waste your time mentioning
eateries like the newly opened Sock Mow Yo Ying,
featuring authentic Vietnamese dishes from the
sixties. Like Cold Rice Dinky Dau, Black Market K
Rations Fu Loi, and the classic Rat Napalme. Nor
will you presumably be bummed to miss out on a
critique of that new Ethiopian restaurant. No menu
there, folks. You get nothing to eat and have to
have a rock concert to pay for it. We'll also slide
right over the new wave of hybrid cuisine, like
Cajun Sushi and Nouvelle Barbecue and Cornpone
Asada.
Where we will go is to a Thai restaurant. Every
city worth its refugees has at least one. Many have
names like "House of Bangkok." Now mature,
sophisticated writers like us would not think of
making funny little puns on a name like that. Nor
would we spin out a bunch of lame little limericks
like "Thai one on", the sort of thing you
constantly see the reviewers from the dailiesdoing.
Food is serious business, old chump. Without it,
where would you be? You are what you eat and, need
we add, if you don't, you ain't.
My dining companion drew the usual stares. She
was, after all, voted Miss Tarzana, California not
too many years back. Back before she fell into
reduced circumstances, diminished alternatives and
(I hasten to add the obvious) disreputable company.
Not that being a restaurant reviewer groupie is the
end of the line or anything, but hardly what we
would want for our own loved ones, is it?
Nevertheless she gets by quite fine, thank you,
except for the obnoxious little trait of
occasionally swiping food from my plate after
distracting me with gambits like telling me a
wrecker just drove by followed closely by my car,
or pretending to spot celebrities like Vanna White.
Which wouldn't be so bad, except that she often
replaces the remnants of such portions if they
don't suit her jaded tastes. Which in turn wouldn't
be so bad if she didn't wear thick coats of
raspberry lip gloss.
She also disappointed me severely when I
discovered that she had no tiger skin lingerie.
Apparently Tarzana, the city, has nothing whatever
to do with Tarzan, the former matinee idol (and a
seminal influence on my own philosophy and table
manners.) Of course these minor pecadillos are a
small price to pay for getting to eat (not to
mention sleep, shower and inventory lingerie) with
a former beauty queen. But enough of my companion's
shortcomings, on with the chow.
We began by noshing (now there's a Yiddish word
for you, like David Letterman or those
coastlier-than-thou "Spy" magazine twerps might use
at any time. We're not completely uncultured here
in the weekly market, you know, whatever the
snots-about-town might have to say on the topic).
Noshing, as I say, on a chilled plate of celery and
carrots (cunningly carved to resemble orange french
fries, though this is probably done with some
Occidental device like a Kitchen Magician or
router) dippable in a delicious mixture provided
for that purpose. A mixture, so they tell me, of
peanut butter, oil, and other ingredients the
nature of which I was too wise to press them for.
Oil and peanuts or not, it's exceptionally tasty.
Make sure you get some. If they fail to provide you
some, make a scene. Loudly mention the name of a
reviewer for the "Tribune". Or even the mucoidal
Mr. Letterman, See what it gets you.
Every time I go to a Thai place I mean to order
something new, but I never do. I always get Nam Man
Hoi because it's so fine. I recommend it. In fact,
I insist. It's in oyster sauce, which is one of
those Eastern ideas that works out much better than
it sounds, like Tantric sex. And contains
mushrooms, bamboo shoots, scallions, either
chicken, beef, or pork, and those scrumpy little
tiny corn on the cob dealies that used to fascinate
you back before you lost your capacity for
fascination--ones you snitch piles of from salad
bars every chance you get. And if that doesn't do
it for you, for a buck more you can get it with
shrimp. Need I say more? How many in your party?
Smoking or non?
My faithless companion, the queen of former
beauty, had the Paht Grapow (and, I've reason to
believe, a substantial share of my chicken.) It's a
choice of chicken, pork, shrimp or (of all things)
squid, cooked in a garlic and mint sauce with red
chiles. She seemed to like it, judging by the
sounds she was making, but I can't tell you about
it for sure because she was too stingy even to give
me any. Can you believe it? Hell with that bimbo,
just get the Nam Man Hoi. Or perhaps the huge
shrimp in garlic, pepper and curry sauce. Or when
was the last time you had duck salad, complete with
lemongrass dressing and cashews? These dishes, by
the way come on trays for you to serve yourself,
and you get a big bowl of rice to dish up as you
best see fit. All reasonably priced, probably due
to the fact that life is cheap in the Orient. (Or
anywhere for that matter.) And they have
frequentlyhave fried bananas and coconut ice cream.
Can you stand it? Now that's exotic dessert. (An
example of an alien dessert would be squid ice
cream. There's a place for each mollusk and every
mollusk should be in its place, I always say.
Frequently, anyway.)
One major point at the Thai places (and I want
to stress this) is not to miss out on the Thai Iced
Tea. It's way better than Caucasian iced tea. For
one thing, it has cream in it. Never thought of
putting cream in iced tea, did you? That's because
you haven't been around for thousands of years and
Thai culture has. Not that it would make any
difference if you had been, because you'd probably
have spent those formative thousands of years
hanging around McDonalds and Video Arcades anyway
and ended up just as uncultured after all. But
that's your problem. There are other ingredients in
the tea, one supposes. They are secrets. And
inscrutability counts heavily in Asia. The point,
however, is simple and well-taken. Namely, DO
IT...try the damn tea. Why is that so hard for you
to grasp?
Don't expect fortune cookies. The Thais do not
make them. Neither do they make televisions or
tennis shoes or boomboxes or motorcycles. No
crackbrain management theory books either, come to
think of it. Nor do they subject us to sneak
attacks, religious fascists, or military
embarrassments like some Oriental countries I could
mention. For Asians, the Thais are really not a bad
sort at all.
If I had even one small complaint about the
House it would be that some of my chicken seemed a
bit nibbled and had a pronounced raspberry taste,
which clashed with the other flavorings. And now
that I come to think of it, I also wonder what made
me think that Vanna White would be doing in a
restaurant full of names nobody could possibly
spell.
I know this will come as a great a shock to the
conscientious reader as it did to me, but it seems
there are those who are taking a rather loose
approach to these columns--scanning over them
lightly, not really getting involved. Not, in
short, getting much out of our wisdom for lack of
putting much of themselves in. Now I'm not going to
embarass you by mentioning any names here in front
of everyone, but you know who you are. Let me
suggest the following:
1. Shape up punks, or ship out,
2. Read The Weekend Warrior over several
times--there are many nourishing nuggets of
nonesuch that will otherwise escape you,
3.Use a yellow highlighter pen to accent
particularly sage phrases and salient truths (I
realize this is dificult, because of their very
number, but try--and remember neatness counts),
4. Get together in small groups to discuss the
column...be prepared to defend critical viewpoints,
preferably with your life. There will a test
afterwards. We are creating pop culture
here--you've got to expect an occasional pop
quiz.
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THE WEEKEND WARRIOR
SAMPLE TEXTS
by Linton Robinson
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GREAT
