westchestermagazine.com, October 3 2013
By Julia Sexton
At the moment that I wrote this post, I was writing monthly restaurant reviews, all food features, and three columns, one monthly and two quarterly. Oh! And I had a side gig, I was writing a book.
I wrote this weekly food blog for six years, from 2008-2014. In 2009, I won a prestigious CRMA (City and Regional Magazine Association) award for Best Blog, beating out runners up in all subjects from big city magazines—Boston Magazine, The Washingtonian, Chicago Magazine, etc. The judges wrote that my blog, "won us over with its big personality, breezy conversational tone and wonderful insider detail—the kind that makes the reader feel like an in-the-know foodie. Julia Sexton gave us a terrific behind-the-scenes look at restaurant kitchens and their complicated relationship with health codes ... And she served up a detailed, name-dropping review of a new restaurant. Thoroughly satisfying and fun." My editors were thrilled—this was a major win for WM.
Ok, folks, here goes the game in which you, my fellow diners, decide which trend is a Restaurant Classic or a Restaurant Cliché. As usual, I’ll add be adding my own two cents, but please join me in the comments section below. Alternately, you can send your highly opinionated rants to me on the Eaterline. Are you ready to play (and are your buzzers gripped in your sweaty little fists)? Let’s call out: Restaurant Classic or Restaurant Cliché!
Molten Chocolate Cake: Restaurant Cliché! I don’t care how freaking delicious warm cake batter is, or how wonderfully sexy you feel it is when brown goo oozes—all Freshen Up Gum-like—from a tiny cake, when you start seeing the same dish in Dubai and Chengdu, it’s time to give that sucker a rest.
Tuna Tartare: Restaurant Classic! Here’s the thing. I’ve spotted this inscrutable sentence posted in the private office of a well-known restaurant in our region: “The Hookers Love Tuna Tartare.” The restaurant’s owner later explained its meaning. Apparently, the well heeled, moisturized, and taut second wives of his wealthy clientele endlessly crave the carb-free lusciousness of tuna tartare. Apparently, these ladies chug tuna tartare by the truckload, glug-glug-glug. Who knew? Painfully, a few weeks later as I was privately enjoying the intense sensual pleasure of eating silky tuna tartare, I happened to catch the eyes of this same restaurateur. Zap! In that instant, we both knew that, a) I was a hooker, and, b) that tuna tartare is freaking delicious.
Edison Bulbs: Restaurant Cliché! Earlier this year, I did a favor for a pregnant lady and performed six tough months as a restaurant critic for The Bergen Record. Folks, I’m saying that about 60 percent of those restaurants featured Edison bulbs, so, at that point, we’ve got to give up the Beatification of The Bulb.
Chalkboard Menus: Restaurant Classic! When you have a quickly changing menu and you don’t want print, reprint, and then print again those daily tweaks, just chalk ’em in on a board. Plus, some restaurants really exploit the creative possibilities of a chalkboard. Check out the cool drawings and cartoons on the chalkboard at Restaurant North.
Martinis: Restaurant Classic (With Caveats)! Excepting the variables in call brands, there are exactly three types of martini: dry, gin, and dirty. If you want to get all loosey-goosey and liberal, I will allow a vodka martini. However, all the other -ini drinks are definitely clichés. Purpletini, it’s time to go away.
“Hi My Name Is” Service: Cliché! Once a point of service—oh, say, having your waiter introduce herself/himself by name—has been printed in the training manual of national chain, it’s ovah! And, folks: I eat out a lot and I have never called a waiter (that I wasn’t previously acquainted with) by name.
This concludes this week’s game of Restaurant Classic or Restaurant Cliché! But I’m always up for more—tell me your own Restaurant Classics and Clichés in the comments section below. And, as always, you can send me private emails on the Eaterline. Folks, I’m writing a book and I am trapped at my desk—I welcome all nutty late night emails. The nuttier the better.
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