Hummus is NOT yuppie food. Hummus is HIPPIE food. Specifically, vegan-lesbian-with-birkenstocks-and-rainbow-suspenders-just-back-from-Michigan food.
I agree with the above comment. I was at a restaurant here in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and a lot of people told me it was great. It was great, for people watching. Filled with wannabes who really are there to be seen. The service sucked and the food was not worth the plate it was painted to. Like stated by False_God the chef just tried too hard and failed at everything.
The night after this train wreck, we went to Charlie Trotter’s, really the apex of pretension (or so we thought) and I can tell you, there was no one dining there to be seen. They were there for the food and the service. WOW on both counts. I would gladly accept the yuppie lable if in exchange I was able to afford dinner there more than just for special occassions. And after giving our waiter a run for his money all night, when he said, “I’ll be sure to let the Chuckster know you enjoyed your dinner.” We pretty much knew we would go back the next time we had some serious spare money…
Kittie:
You do know they did that on purpose, right?
It’s a trend now for restaurants to serve “rare” tuna, but it’s the mark of a good one if they ask you how you want it cooked, or at least warn you. We’re so used to overcooked fish that anything else is a shock.
When I think of yuppie food, I think of the do-it-yourself variety, especially anything that requires large and expensive machines formerly only used in restaurants (pasta makers, KitchenAid mixers, espresso machines, etc.)
I’m sorry, you are the weakest link.
If I spend $50 or more on dinner for two (not counting drinks), I should walk away holding my belly and groaning. Case in point, the “tapas” restaurant that recently went out of business here. For 60 bucks we got (including drinks):
- one grilled squab with a dribble of some kind of sauce
- three mussels with a dribble of some kind of sauce
- a 4 oz. filet mignon
- some rice
- three 2 oz sampler glasses of some red zinfandels
- one draft domestic beer
To answer the second part, a well-grilled, medium rare T-bone can be anywhere from eight to 22 ounces and I will not find it tiring. Ditto for prime rib, lamb, chicken fried steak, etc.
If you walk away hungry, it’s yuppie food. And, please, those who agree feel sorry for me that I have to take the wife to the fondue place this weekend. Whatever deity there is, help me for having to wait for bite-sized pieces of meat to cook, one after the other.
Do NOT knock bread machines, though. Even though you didn’t mention them.
They’re great-so much easier-just dump the stuff in and it makes the best, tastiest bread! And they are very non-expensive.
I nominate noveau cuisine.
stofsky, you got ska-rewed. I went to a tapas restaurant in DC, paid for four people’s dinners and two rounds of drinks, and walked out groaning from fullness at just over $50.
Another sign of yuppie food is that the vegetables are sliced extra small. I was at a restaraunt in Durham recently, I believe it was called “The Mongolian Grill”, and all of the vegetables - carrots, squash, eggplant - were cut into these tiny cubes about one millimeter on a side. It was almost impossible to eat them with a fork.
:rolleyes:
Which is possible at any restuarant. As I said previously, it’s fairly simple - just order enough food. Sorry if it costs a lot, some restuarants are expensive. If you don’t want to spend that much money, don’t eat there, or just eat a few things and go home and finish yourself off with whatevers in the fridge.
Uh, oh medium rare steaks… that sounds suspiciously yuppie to me! Although I can’t prove it, in my experience the higher the income level, the rarer the steaks (and food in general).
Of course this is just opinion, but I would find it tiring. But if you don’t then more power to you. A great 16 ounce steak is still a great meal, but I would get much more enjoyment out of a great 8 ounce steak and a great 8 ounces of something else. Variety is the spice of life, right?
As I said, there’s only one reason to walk away hungry from any restuarant, and that is if you are unwilling to spend the money to feed yourself properly.
While I too enjoy tomato and basil, I maintain that pesto is a basil, Parmesan, garlic, pine nut, salt and olive oil puree. To add tomato to a pesto eliminates any further opportunity to call it pesto. 'Nuff said.
As to holding your belly and groaning after a meal, I do not find that the ultimate criteria of whether a meal was adequate or not. However, I do find the absence of sufficient quantity conspicuous. A meal should be satisfying. Sometimes a small cut of meat can be rather filling if accompanied by a well reduced sauce or glaze. This is where the finesse of the chef comes into play.
I usually draw the line at “frou-frou” concoctions like the ones cited by False_God. Such culinary mismatches usually require a welding torch in order to obtain the “fusion” implied by the all-too-often misguided chefs responsible for these food fiascos.
I will gladly relate a happy exception to this particular case;
I was dining at Enotria, a superb enoteca and restaurant combination in Sacramento, CA. The first course listed a “cauliflower mango soup”. Upon reading this, all of the “frou-frou” alarms instantly began to peal at red-alert status levels. The knowledgable server recommended it and the other first course sounded much more forgettable.
Now, please know that I usually detest most of the passion-fruit-kiwi-guava-papaya-and-any-other-tropical-fruit-melded-into-an-otherwise-decent-dish style of cooking. This soup was a tremendous exception. The chef had used a well constructed chicken broth to nurture the soup’s backbone to the point where there was both enough salt to leaven the otherwise bland cauliflower and allow the mango to function as a perfume and not as some sort of sweet/salty taoistic-mystical-rectal-cranial-highya-mucky-muck bit of weirdness.
In short, the soup was fantastic! A perfect combination of elements. Much like the tangerine glazed pork I had on my recent trip to Taiwan (whose recipe I shall devise and post sometime soon). So, there you have it. There are, on rare occassions, somewhat yuppie sounding foods that are, in reality, really good eats.
Just not very often…