So the NYTimes critic finally got around to reviewing Wild Salmon, the mega-NW-salmon-seafood extravaganza that took Charlie Ramseyer from local fish spot Ray's to the Big Apple. And the review? Bruni gives the place one star and the whole review just sounds like a big "it was...uh, fine" to me.
I remember having to review restaurants like this, and when you're not inspired by a place it definitely comes through in the tone of your review.
For example:
"Wild Salmon presents the fish in so many varieties and guises that the tone of a question from one of my companions wasn’t necessarily facetious.
“Where,” she asked, “is the salmon cereal?”
Jeffrey Chodorow, who put this production together, must not have thought of that. After all, few restaurateurs work a conceit as exhaustively as he does, a tendency evident in the nomenclature of the seafood platters. The smallest is called Mount St. Helens; the next biggest, Mount Shasta; the biggest of all, Mount Rainier. The amount of shellfish you get increases with the altitude of the Western peak you set out to scale."
Good lord.
When I first went to NYC as a 17-year-old visiting a friend, she told me I should say I'm from "Washington State" because everyone would think I was from DC if I said I was from "Washington." To them, Washington State was this far-off place that, until Microsoft and Amazon became what they are today, New Yorkers probably couldn't find on a map.
And it's just kind of funny to see the combination of passive xenophobia and double standards at play here. I mean, theme platters? Jeepers. Honestly, good thing nobody's opening a restaurant here in Seattle serving Chrysler Building strombolis. The lines would be out the door!
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