10.22.2006

fusion

4 of my favourite friends came down from Vancouver this weekend which means lots of shopping, drinking and eating. We joined a birthday party of my friend's coworker that started at Wild Ginger and ended at Trinity club. So Wild Ginger is some fancy pants restaurant that is supposedly quite popular in Seattle. With reservations, they seated us 45 minutes late. The food was OK but it's hard for someone who is Asian to really appreciate the whole fusion thing. The guy spent FOREVER explaining a garlic green beans dish that I can make in a couple minutes in my sleep. The chicken was overcooked, scallops too oily and too peppery, and the place was just full of pretentious Marina District type folks. And simple stirfry dishes should cost $5-8, not $20-something. When a white man serves it in some upscale lookin' restaurant (where tea ain't free) and takes a couple minutes to describe each dish (like that sommelier mofo in last season's Top Chef) those stirfries suddenly cost three times as much. The most memorable part of the dinner was when the waiter cleared all our dishes, nicked the tray on a pillar and all the plates came crashing to the floor. He got a huge round of applause and a couple standing ovations. Trinity was alright. Generally I'm sick of and too old for clubbing but it was nice to get out, see friends and pound back some drinks. Paid for it today though.

In other news the usual blaring of punk music on Sunday afternoons has stopped. I guess management gave them a warning...or they're out of town.

6 comments:

Syndromes said...

Man... no love for the crackers!! ;)

Sounds like good times in Seattle :)

egan said...

Hmmm... not sure I like the tone of this post. Sounds a bit racist to me "when a white man serves it up", but oh well. I've been to Wild Ginger once and wasn't overly impressed.

Fumbling said...

well my point is if you had a bunch of middle aged Chinese men serving the same food, I bet there is no way people would pay as much for it and it wouldn't be recognized as fusion. But once something is "westernized" it becomes more valued.

egan said...

I got your point, but I beg to differ. What you're paying for at Wild Ginger is the ambience and the rent. You saw the size of that building right? It's right downtown so you know the rent must be high. You aren't paying for a white server because it's "asian fusion", but whatever.

Robyn said...

too funny. i went to a similar place in new york. i forget what it was called, but i was coming from MI so it sort of made sense to me. i didn't think of my friends who were coming from HI and CA. it's weird to be a table of Asians being served by white folks at an Asian-themed restaurant.

oh yeah, but fusion in hawai'i is good, okay?

G said...

You're not the only one... I've been to Wild Ginger once myself and I wasn't "blown away" by the food or service either, especially considering how pricey it was. I'd rather spend my money at a hole-in-the-wall, Asian mom & pop joint that actually cooks up good, cheap food.

Maybe when Asian folks visit Wild Ginger, we're flagged to get condescending service and sub-standard food? haha.

BTW, thanks for the link. ;)

-g.