There’s an epidemic sweeping across our nation and it needs to be stopped. Someone get the motherfuckin CDC on the phone. Is their number still 1-800-HELP-BITCH-HELP!? No, I’m not talking about ebola, whooping cough, or Birdman flu. Those aside, the epidemic I’m spittin about is fancy ass food. I’m talking about flavored foams, popping “caviar style” liquid bubbles, and making shit look or taste like something it shouldn’t look or taste like. Im talking about that molecular gastronomy bullshit. If you’re a cultured, refined, and well traveled motherfucker like me, then you know what I mean. But you’re probably not, you dirty derelict. But hypothetically, if you were, you'd go to a dinner, get a bunch of one-bite dishes of some picasso-on-a-plate looking bullshit, eat it, don’t know what the hell you just ate, pay $200, and then go hit Del Taco or In-N-Out after. This fuckery has gone too far.
At first it was a novelty. You can probably credit Ferran Adria of El Bulli fame for starting this all. This guy was doing some insane shit. He’s up in the hills of Costa Brava just wilin’ the fuck out, picking weeds and twigs off the ground and pureeing them into a delectable dipping sauce for his tempura-battered waterbugs. The problem is, as it always is, is that people, who don’t know what they’re doing or how to utilize the ingredients or his methods in a way that enhances the food, rather than fucks up the food, pick up on this trend and go apeshit with it. Now I’ve never had the pleasure of tasting food at El Bulli and never will (either will you, you broke bitch), but I’m quite sure his shit probably tasted good as hell. Bitch is a mad scientist. But now you’ve got hos at shithole restaurants with 20 extra dollars in their wallet who get on a bus and go down to Sur La Motherfuxin Table to buy a whip cream dispenser. These people think they’re going to increase the flow to their joint by putting “pizza with pepperoni foam” on their goddamn menus. In some cases they probably will, but that’s because consumers are dumbfucks too. Just because it's different, doesn't make it dope. Look at the stylings of Russell Westbrook if you don't know WTF I’m talking about.
The first time I ate at a restaurant like this, my wife and I “ooohed” and “aaahed” as each dish came out, just because we’ve never seen anything like that before. The waiter would stand there as he presented a dish, talking about what the hell it was and how the hell they made it for about 10 minutes. By the time he finally took a breath, I was long-done, irritated, and ready for the next dish. And if this poor motherfucker didn’t explain everything in detail, I would have been like, “Uhm, pardon me kind Monsieur....But what the fuck is dat on dis plate?” Your brain needs to know what the fuck to expect before you put it in your mouth, else you risk having a total flavor-confusion-induced meltdown right there at the table. Bottom line...was it fuxable? No. In the right hands, all these fancy tricks could be done right, but there’s probably only a few pairs of those right hands in this country and trust me, you aynt one of them. I realized that all this was really more artistic expression than food. This was the chef saying “Look at me. Look what I can do. My food taste like a dick but your dumb ass is still paying me c-notes of cheddar to eat it.” That’s one expensive shat. Plop plop byitch.
I remember one dish in particular at a foo-foo joint in New York. This guy was talking for days about it. It was a single buffalo wing on a plate with a blue-cheese reduction or some shit. I ate it the fuck up and turned to the waiter and said “That was the best damn chicken wing I ever had.” She laughed cuz she knew I knew what the fuck was up and I knew that she knew I knew that they just ordered those shitz from Wingstop and had them delivered out back. I’ll give you a hint which celebrity chef’s joint dis was. Bitch looks like the fucked up love-child of Grandpa Munster and Nosferatu. Run for yo life kids! At the end of the day, the novelty wears off and you realize you’re left feeling unsatisfied. We did a few more dinners like that over the years, but as I’ve grown and matured, I realized that it’s all bullshit. I love food. But I don’t give two fucks about how you’re manipulating it in unnatural ways. I want good quality food, seasoned and prepared with love and simply presented that...wait for it....tastes good. I have an appreciation for anything on the spectrum from a simple bean burrito from Del Taco to a perfect piece of uni. But it’s gotta be done right. Fuck your foam. Fuck your caviar balls. Fuck your flavored smoke. Bitch can I eat smoke? Then stop putting it under a glass bowl and forcing me to stick my face in it. If I wanted my face full of some funky dick-cheese scented essences, I would’ve ordered an aesthetician to the table. But I didn’t. Because this isnt a spa, ho.
On one occasion my wife and I were even given the right to be allowed to enter the holy grounds of The French Laundry to consume some sustenance there. It took 3 phones and an Opentable account to finally get a reservation, but we got it. Of course the dinner was at like 11PM at night. We had to wake up and change out of our pajamas just to make it. Does that sound like some normal shit to you? Bitch if I’ve already got morning wood on my way to your restaurant for dinner, then somethings not right. So we get their and of course we’re excited...not because of the food, but because we know that for normal people like us, this is a once in a lifetime thing. We debated for months whether we could or would even spend that kind of money on a dinner, but we decided to just do it and write it off as an experience that we should have once. So there we were, parlayin in the parlour before dinner. I’m perusing books and shit. Is this a house? Byitch, it looks like a house. Is yo mama in the kitchen baking up some Gino’s pizza rolls? I would have loved that.
They finally take us to some room up in the attic and present us with course after course. All of them 1-3 bites each. Some were tasty, most were forgettable. Then came desserts. Like 20 of them. I had to take a shot of insulin right there at the table just to make it through. And then, there it was....the bill. We knew the price going in but there’s a sense of denial about it. Maybe deep down the dumbass subconscious of your brain thinks there’ll a blue-light clearance sale the night you show up. I dunno. But there wasnt. It was full price. Deep sigh, sign the check, go home.
Conversation the next day:
“So what did you think?”
“I mean...it was good, I guess. I liked the cacao-dusted almonds.”
“What the fuck you want, bitch?”
That right there is a red-motherfuckin-flag. I can get those cacau-dusted chocolate almonds at TJ MAXX for a dollar, right there next to the angry bitch at the cash register. It’s like we both felt we were supposed to love the food because of the fame and aura of the place and the exorbitant price we paid. The service was good, the experience was charming, but the truth is, at the end of the day, we left unfulfilled. The exclusivity of it, paired with the price...it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. Like boogers in coffee. If you don’t get that reference then go eat a dyick you non-pro-baller-turned-terrible-ass-rapper-knowing-troglodyte. In the chef’s defense, we’ve also been to his other "farm-to-table" joint, Ad Hoc, and loved it. Simple good quality food, prepared without pretension, served family style.
Hopefully we start to see more of an evolution back to the basics. Use better stuff, and let them taste like what they’re supposed to taste like. The time and energy and money people are investing to “shock” and “awe” customers should instead be put into procuring the best quality, all natural ingredients. So instead of all the smoke and mirrors and 3-D printers, it’s pride in the most basic elements of the food. As for your foams, leave them at home where they belong, on your wack-ass Keurig cappuccinos.