NY Times appoints Tejal Rao as CA food critic

We can place bets she never makes to Redding or Chico, Yreka or Blythe.
Spoken as a big city raised and now small town escapee, so predjudiced for sure :sunglasses:
I’m more inclined towards a Huell Howser
Model, I suppose…

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Since Rao is writing for the NY Times, I would expect to see a fairly superficial coverage of major “name” places with occasional forays into less-popular tourist spots.

I wouldn’t expect NY Times to cover a lot of small, family owned places. That’s for local bloggers and foodie reviewers to do.

My guess is that her reviews are going to be in line with the NYT’s “36 Hour” travel articles: digging a little deeper than the usual tourist spots, but not trying to be the “ultimate last word” or “first on the spot”. That’s not the NYT’s market.

I fear I must stand by the ‘sheeple-ism’ remark. You have only to look at Korean food in the Bay Area vs LA Koreatown, let alone Chinese food and the monotonous CA cuisine menus of beet salad, hangar steak, and fried-whatever starters.

Agree. NY Times is not meant to review unknown holes in the wall. If they are, then it is because someone else has already reviewed these places.

I have to say the opposite. I have to say that I feel LA is more sheepleism. I find the Japanese, Chinese, Korean foods not nearly as inspirational as those in SF. There are tons of catching the waves, and tons of chains (from US or from Asia). Just look at all these bubble tea shops here. Chinese hotpot everywhere with no idea what they are doing.

Well in NY, they do two reviews a week. Pete Wells reviews better known, generally more expensive places, but there’s also a cheap eats review (the name has changed over the years) that does cover lesser-known , often family-owned places.

Maybe we should wait until some of the Rao and NY Times California food articles come out before jumping to conclusions without any facts. They will probably be feeling out the beat for a while in the beginning.

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cross-posted from the “Food Media and News” board

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Well said . LA sheep.

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Perhaps with the exception of interim reviewer Sam Sifton, who lovingly throttled “Fast Eddie” Huang’s Xiao Ye in a pincer movement in collaboration with Eddie’s mom and Four Loko.

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I have to say that I feel LA is more sheepleism. I find the Japanese, Chinese, Korean foods not nearly as inspirational as those in SF. >>

We’ll just have to disagree, LOL. People still pile into Ohgane/Oakland, which is the epitome to us of bad oversugared Korean food. Whereas we had a lovely classic Korean banquet almost five yrs ago in LA’s Koreatown, and my brother reports there’s now at least 3 more traditional and 1 fusion-style Korean banquet restaurants which have sprung up. And the Bay Area has…none (there is one planned to open - South Bay, I think?).

The Vietnamese food is almost as bad; we’ve seen our favorite Bò Tái Chanh, Vietnamese beef tartare, turn increasingly sugar-heavy over the last 30 yrs. When we dined at Temple Club/Oakland, chef Deetz and I discussed this as we were both in agreement on the over-use of sugar in today’s Asian cooking.

Umm…not much impressed by chains. I’ll pass on any ramen chain, Michelin star notwithstanding, to return to Sake 107/Petaluma, where the teriyaki was identical to what I grew up with in the '50’s and '60’s: delicate, balanced, just a couple of tablespoonsful of sauce on the plate.

I guess we just have to disagree. We don’t have to agree, and we don’t even have to agree to disagree (which I always think is too funny…)

I disagree with that point too. :wink: I think there is a little more sugar than need too, but the increase isn’t a lot. I think the number one change is the vast increase in spice/hotness. Yes, you see an increase in sweetness, but it mild (pun intended) in comparison to spiciness from capsaicin. Spiciness – now that is a huge increase through the last 10 years. Of course, if you like spicy foods (which I don’t dislike) then it won’t brother you and you will welcome it, but that is by far the biggest change. In this sense, the talk of increase sugar uses is more about personal preference, not actual increase in volume compared to the increase use of oil or chili pepper or meat in general.

The consumption of hot sauce is the fastest growing sector now. No question about it.

I don’t go to Little Saigon in San Jose often, but up and down the rest of the Peninsula, I notice an inordinate amount of Vietnamese places owned by Chinese owners and they tend to use a lot of sugar in the pho. Every time I get stung, I keep going back to Ben Tra to recuperate.

It makes sense for Rao to be in LA, which is a city whose current culinary scene and strengths is defined by “traditional” cuisine so it’s right up her alley. A $7 million French restaurant by a Michelin-starred chef in LA isn’t going to gain more excitement or press than a Korean or Salvadorean restaurant opening in a strip mall. The food scene is more egalitarian in LA.

Not to say LA doesn’t have a crapload of indistinguishable seasonal, sustainable, market-driven, know-where-your-meat-comes-from-California cuisine dominated restaurants, but LA does a better job of drowning them out and giving equal weight to ethnic places. LA can thank Jonathan Gold for that. SF can blame Michael Bauer.

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You will find many ethnic Chinese Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese Thai and ethnic Chinese Burmese chefs owning and working in Vietnamese, Thai and Burmese restaurants in the Bay Area, . Charles Phan comes from an ethnically Chinese family. Chinese Burmese have made the Bay Area the Burmese food capitol of the Western world. This is not a knock on their efforts or abilities. Typically, Chinese who fled China found cooking the only avenue to success or even survival in societies which looked down on the profession, and learned to do it as well or better than local cooks and chefs, often over several generations. Does it matter who cooks your fish ‘n’ chips in London, or makes your doughnuts in Los Angeles?

I’ve always been interested in the ancestry of ethnic restaurant owners from an industry structure standpoint, but have never perceived a correlation between it and the “dumbing down” or over-sweetening of foods. I don’t know Ben Tra (Ben Tre?) but I find sweetness a characteristic of ALL southern-style pho. Perhaps your imagination is playing tricks on you.

I think the cause of “dumpling down” has more to do with customers than the owners. Of course, chefs and owners have that control too, but their ultimate goal is to carter the local customers. A Ramen owner I know (ethic Chinese) was trained in Japanese Ramen by a pretty famous Japanese Ramen restaurants - as well as his kitchen staffs. He tried to reproduce the same recipe Ramen. He said he always listen to his customers and watch what is left over in the bowl. He found out that quite a bit of customers leaving behind the Ramen Chashu made of pork bell because of the fat. He then switched and made his Chashu with the pork butt/shoulder instead and noticed that his customers always consumed all.

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Southern style pho is sweeter than Northern, but bad pho always makes the first mistake at sweetness level, because it’s how everyone masks a weak broth. Like bad coffee beans that you overroast and hope no one can tell.

Phan is ethnically Chinese, but you can tell he knows the language of Vietnamese cuisine. It shouldn’t matter the ethnicity of the cooks, except when you see the Chinese influence in the dish, from the choice of noodles they use, the cuts of beef, just the look of the overall dish. It’s different from dumbing a dish down for its patrons, which has different markers, mostly exclusion of ingredients. Traditional cuisine is more difficult for an outsider to get right than someone who grew up with it. When the two cuisines are close together like China and Vietnam, it sometimes makes the mistakes even more apparent, because they assume a choice in a similar Chinese noodle dish would translate to Vietnamese. They’re usually very-telling choices that a Vietnamese chef or atleast Vietnamese-owned establishment just wouldn’t make, where if you grow up with the dish, something “off” even visually, instinctually jumps out at you.

I am not sure if we can objectively call it as dumbing down. There is a subject side vs an objective angle. This may very well where younger population is heading. People seem to be adding more sugar everywhere. As for masking poor broth, sweetness is not the only way, and not even the most effective way. The easiest thing to mask a poor broth is actually adding salt or MSG or adding spiciness. Just look around most Vietnamese restaurants, whenever a patron feels the broth is not quiet what they want, what does the patron usually do? He/she grabs hot sauce to overpower it, not a bottom of sugar.

But Pho is not that old. Effectively, 60 years or so. A little longer history than the British Chicken Tikka Masala, and a little shorter than Japanese Ramen. It is not some kind of ancient thing.

“Traditional” as a political correct term for “ethnic,” not to mean old. Pho is so culturally ingrained in Vietnamese cuisine. It’s like NYC-style pizza. It’s not old, (but it’s way older than 60 according to my 74-year old dad). But it’s still invokes passion about what it is and isn’t and how it should be.

Too much sugar isn’t “dumbing down.” Dumbing down is when you leave out traditional cuts of meat because you think your non-Viet American patrons will think its disgusting. Putting too much sugar is just bad pho. I can’t objectively say why it’s bad because food isn’t objective. It’s cultural. It’s about sensibilities. But talking about food is useless if we’re just dealing with the objective and saying that there’s no wrong way to make pho. From my cultural context of being Vietnamese, there’s a balance/range in the sweetness zone that you can’t go past. And bad pho goes past it.

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As for masking poor broth, sweetness is not the only way, and not even the most effective way. The easiest thing to mask a poor broth is actually adding salt or MSG or adding spiciness. Just look around most Vietnamese restaurants, whenever a patron feels the broth is not quiet what they want, what does the patron usually do? He/she grabs hot sauce to overpower it, not a bottom of sugar.

Yes, sugar is one way to mask. MSG is the other common way. The spiciness use i don’t consider as offensive though, because that’s post-masking, and that’s on the patron not the cook. Younger generations are adding hoisin and sriracha by the loads, but they tend to do that even without so much as tasting the broth, so that’s less about masking a bad pho and more about doctoring the flavor profile (even though it serves as an effective way to also mask bad pho). It’s more akin to adding condiments to a hot dog. And they’re going to do it regardless of how well the broth turns out.

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I think the general population doesn’t care about pho . I like it . But there is so much more . No offense.

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According to Wikipedia sources, southern-style pho emerged after 1954, when northerners brought pho with them when fleeing the communists, so 60 years is about right. Northern style pho apparently developed between 1900 and 1907, which makes it about twice as old. And I am two years older than your father.

When asked about “authentic” pho, Andrea Nguyen said in an interview “Am I supposed to wear a conical hat and carry a shoulder-pole thing with me? For me, authenticity is about honesty and truth and intent.”

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I don’t disagree with Andrea Nguyen on the overratedness of authenticity. But calling out bad pho is not a defense of authenticity vs sincerity. That’s an easy excuse used to defend bad dishes. Taken to that extreme, there is no such thing as bad pho, just different pho. I don’t buy that. It’s as weak as pineapple on pizza which, at least, satisfies Andrea Nguyen’s definition of authenticity. The overusage of sugar in pho has neither honesty nor truthful intentions. It’s simply masking or lacking skill.

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