Smiths – "Bigmouth Strikes Again" (1986)

Now I know how Joan of Arc felt

As the flames rose to her Roman nose

And her Walkman started to melt 

The subject of the last 2 or 3 lines was the Washington Post’s fine-dining restaurant reviewer, Tom Sietsema.

One of my problems with Sietsema is that he’s forgotten who he works for.  He’s become so ga-ga over the chefs at the luxe restaurants where he eats his meals that his reviews read more like a publicist’s puff pieces than honest evaluations designed to help his readers find dining experiences that are  commensurate with the prices they are asked to pay.

Since I rarely patronize the modish spots that Sietsema writes about, I am more interested in what the WaPo’s second full-time restaurant critic, Tim Carman, has to say in his columns – which focus on less expensive eateries.

Until recently, those columns were titled “The $20 Diner” because Carman only wrote about restaurants where the entrees cost less than $20.

For those of you who don’t live in Washington, or New York City, or San Francisco, or other cities where the cost of living is out of sight, you might view a $20 entree as a little pricey – especially when you consider that appetizers, salads, desserts, drinks, and the tip aren’t included.

But to Tim Carman, “The $20 Diner” title was an insult to the restaurants specializing in Egyptian, Nepalese, Yemeni, Ethio­pian, Indian, Thai, Jamaican, Korean, Persian, Philippine, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese, Chinese, Mexican, Peruvian, Cuban, Italian, Japanese and various American regional cuisines that he had reviewed in the previous year. 

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You might have noticed that there was one cuisine that didn’t appear on Carman’s list: French.  Here’s his explanation:

Is it because French restaurants, even their informal bistro cousins, tend to have a higher price point than the $20 ceiling that I placed on entrees?  Or is it because I, as a writer and critic, do not view French cuisine as affordable, no matter how casual the establishment? 

Whatever the reason, French cooking has cachet in the public imagination, and that translates into how much folks are willing to pay for it, which is, I suspect, more than many are willing to shell out for Mexican or Chinese food.

By writing about immigrant cuisines under a cheap-eats rubric, I have perpetuated the narrative that they should always be thought of as budget-priced.  I’m reminded of a conversation I had with David Chang when he was preparing to open Momofuku CCDC in 2015.  Chang was firing on all cylinders that day: He was unspooling long, profanity-laced sentences about diners who won’t pay $17 or $18 for a bowl of ramen, no matter how costly the ingredients he used for his noodle soup. 

“It is not cheap at all” to prepare the ramen, he told me.  “Here’s one thing: If we opened an Italian restaurant, and I said that it’s something in brodo with brisket, I could charge you [expletive] $27 and no one would ever [expletive] blink. That pisses me off, that I’m stuck by some type of ethnic price ceiling.”  [NOTE: brodo is an Italian beef broth that can be used in soups.] 

Carman then quotes an academic to support his argument.  (You know you’re in trouble when you start to read a column that usually tells you where to find good, cheap barbecue, or pho, or kebabs, or Tex-Mex food, and you get quotes on the sociological niceties of immigrant food from some professor type.) 

Krishnendu Ray, a New York University associate professor of food studies, has written a lot about our perceptions of a cuisine based on the immigrant group’s place in American society. The lower the immigrants are on the social ladder, Ray argues, the less we value their cooking. This explains the roller-coaster ride that Italian food has endured in America, Ray writes in The Ethnic Restaurateur, noting that the perceived value of the country’s cooking took a nose-dive in the late 1800s when poor immigrants from southern Italy flocked to the United States.

But, Ray adds, this also explains “the difficulty of Chinese, Mexican and soul food to break away, in dominant American eyes, from the contamination effect of low-class association. Poor, mobile people are rarely accorded the cultural capital.”

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“The $20 Diner” focused on inexpensive and unappreciated restaurants or carryouts in the DMV’s less glamorous neighborhoods.  A lot of those joints served “ethnic” food (e.g., Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Greek, or whatever) but others served food that’s considered “American” (e.g., barbecue, sandwiches and subs, fried chicken, pizza – which is no longer thought of as Italian) – which seems to undercut Carman’s argument that his column’s “The $20 Diner” sobriquet was somehow insulting to immigrants.

Carman says that “[b]y writing about immigrant cuisines under a cheap-eats rubric, I have perpetuated the narrative that they should always be thought of as budget-priced.”

Isn’t it a little absurd to say that by reviewing restaurants that serve burgers and barbecued ribs and other less-expensive examples of “American” cuisine, Carman perpetuated a narrative that belittled the worth of American cuisine by implying that it should always be thought of as budget-priced?   

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Frankly, I think Carman is so full of you-know-what that his eyes are brown.  A column that focuses on bargain Indian or Chinese or Mexican restaurants doesn’t “perpetuate the narrative” that higher-priced restaurants whose dishes are derived from those cuisines don’t deserve to charges those prices.

The primary determinant of whether Americans are willing to pay a lot or a little for a meal isn’t whether the food being offered is “immigrant” food.  After all, there are plenty of Indian and Chinese and Mexican restaurants in the Washington, DC, area, that are just as pricey as the typical French or high-end Italian joints.

All those restaurants – regardless of what national cuisine their menu reflects – offer attentive service and a tony atmosphere as well as sophisticated dishes with costly ingredients (like lobster, or duck, or expensive cuts of beef).

You don’t get all that at a neighborhood strip-mall carryout, and that’s why the tab is lower – not because Americans turn their noses down at “ethnic” cuisines.

The Chinese-American chef quoted by Carman is wrong when he says there’s an “ethnic price ceiling.”  Certain types of American food – like burgers and barbecue – are subject to a price ceiling as well.   

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Carman obviously has great respect and affection for the hard-working folks – some of whom are immigrants, some of whom aren’t – who are responsible for the food he writes about.  He wants to give them their due, which is praiseworthy.

But he’s overthinking things – he needs to go back to basics and write first and foremost with the needs of his readers in mind.  

Hopefully, the pieces that used to be titled “The $20 Diner” will continue to shine a light on places that serve tasty but inexpensive food.  The many food fanatics with seemingly unlimited budgets who are out there have Tom Sietsema to guide them to places like Pearls and Pineapple, the Capitol Hill restaurant that charges $350 for a 12-course tasting menu but provides you with a perfect opportunity to wow your friends on Instagram.  The rest of us found Carman’s recommendations in “The $20 Diner” much more useful.

I’m sure that the restaurant owners who get a good review from Carman couldn’t care less whether that review is titled “The $20 Diner” or something else.  They are probably just thrilled to have some more $$$ coming through the door – not to mention the satisfaction that comes from having a successful business serving good food at a fair price to appreciative customers.

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Today’s featured song has nothing to do with the subject matter of today’s post . . . and I’m OK with that!

(To tell the truth, I’m OK with pretty much everything I do.  If you’re not, may I respectfully suggest that you MYOFB.)

The lyrics to “Bigmouth Strikes Again” were written by Morrissey, the Smiths’ frontman.  The image of Joan of Arc’s Walkman melting as she is being burned at the stake is as startling as it gets.  

Click here to listen to “Bigmouth Strikes Again,” which was released in 1986 on the Smiths’ third studio album, The Queen Is Dead.

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: