Tuesday, March 06, 2012

That's French for sociopath

Foodies are masochists, and this passage from an article in the Jan. 30, 2012 New Yorker gives a good example. The article is about a young-turk chef and restaurateur who opened a seafood restaurant in his hometown of Tijuana -- you're supposed to feel a frisson of danger -- where seafood is the local specialty. Specifically, salmon is the local specialty, and for that reason, young Javier Plascencia refuses to serve it.

But that's nothing compared to the scene depicted in the passage below, about a colleague of his. Pity the poor diner who simply wants something to eat:

At Manzanilla, the acclaimed restaurant in Ensenada that he owns with his wife, Solange Muris, [Benito Molina] has been known to leave patrons waiting for hours, only to emerge from the kitchen with a dish of fish jelly topped with barnacles and seaweed.

I think the only possible response would be that all-purpose line which is said to be applicable to the captions of almost all New Yorker cartoons: "Christ, what an asshole!"

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