Shit. I just spent 10 minutes reading through a fellow WordPress blog, Stuff White People Like. So far, they’ve listed 66 things. For the most part, they’re pretty spot-on, if not a little generic. The one I agreed with most (and despise the most) is #45, asian fusion food.
Why do people like that crap? I mean, two-thirds of the Threevue staff live in Hawaii (and three-thirds did until last month), so I’m not talking about the eclectic mix of Asian foods you can find here (potato/mac salad at Korean restaurants, adobo at saimin/ramen shops). I’m talking about that trendy Western-influenced/cocktail bar feel that is prominent in a lot of Asian places on the mainland. To me, these fusion places always feel pretentious and cold, and the food is usually super bland.
But I must admit that there are some Italian/Japanese fusion places here on-island (that are run by Japanese) that mix things up pretty well.
“Why do people like that crap?”
Maybe the question you might want to ask is “where can a I find some good Asian Fusion food?”
Good Asian Fusion food in my opinion is the way of the future as far as tasty healthy eating goes. It’s good that different styles of cooking influence each other and new styles are created.
I, for one, am so sick and tired of straight Chinese food and I’m also pretty bored with most European food. Don’t even get me started on how over rated I think Italian food is.
Last night my wife and I had some exquisite lightly seared (over charcoal for only about 30 seconds in total) tuna with wasabi and shitake soy sprinkled over the top on some light rye sourdough toast that had some excellent home made guacamole spread on it.
To go with it we had some delicious chilled Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region in New Zealand. So there you have it. Tuna that is sort of prepared in a pseudo Japanese way with some Mexican dip on a German style bread with a Kiwi wine.
It was sublime!
Yeah, I think you missed my point, my friend. I’m not against the mixture of ethnic foods (which we see in abundance here), but the trendy fusion restaurants that have popped up all over the place in the past ten years.
Yeah, like PF Changs. It’s all style over substance, which I think many new-age restaurants suffer from nowadays. Last night for Valentine’s Day, Nicole and I went to a trendy new place called town (lowercase intentional). We sat at our table for 15 minutes with no one coming to talk to us until we just got up and walked across the street to good ol’ Champa Thai. It was great.
Great post! I subscribed to the “Stuff white people like” RSS feed as soon as I got to #11. White people like Asian Girls? Really? Who knew? Anyway, if you’re looking for good Asian-Italian fusion, try Bistro Sun. Ono Kine Grindz has a good review with pictures. I’ve been to both locations but I’d recommend the one at 2751 S. King St. for better taste, better service, and hellah more kitsch. After dining there a few times I got to know Michael, the head waiter/manager at the S. King street location. It turns out that he’s an ex-computer programmer who gave up the bits for bites. Can you tell how much fun I’m having writing this post? Anyway, he’s a perfectionist when it comes to taking care of his customers. Portions are generally small, but each dish is as delicious as the last. Here’s the phone number of the S. King St. location: 946-7580.
Fusion places I hate: Shokudo.
Dave, sounds good. We’ll add it to the growing list of places we need to visit.