Article: "How Not to Be a Restaurant Racist"

[Robin Garr]

What do you all think of this? I agree with some, but even as a firm liberationist, I think a couple of her points feel over the top.

http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2015/1 ... urce=atlfb

What do you all think of this? I agree with some, but even as a firm liberationist, I think a couple of her points feel over the top.

http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2015/1 ... urce=atlfb

Ridiculous. This is someone just spoiling for a fight. Not a one of these is a problem in my world.

Mind you, I am often given a fork instead of chopsticks, it's just not a problem.

$12 for pho? Doesn't sound out of line to me (says he who lives in a horrifically expensive city).

I've only had food poisoning twice that I can recall: once at my favorite hamburger joint (growing up), and once at a famous seafood house in Maryland (gorging on crabs). Of the burger joint, my mother's comment was: "If you eat at a place often enough, you're going to get a bad meal." The only food poisoning that I recall happening to Pumpkin was the time, being a frugal Yankee, he ate the two-week old dyed Easter Eggs. (Note to self: Don't do that.) So, no ethnic food involved... pure Americana all the way around.


Jeff

I wish I had those few minutes spent reading back
Agree with Jeff, this is someone searching for a problem

[Robin Garr]

I wish I had those few minutes spent reading back
Agree with Jeff, this is someone searching for a problem

You guys are both in Metro NYC. Sadly, some of this (the $12 pho complaint) is a problem even among serphisticated urbanites between the coasts. I did think the fork for dim sum thing was stupid, and on the whole didn't post the article because I agreed with it but for discussion.

That said, though, it really isn't as ridiculous at it sounds once you get away from Megapolis. I really do hear some of this stuff from people who ought to know better.

It is a terrible puff piece.

But I will admit that the 'ethnic' moniker applied to non-European-origin cuisines is something that has always irritated me.

[Jenise]

I join the others. She lost me right off the bat with the pho piece. I have been to Ba Bar. And I have eaten the very dish shown in the photo above. Shall I tell you what that is? It's pho: egg noodles in this case, peanut broth, smoked shitake mushrooms, one whole duck confit, and some kind of unusual little fruit or nut I'd never even heard of before but I craved every one of them. I actually don't believe that dish was just $12, more like $15, but even at that price: DEAL. It's the most original pho I've ever had. And Ba Bar is casual upscale--there is absolutely no resemblance between it and the little all-linoleum, florescent-lit no-alcohol pho joints in this town that sell industrial Pho for $8 a bowl, and 99.9% of Ba Bar's customers would understand that, if not before they walked in then certainly by the time they left.

There's no problem at Ba Bar that any restaurant of any stripe doesn't have with clueless diners who probably shouldn't be allowed past the nearest McDonalds. Racism my a$$!