Daytripping* with John "Culinary Commandments" Kessler

AJC food writer John Kessler, of Kessler's Culinary Commandments fame, recently spent a couple of days in NYC (via Eater). He goes to places Sifton likes, likes 'em too, by and large; it's interesting, however, to see how Kessler's take is informed by a different sense of NYC than Sifton's:

Then Sweetbreads Nha Trang arrive. Perhaps they’re named for a Southeast Asian city because they’re well browned and sticky like Vietnamese caramel claypot chicken. The Asian seasonings, however, make great sense, as Chinatown is a block or two away. This food is nothing if not totally local.

He pays attention to this proximity in a way I don't recall Sifton or his predecessors doing, but he seems unaware that Nha Trang has a more immediate resonance, just on the other side of Canal. I don't know if Kessler was rocking on the AJC's dime, and I don't know if this trip informed the Culinary Commandments, but it seems like it's a good idea for critics from more peripheral food cities to visit NY, LA, SF, etc now and again. If anything, it's likely to be more interesting than the occasional "Hey! You can get a decent meal in City X now!" story that runs in DI/DO. Hard to imagine the average paper is receptive to these kinds of junkets these days.  

*He was there more than a day, but the premise reminded me of this, which is a pretext to have the Bad Brains play us off. You know how it works around here.