You don't need another review, but in case you wanted to know, I'm totally on board with the Momofuku Ssam Bar. I think it's innovative, delicious, and reasonable considering the quality and originality of the food. As my friend Janet says, the food is very male and aggressive -- aggressively rich, aggressively flavored, aggressively anti-diet, anti-vegetarian.
We tried to get the Bo Ssam $180 pork butt the other night, but they were all reserved for the evening, so we decided to blow some dough on the $100 ribeye. I know it's kind of ridiculous to spend $100 on a steak, but fuck it, it's 34 oz. of pure, unadulterated heaven with the kind of last meal bang you'd expect for that kind of money. Besides, we split it between five people. Seared to a perfect medium rare with plenty of raw, marbled red in the heart of the meat, it comes with silky shallot confit, a dish of sea salt and a cup brimming with clear beef fat infused with whole garlic cloves.
BRIAN: [In ecstasy, after a mouthful of ribeye] Dip the meat in the fat and you're dead! That's it! You're dead!
The waiter brought over our accompanying side dish, which he proudly presented as roasted sunchokes with mustard greens. Except they were clearly fingerling potatoes. I tried one and they were definitely potatoes, but he kept insisting that I was mistaken, that sunchokes are similar in look and taste, but these were not potatoes. Being the asshole that I am, I couldn't let it go.
ME: Try one, I swear they're potatoes.
WAITER: [insistent] No, they're not.
ME: I'd put money on it.
WAITER: How much do you want to bet? [Pause.] How about the steak?
ME: Sure.
He was totally crestfallen when he conferred with the other staff and found out that they were indeed fingerlings, prepared in a similar manner to the sunchokes they had served the day before. Of course I wasn't going to hold him to the bet, but I made him feel bad, so I felt bad. It's just never as satisfying to be vindicated as I think it's going to be. And now I feel weird about going back there in case we get the same waiter. And you care because you're my therapist? No. I'll shut up now.
Poor waiter. Serves him right for being a snot though. I'm sure he got over it.
sometimes peacefully co-existing with other people's misinformation is better than being right. and i should know, because i'm always right.
dude, you did him a favor.
Dom, if I were the kind of person that LOLed, I would be LOLing. That's some fortune cookie wisdom right there.
I'm 100% on the Ssam bar wave as well.. interesting point about it being a masculine place. As such, I think you should have held him to the bet. I bet you'd both ultimately feel less uncomfortable [honoring a major bet is a pretty masculine feat], and I'm sure you would have found a bottle of wine to blow the hundred bucks on.
I also think you should have held him to the bet. But that's probably because I have this peeve about snotty waiters who think that because they work at a restaurant, they know more about food and wine than you, and they never do...maybe you could have split it with him
at work we had kobe beef on the menu for a while. we used to trim the gristle, then grill it, toss it in sesame oil and sea salt. good eating.
I got served the wrong cut of steak once at Outback (oh, snobs, stop rolling your eyes; I was in college and it was considered good eats- ugh, why am I even qualifying.. :P my bad) and I told the waitress it was wrong. She insisted that it was... let's say, filet mignon while I was insistent it was sirloin or something- she finally took it back. My friends had each ordered one of the two cuts I thought it was- there were three of us- and it was clear mine was the same as the girl who had ordered the cheaper cut... it was embarrassing all around. I never went back to that location again.