A confused mess of a restaurant in Rockville, Maryland, mixing Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Korean food. I flipped to the narrative story at the front of the menu to try to figure out which of the parade of food they might know something about, and it turned out that it started life out as a noodle bar. So, after nibbling through some fried tofu (I peeled off the batter, which I found extremely unnecessary) I ordered a thai style soup with shrimp. Not that I expected so much, but the shrimp were undistinguished (obviously just standard issue frozen shrimp), and there were none of the promised vegetables. I poured in soy to add some flavor. Near the bottom of the bowl, my mouth did start picking up some heat, but, to quote the 300, this is Thailand! No Thai soup should be so tame. On the other hand, the owner or manager was wandering around being solicitous, and the service was friendly. I have come to realize that the latter of those two things can turn a mediocre restaurant into someplace you might become a regular.
The underlying thought I had while sitting at Tapei Tokyo was more interesting than the food. Are we now at the point where every major world cuisine has been introduced to the market? Thirty years ago, say, one could reasonably say that there was this enormous country, called Japan, about which people knew nothing from a culinary perspective. Same with Thailand. Perhaps the same with India, although my impression is that Indian food penetrated major US markets first. But is there anything out there right now that can do what sushi did? My nomination is for Chinese food. Of course, we all think we know Chinese food. But it must be in a state of flux, and I cannot believe that a country whose wealth has undergone such an extreme revolution in the past couple of decades will not eventually produce something exportable that isn't moo shu chicken.
(Tyler Cowen's thoughts on a different branch, here)
7/29/2008
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2 comments:
Hmm. I don't know anything about what Icelanders eat other than the presumption that there must be a lot of fish. You might say, Iceland is not an important country. But in 1970, Japan was known mainly for having been someplace we'd bombed and for exporting cheap crap.
Well, apart from skyr, their yogurt cheese (already on its way to NYC), there's no obviously exportable cuisine there. Fish. Fermented fish. Heavy breads. I like the place, but a food haven it is not.
Plus, yes, it's not an important country. I think a grand total of 300,000 people live there. Japan was always pretty big.
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