This week has been amazing thanks to a whole lot of sharing going on around Facebook. Thank you to those who are helping to spread the fussy. That social media platform has been bringing in dozens of new readers over the past few days. So, if you are new, welcome. I hope you get to dig around the archives, and soon feel comfortable enough to come out of the shadows and write a comment or two.
In some ways the recent sharing of posts isn’t all that surprising. Monday was about my love for a city that has passionate advocates and rarely gets the respect that it deserves. Tuesday was about a restaurant that people love to hate.
Today’s post is similar to many I’ve written in the blog’s infancy, although lately I’ve been largely silent on the Times Union’s restaurant reviews. One reason for my silence is because I’ve come to realize that perhaps I overestimated the influence of the paper on the local food scene. And while she’s not perfect, I recognize that Cheryl Clark has been an improvement over Ruth Fantasia.
That said, I can’t let this latest review go without comment.
Steve Barnes will tell you he’s not a restaurant critic. He’s not. But he was filling in for Cheryl Clark. For what it’s worth, I enjoy Steve’s writing style. I prefer it to Cheryl’s. Still, Steve is a major voice in the market when it comes to food. While he writes about other things for the paper, food is clearly his passion.
So I expect him to know his stuff.
It was more than a little surprising to me to learn that he didn’t know butter (and cream) are what make dishes labeled “makhani” so delicious. Especially since Steve writes that he has enjoyed this dish “about a dozen times in the past year from a handful of Indian restaurants in Albany.”
If I wanted to split hairs, I could say that Steve and the copyeditors at the TU got it wrong when they printed, “Makhani means ‘butter.’” In Hindi it is makhan (माखन) that means butter while makhani (मखनी) refers to a dish prepared with butter. Yes, they are similar. But the words are still different. That took me all of five minutes to figure out thanks to the miracle of the Internet.
As a side note I once prepared dal makhani at home after I was inspired by spying a bag of urad dal at Parivar. This is the preferred variety of black lentil that’s traditionally used in the dish. Anyhow, I’ve tried to block out the memory of how many sticks of butter melted in that pot. Luckily for me, I prefer chana masala made with heart healthy expeller pressed safflower oil instead.
But a blasé lack of knowledge about Indian food isn’t my primary complaint. It’s that the review seems to be entirely about takeout. And one of those takeout entrees involved shrimp.
Takeout is food of last resort. Heck, I got takeout last week from Ruby Asian Bistro. I even did the unthinkable and got takeout noodles because Young Master Fussy thought it would be a treat (some things you have to learn the hard way). But I would never ever dream of evaluating a restaurant based on its carryout or delivery food.
Dishes continue to cook in their cartons. Noodles absorb sauces and get limp and soggy. Vegetables wilt. Fried coatings steam and soften. Crusty bread loses its crunch. Rice gets gummy. Peas get mushy. You get the idea.
Granted, Steve actually like most of his food. But naan begins to diminish the moment it’s taken out of the tandoor. And shrimp? I see no way that a perfectly cooked shrimp could survive a journey home without turning into a hard dry version of what may have once been something delightful.
Sure, it’s only for the cheap eats section. But this is a restaurant. How about giving it some of the respect that it deserves? Or maybe the restaurant drove Steve away. He did say that on both of his visits the place, “smelled more like cleaning products than food.” I do really appreciate this inclusion in the review, because the widespread and aggressive use of cleaning sprays spoils far too many restaurant meals. However, based on that observation, I can’t say that I would want to eat there either.
And it’s odd that the review includes the line that he’d, “like to see Darbar succeed, and in the abstract it should be able to.” Perhaps this fact has colored the decision to focus his story on the good taste of the food (even as takeout) rather than what sounds like would be a less than great experience in the dining room.
I could also write an entire post about the whole glorification of “turbocharged” spice levels that made his head sweat and blissfully, “sent a napalm mist into [his] sinuses and eustachian tubes.” We’re in Buffalo wing territory. I get it. People here like it hot and spicy. But I’m really over people conflating blistering levels of heat with authenticity.
Honestly, I expect better from the Times Union. Maybe that makes me foolish. I just wish there was someone at the region’s major daily newspaper who would hold restaurant reviews to a higher standard.
