Note: Once Dining Editor George Mahe mentioned he'd be writing about his least favorite restaurant trends, SLM dining critic Dave Lowry requested in on the action...
Peeves? Us? Just normal stuff. We resent being banned from Outback Steakhouse just because we threw one fit there about the lack of kangaroo steak in a so-called "Australian" steakhouse. Like we're the only ones with an occasional Jones for some 'roo ribeye. We're ticked that in this age of healthy eating, restaurants continue to refuse printing the selenium content of their food on the menu. And Congress still won't investigate the suspiciously large number of cyborgs we know are now working as waitstaff around here. You know, typical things like that. Now that you mention it, though, there are a few quibbles…
The "Character Cook"
Scruffy beard? Check. Faded t-shirt advertising an obscure indie-rock band you wear instead of chef whites? Right. Earring? Yep. Vague travel history of time spent in some suitably exotic and/or third-world village where you learned the local recipes? Uh-huh. Bandana headband or white-guy do-rag? Absolutely.
Yeah, we got it. You're a rebel. An iconoclast. A bad-boy rocker in the kitchen. Doin' it your way. Yeah, it was pretentious and contrived back when Mel was kissing Flo's grits. It still is. Whipping up that Peruvian-style cassoulet, you are apparently channeling Captain Jack Sparrow. You come across more like Oscar the Grouch. Work more on your kitchen skills and less on your painfully hip personae, and we'll be happy.
But the Arugula Does Do a Nice Backstroke
What're, you washing the Romaine in the lap pool at the Y now? How come every time we order a salad the tear gas-strength stench of chlorine is so overpowering we don't know whether to eat or suggest a game of Marco Polo? We're as nutty as the next quivering hypochondriac about food sanitation. But as Whitney Houston proves daily, life's not foolproof. And if that means washing greens in plain old water so they taste like greens and not like Michael Phelps' tank suit, well darn it, we’re willing to live out there on the edge.
911: The Victim Has a Cellphone Stuck Where?
We've done a survey. After answering "Hello," the next line in 83.4% of public cellphone conversations is "Oh, nothing. What are you doing?" We don’t know. We damned sure don’t care. Here's what we're doing: we're trying to eat. Cellphones in restaurants are like a bar mitzvah pig roast. Do you have to be Stephen Hawking to understand something doesn't belong? Our editor here, when he managed a pizza joint (yes, he actually once had a real job), would simply wave customers at the counter aside when they were on the phone, taking the next in line. Beautiful.
Excessive Locavores
Self-consciously trendy and seemingly without any reason to exist, they're the Dane Cooks of the culinary world. When the pepper coming out of that bicycle-pump–sized mill and onto our salad is from the organic pepper plantations of Festus, when the fair-trade peasants of Franklin County are harvesting cacao beans for the chocolate sauce on our éclairs, when we can meet the dolphin-free tuna boats unloading at the docks on River Des Peres, then maybe the whole locally sourced food thing will be so critical. Until then? Well, we realize it's hopelessly dated but we cling to the quaint notion it’s more important food be good than to know it grew up listening to KMOX.
More Wine? Sure, Let Me Back Up the Tanker Truck…
Dehydration is a constant threat in St. Louis' arid clime. Fortunately, wine glasses in many local restaurants hold approximately 5½ Imperial quarts. Apparently some Harold Hill huckster oozed through town and convinced restaurateurs that wine glasses the size of oil drums was the next "in" trend. Good thing, since nothing says "elegance" like sipping Montrachet from a fish bowl.
And on a Personal Note
So, how come when we go to Olive Garden, we never get to sit with those people on their commercials, the kinds who are laughing hysterically and bonding with their parents and just generally having about the best time ever over ziti and breadsticks? We’d like to have that kind of company at dinner. Of course, with our luck, they'd all bring their cellphones.
