So much food. So little time.
On a long Memorial Day weekend in London, a friend and I took on six restaurants affiliated with uber-chef Gordon Ramsay in four days. Each of the meals was wonderful, and there was more than a little bubbly. But some of it was of the plop, plop, fizz, fizz kind.
As the bug said after it hit the windshield, I don’t think I have the guts to do this again.
Or to order another ant-larva omelet in the north of Thailand. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (it was crunchy, sort of boring and did not taste like chicken).
And, on some of the same grounds (the boring part), I’d skip the fried green tomatoes in Galena, Ill. But not their namesake restaurant–a very fine one (who’d have thunk it–growing up many years ago as I did just a few miles away–that Chicagoans would someday come to Galena to dine . . . ).
Of course, I’ll go back to London, Thailand and Galena–all places I’d highly recommend, even if I didn’t have personal connections–just on a different dining plan.
I didn’t make it to too many other places in 2005, but they all had their great food connections. Korea on a brief winter stopover on that Thailand trip (hold your nose, try the kimchi). Milwaukee on more than one occasion (it’s not just brats and German food anymore). Even Little Rock, Ark. (which helped clog Bill Clinton’s arteries).
Korea cool: January in Seoul is a lot like January in Chicago. And I’m not just talking about the weather. On weekends, both towns are as uncrowded as they’re ever going to get. So there’s no waiting to ascend Seoul Tower, no mobs of shoppers on the “walking” streets, no problems getting tickets to the (first-rate) culture show at the Korea House. On a crisp, sunny Sunday, we hired a guide and driver, and without all the traffic, did the regular “full-day” tour of the city and its snow-draped mountains in little more than half that time. (But don’t be fooled: Weekday traffic in Seoul–as in Chicago–knows no off-season.)
Beyond the ants: January, of course, is the middle of peak-season in Thailand. But not in 2005. Though the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami affected just a tiny sliver of the country’s Andaman Sea shore, I could see and feel the disaster’s “second wave”–the lack of tourists–hundreds of miles away in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
And then Phuket itself. Before I “went to work” (on a story that appeared here in February), I spent four days at Karon Beach, the first two with my semi-adopted boys, 10-year-old Guide and 13-year-old Top, playing on the deserted sand, and dining on pizza and KFC–no ants for them!–in empty restaurants.
After sending them back to Chiang Mai with their mother, Onn (who joined us for the last two days), I turned reporter and visited the morgue, talked with survivors (through a translator), and saw the damage in Patong Beach and Kamala Beach, the two hardest-hit areas. The amazing thing was how quickly Phuket and its people were recovering (it is, from all reports, virtually normal now). Not so in Khao Lak, 20 miles north on the mainland; five weeks after the tsunami, it was a ghost resort (and still mostly is).
What’s in a name?: The Thais’ English expression “same same, only different” can apply to any situation where what you’re getting isn’t quite the real thing. Like a Pepsi instead of a Coke. Though certain gentlemen travelers whose mini-skirted “lady” companions turn out to be kahtoeys may not appreciate the phrase’s charm, it has worked its way into pop culture, appearing on T-shirts and all sorts of other tourist knickknacks. And the Thais, without worrying about its contradictory logic, love it too. They’ve slapped the shortened version–“same” or “same same”–as a non-brand brand label on many a knock-off product. But I didn’t realize how far this practice had spread until I pushed a button above a nameplate reading “SAME elevator” on what otherwise looked like a standard Otis in Phuket.
The big burp: Those six London restaurants were: Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s, the Savoy Grill, Petrus and Menu at the Connaught–for dinners; the just-opened Maze and Boxwood Cafe–for lunches. Most came with a Michelin star. All came with a hefty check–but then, you’re also paying for “the show.”
A sample tasting menu (from Petrus), served up in eight acts: an amuse bouche, trio of foie gras, scallop with tomato chutney, pork belly with langoustine, turbot with quail egg, roasted beef filet with leeks and foie gras and snails, “pre-dessert” and rhubarb panna cotta.
The price: 80 pounds (about $150 then). Plus wine. Plus mineral water. Plus tip.
Now multiply that by six . . .
A small inheritance just got a whole lot smaller.
Beyond Marilyn: Before 1992, Little Rock was mostly known for two things: A frothy Marilyn Monroe number from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (“I’m just a little girl from . . . “) in 1953 and a thuggish effort to stop the integration of Central High School in 1957. And then came Bill. While local reaction to Bill (and Hillary) Clinton is mixed, one thing Little Rockers agree on is that he’s been good for the tourism business, especially since the Clinton Presidential Library opened in late 2004. It’s now a top regional weekend destination–and a popular stopover for Midwestern snowbirds on their way farther south.
In addition to the library and Central High (a National Historic Site, with a terrific visitor center/civil rights museum just across the street in an old gas station), Little Rock has a small but growing nightlife area (downtown, near the Arkansas River), a surprisingly good dining scene (on my spring visit, I had pulled pork barbecue and foie gras), the Old State House Museum (where Clinton celebrated his elections) and lots of promise (that’s code for blocks and blocks of grand but run-down buildings that need a heap of fixing up).
Fun with Bill and Hill: The most popular attraction at the Clinton Presidential Library on my visit was a video of the Clintons poking fun at themselves at White House Correspondents Association dinners. DVD copies weren’t for sale, however–until last month (check it out at clintonmuseumstore.com).
Grand opening: Santiago Calatrava’s Quadracci pavilion at the Milwaukee Art Museum is hard to describe (a roof? a wing? a sun screen?) but easy to love. Especially when you see it in action, which I finally did this summer. One more of many reasons to drive north to the Midwest’s big surprise.
Guess who’s coming to dinner?: In the other corner of Wisconsin, just across the border from Galena, five bald eagles (three adults, two juveniles) found Christmas dinner in a field just 150 feet from a small road on our family farm. Not sure, from that distance, exactly what was on their menu (venison, I suspect), but it was great theater–and much cheaper than Petrus.
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Randy Curwen (rcurwen@tribune.com) mostly orders carry-out at home.
