THE GURGLING COD

Michael Bauer: The antithesis of Jedediah Springfield

By some accounts, Michael Bauer has the kind of make-or-break sway over SF restaurants that Frank Rich used to have over NYC theater. Unlike Rich, Bauer gives the appearance of working in concert with the local  Convention and Visitors bureau. A whisper that the Bay Area is not the epicenter of American gastronomy sends him running to the keyboard like he's Hobbes, and it's a can of tuna. His recent effort is par for the course:

California is a culinary gold mine.The state grows the food that feeds the world, and the Bay Area nurtures the chefs who prepare it. Many national dining trends have their roots here, and it's where dedicated food lovers and chefs from around the country come to play and get inspired. Great cooks are everywhere - at a neighborhood bar, in a modest storefront restaurant and at haute cuisine white-tablecloth venues. But the Bay Area's visionary chefs are more than great cooks; they are people who have made Northern California an epicurean epicenter. Today and in the next two Food sections, I'll profile 20 of these innovators who have helped change the way we eat.

It's a three-part listicle, but whatever, it's August. More striking is the rhetoric, which seems cribbed from an article in a Southwest Airlines inflight magazine, where they talk about all the exciting things to see and do in some town you wish you could afford not to have to fly through. The list includes Alice Waters, Tony Gulisano, Paula LeDuc, Thomas Keller, Cindy Pawlcyn, Craig Stoll, Emily Luchetti, Charles Phan, Jeremy Fox, and Gerald Hirigoyen.As Grub St. points out, other than Keller and Waters, these are not folks who have reached the level of influence where,  say, folks outside of San Francisco have heard of them. Paul Bertolli pops up in part two, but Bauer continues to bat around .200 in terms of names that are recognizable to a non-SFer who reads a lot about food.
It's the kind of thing that's easier to see when it's the mote in someone else's eye, but Bauer ultimately does SF a disservice with this kind of parochial boosterism. It's the same kind of folly that lead a younger Cod to champion some of the more obscure bands of his native Boston, (say, 8th Route Army) which undermined his advocacy of legitimate giants, like Mission of Burma. Bauer's inflation of SF chefs makes it seem as if he is writing about a much smaller town. It's cheerleading that leaves the reader with a profound sense of disembiggenment.

Not the only Chang in town

What with all the love that David Chang is getting from Esquire, not to mention the MacArthur grant, the specially created Nobel Prize for outstanding achievement in the field of LES restaurant excellence, etc, it is worth remembering that there are other Changs in the restaurant biz, and other journalists celebrating them. Bruni, RG, and the Cuoz may have Gotham locked down, but it is, like they say, a big country -- a big country full of intrepid young journalists not afraid go off the beaten path in search of culinary delights.

One such scribe is Andrew Brandenberg, who handles the culinary beat for Bob Jones University's* Collegian. Of P.F. Chang's, he opines:

Both traditional Chinese cuisine and modern, stylish décor combine within the great walls of the bistro that is P.F. Chang’s.

He zeros in on some menu highlights, and describes them in detail:

I really enjoyed the “Crispy Honey Chicken” which was affordable at $8.00 for a lunch-sized portion. The chicken is served crispy and comes with sweet honey sauce glazed over the lightly breaded chicken. However, the spicy “Beef a la Sichuan” ($13.00) was delightful and a great alternative to other, more conservative, choices. The ingredients—namely celery and carrots—are twice-cooked, making it crispy (an interesting sensation for the lips and tongue), and the spice gradually increases throughout the meal (faint-at-heart, be warned!).

Surprisingly, the review does not conclude with "Oriental food that's so tasty, there's no way the chef is descended from an ape!" but rather the assertion that P.F. Chang's offers oriental food at its best.

*Don't miss the dress code.