Nothin' cooking

Stuffed from holiday eating, our restaurant reviewer talks shop

by Jim Johnson

It's the day after Christmas, I feel like I've ingested a dirigible, and the last thing I want to do is write about food. For the past two hours, I've devised numerous delays. I've searched the Web for the inside scoop on Pico Duarte, the two-mile-high Caribbean mountain I hope to climb in April. I've welcomed two calls from telemarketers and now owe the Appalachian Mountain Club a $25 donation and can apparently save $500 a year with my enhanced Mobil Plus credit card.

I even did some math: since I started this gastronomic gig in 1993, I've written nearly 250 reviews and dined at more than 200 restaurants. Figure an easy 2500 calories per review, and the math says I've taken in 625,000 calories. Based on the 3500 calories it takes to create one pound of body fat, I've taken in enough food to add 17 blubbery pounds to my frame. Just to keep my weight in check, I'd have to spend about 900 hours doing strenuous bicycling. I don't need to get on a scale to determine that I've likely fallen short by more than a few hours.

Then I went through some mail, which included a postcard from Tortilla Sam's. One of my primary goals as a reviewer has been to avoid dining out "officially" at the Acapulco Restaurant. I've eaten there -- but only because other friends talked me into it, or when it was the only place open. In fact, when I first arrived in Worcester, I ended up there because some weekly-magazine's readers had apparently rated it the city's best Mexican restaurant. At least that's what the sign said. I couldn't really find much "Mexican" on the menu and, as with subsequent visits, I hated everything. Still, I never saw a benefit to sharing that in a review. Now, the postcard tells me, Tortilla Sam's is moving from its former cramped quarters into the old Acapulco. The new "Sam's Cantina" will seat 90 people and offer customers not just great Tex-Mex cuisine and friendly banter, but also a place to sit and enjoy both. Congrats to owner Eric Appleton on expanding what's always been a class act.

Then I got to thinking about Mexican restaurants and their frequent claims of authenticity. My questioning of one dining spot's "native Mexican cooking" earned me one of my two death threats. In my review of that particular defunct restaurant, I noted that the food was tasty, but that neither the waitstaff nor the kitchen crew had a clue about what was in it. One server explained that everything came pre-packaged and was prepared by the numbers. I soon found out -- and reported -- that the restaurant had no Mexican connection but rather was run by members of a certain ethnic group with roots nearly half a world away. When I mentioned that in my review, the owners phoned my editor, called me a bigot, questioned my parents' marital status at the time of my birth, and threatened to blend me into the next week's taco mix. If they had been Maine lumberjacks, I would have reported that, too. The point was that they weren't Mexican, despite strong claims of authenticity. (If you want the real thing, head over to Rosamaria's Cafe. Just a stoneground tortilla's throw from Webster Square, Rosamaria Fanning serves up the same delights she cooked until she moved here from her small village in Oaxaca, Mexico, a few years ago.)

Speaking of being blended into the next week's taco mix, have you heard the same rumor I have? At least two sources (one reliable, the other creative) told me that the health department temporarily closed down a local Chinese restaurant when inspectors found dog heads in the walk-in freezer. According to what may be urban legend, the restaurant wasn't accused of serving dog meat to customers; it was simply for personal consumption. When I tell this story, I usually hear (or make) sounds of shock and disgust. But what's the difference between eating a cow, a monkey (which I found on a menu when visiting Grenada), and a dog? And isn't it true that the South Korean government issued a temporary order banning dog meat from Seoul restaurants during the Olympics? When the visitors left, the city returned quite happily to its canine cuisine. Apparently, Koreans are more aware of outsider sensitivities than Atlantans are. As far as I know, no one banned scrapple from Georgia restaurants during the 1996 Games, and that stuff has pig parts I wouldn't mention in polite company.

Free association floats me to a pork meal I'll never forget. On Kauai, one of the most remote and certainly the most verdant and spiritual of the Hawaiian islands, I tried a platter of kalua pork, savoring as much the story of its preparation as the preparation itself. In the hamlet of Hanalei (inspiration, some say, for the mythical home of Puff the Magic Dragon), I dined at the Black Pot, a hole-in-the-wall café tended by Kathy, an aging woman of almost complete Hawaiian ancestry. The name "Black Pot," she explained, came from the scorched communal kettle that villagers once used on the nearby beach. Much like New England clambakes, local residents continue to build fire pits in the sand, where they slow-roast entire pigs. It was from one of these pits that I enjoyed pork that was intense in flavor and significance.

Kathy had started to close up as I finished; she had to head to the beach to hook tomorrow's "catch of the day." She'd said she planned to spend the night there and sleep with the rod in her hand, waking when lunch gave a tug, resetting the line, and sleeping some more. In the morning, she'd prepare the fish, cut the day's pork from the pit, pick vegetables from the garden, and throw open the doors to guests. As she gathered her gear and followed me out the door, I felt I was watching the waning days of a life-long lifestyle.

And, speaking of waning days, if Jerry Seinfeld can get a million bucks a week doing a show about nothing, then certainly there's no shame in my having done a review about nothing. I hope you enjoyed the ride.