Since April 2003 I've been writing a restaurant-review
column for the
San Francisco Bay Guardian. It began with a nominal focus on takeout food, under
the name Take That. At a certain point I got tired of trying to work a
takeout angle into every column and requested that the name be changed to
Edible Complex. I don't know anything about food, particularly, but I've tried
to compensate by spending more time thinking about it than most people.
All-time favorites
The
smiling faŤade that disguises a soulless agent of pandering and flattery;
the
gustatory lowest common denominator; something powerful and primitive.
Mission
Creek Café/The Last Supper Club
We
all have a Great Lost Restaurant; dreaming about
a
long-dead loved one; culinary empathy.
A
1960s version of adult sophistication; the flavor of
hoisin
sauce in the negative; authenticity vs. pleasure.
That
gummy pot-roast texture that makes little clicking sounds in your molars.
The rest, in chronological order
The
food of realism; projecting my own anxieties onto my food;
a
parable of purity in a corrupt world.
Zante
Pizza and Indian Cuisine
Bringing
the benefits of sociability to the apartments of the naturally solitary.
Here
is what there is to say about the brisket: it's fucking incredible.
San
Francisco's great contribution to lowbrow cuisine; people who
for
some reason have a negative response to the idea of lard.
The
rewards and costs of sophistication; the primitivistic idea of chicken
as
a mere vehicle for some unrelated flavor.
Ketchup's
dark twin – loved by some, reviled by others,
setting
brother against brother wherever it is spread.
"Fast
food has been lying to the public for 15 years"; a conversion narrative;
endless
reproduction, infinite replenishment.
It
turns out the tongue finds it easier than the heart to put prejudice aside.
A
game of chicken with our DNA; a hotheaded young pastry chef; but the coffee.
Half
a decade in San Francisco will do terrible things to a person.
The
fast-casual market; a professional advertising campaign directed at me alone;
irony
in fast-food sandwich naming.
I
was totally sick of eating delicious food all the time.
Rosamunde Sausage Grill/World Sausage Grill
Carnal
flavor burst; intrinsically take-out food; the careless entropy on which
the
universe runs; rich, mellow sweetness; childish things.
A
little window on those parts of America where balsamic vinegar is still viewed
with suspicion.
Mel's
Drive-In/Taylor's Automatic Refresher
Tearing
down the genuine article and replacing it with the simulacrum.
Pork
Store Café/Siam Lotus Thai
Perhaps
the least interesting column so far.
A
sad lacuna in my development; questioning some of my most deeply-held beliefs;
a
sausage that can punch its weight.
A
quintessential nugget of urban romance: the idea that tucked into nooks and
crannies
of
the metropolitan experiment are minute outposts of sustenance and delight.
Something
has got to be done about the service at Barney's on College in Oakland!
But the sauce – the sauce is complicated.
Paying
extra and overeating to substitute for human society.
Fucking
bastards.
The terrible
fact remains: For half a century, the British
associated
culinary deprivation with heroism and glory and their finest hour.