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Maybe New York chef David "Fist Bump" Chang was right? Scroll down, folks.
credit: Chris Jones/SFist
If you recall, Chang got all reality show contestant on San Francisco food, saying, "Fuckin' every restaurant in San Francisco is just serving figs on a plate. Do something with your food."
We did. We added a pear.
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This is beautiful. Hee!
Funny.
Let's be honest, though: most of us have "that friend" who's vegan, gluten-free, low-sodium, anti-pesticide, diabetic, or whatever, who you know would have a problem with the other dessert choices and would ask the waiter, "Can I just have some fruit?"
Am I missing something here? What does Chez Panisse have to do with fuckin' every restaurant in San Francisco?
Well, a deep appreciation for the literal is something you are not missing.
What can I say? I appreciate the necrophiliac leanings in this thread, what with the merciless beating of a dead horse and all...
taco bell figs r literal
If the grub is served delicious, beautifully, and well, I don't really give a fig for "technique."
This would prove his point, if you didn't know what a Warren Pear was. It's a rare and special pear, the likes of which most mortals will never see, let alone eat perfectly ripe. Its special qualities would surely be ruined by cooking or poaching, especially at the hands of a NYC ego chef who doesn't know when to get out of the way of the ingredients.
I should also add that Monday is the simplest, cheapest night of the week to eat at Chez Panisse. Fridays and Saturdays are the days when the menu will feature more complex and expensive food.
But yes, Chez Panisse is probably the first local restaurant to throw fruit on a plate, and since diners like it, I don't expect they'll stop any time soon.
Funny as Dame Alice and the blessed Chez Panisse were one of the few places revered by Chang at the 7x7 panel. I've been calling bullshit on Alice for years. Everyone else around here needs to drop their balls and do the same.
ooh -- you're ever so manly.
I think the point here is how can you really call it cooking if all you do is throw some whole, raw ingredients on a plate and perform no preparation whatsoever? And even if you can justify it as cooking, is it really the haught cuisine they try to pass it off as while charging you an arm and a leg for it? Those figs and that pear were purchased at a farmer's market/produce emporium somewhere in Berkeley and you can bet your ass the few they're gonna simply throw on your plate they didn't cost anywhere close to $8.25. Save your money and swing by Berkeley Bowl on your way home.
If you find ripe Warren Pears at the Bowl for any price, I'll give you a gold star.
That's exactly the point: sourcing great ingredients is meaningless. What you do with it is what matters.
We have such an unfair advantage in the Bay Area -- we have access to an unbelievable amount of fresh, wonderful food, but we don't do shit with it.
Finding a Warren pear does not equate to culinary prowess.
There are notable exceptions to this who do great things, but they are few. However, Chez Panisse is not one of them.
And you are Wrong On The Internet, but so are many other people.
Often the best thing to do with perfectly ripe fruit is nothing.
Frog Hollow sells their produce at most local farmer's markets. If you talk to them at the market, they can probably hook you up. It's a rare pear, but Frog's Hollow really isn't.
A ripe fruit is great on its own, but why pay a restaurant to simply put it on a plate?
No one's forcing you to have that for dessert. There are plenty of other choices that involve technique. But after a rich, complicated meal, a fresh, simple ending like those figs might be just right. Are they charging too much? I don't know, and I don't really care. Just don't order it if you don't like it.
I don't know how much produce is in Berkeley, but in NYC a pint of fresh figs right now will set you back $4-5. And if this pear is so rare, it would most likely cost you at least $2 per, so the markup here (50%-75%?) seems rather reasonable for something that doesn't require any real preparation.
I'm far more offended by the 3-4x markup on wine that you're expected to pay for the sheer act of opening the bottle, which EVERY restaurant does. Now that's outrageous.