Okay, we've had our "Food Snobs" thread, but tonight's dinner at the
Salt Creek Grill on PCH in Dana Point CA made me think of the number
of truly awful (to me) menu offerings there are here in SoCal and, I
suspect, elsewhere. Why does a chef take a pretty simple, nice idea
for a dish and torque it into a ridiculous parody of the original
dish? The DH ordered a barbecued pork sandwich that was "Upscaled" to
the point of inedibility. After being offered a taste from a DH who
was making faces, I couldn't identify half the ingredients, but can
testify that they don't belong in barbecue. I had a Caesar salad with
chicken, but the chicken had something on it that clashed horribly
with the Caesar dressing and the Asiago cheese they used instead of
Parmesan was way too strong. If you look at their online menu, it
looks pretty tame, but their online menu doesn't show the more goofy
concoctions. I see this time and again where a chef, in an attempt to
be creative and have a "signature dish" just goes way over the top and
uses "wasabi remoulade," "Cajun spices drizzled with a
ginger soy wasabi ," "confetti of beurre blanc with blah blah blah."
Macaroni and cheese can be presented with a dizzying array of spices
and be presented as "pasta il formaggio con blah blah blah spices." Ya
just never know when you're going to get sideswiped by some chef's bad
idea. I guess everyone's mileage varies as to taste, but some
"creations" should have stayed on the drawing board, IMHO.

Terry "Squeaks" Pulliam Burd
AAC(F)BV66.0748.CA


"If the soup had been as hot as the claret, if the claret had been as
old as the bird, and if the bird's breasts had been as full as the
waitress's, it would have been a very good dinner."

-- Duncan Hines

To reply, replace "spaminator" with "cox"