Althouse: "Your pea soup doubles as a salt quarry. Your hamachi sashimi comes with two incongruously gargantuan bread sticks..."

December 3, 2008

"Your pea soup doubles as a salt quarry. Your hamachi sashimi comes with two incongruously gargantuan bread sticks..."

"... which Babe Ruth could have used to hit homers. The mussels in your seafood platter don’t taste right. A pork chop with a hot-cool chili glaze requires the incisors of a jungle cat."

A very bad review, for the Mercer Kitchen, from Frank Bruni. (I ate there once myself. It was bad.)

The review is from a couple years ago. I was drawn to it today after reading "Brad Pitt's Mustache Eating Dinner?" Well, that's from a few weeks ago, so I have to confess to Googling Brad Pitt's mustache after seeing this picture of him, in which he looks like someone who should not be walking with that woman.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...: Googling Brad Pitt's mustache after seeing this picture of him, in which he looks like someone who should not be walking with that woman.

She's walked with worse.; 12/3/08, 11:38 AM
Henry said...: The mussels in your seafood platter don’t taste right.

That's an awfully mundane sentence to read amidst the metaphors.

How about:

The mussels in your seafood platter taste like Brad Pitt's mustache.

Okay, so Brad Pitt didn't have a mustache when Frank Bruni wrote that review. How about:

The mussels in your seafood platter taste like lip implants.; 12/3/08, 11:48 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Your Moules au Pistou tasted like mule turds in piss. Your burger was flipped with the spatula used to swat a cockroach. Your cook ran out of garlic powder so he scratched his head over the cooking pot. There was a Buddhist-style offering set up on the floor feeding rats. The bus boy picks his nose and wipes it on the plates. Your soup was served in a bowl carved from a salt lick. The chicken cutlet was coated with feathers and served on a grease slick. The bread, it was, it was, it was poorly under proofed!; 12/3/08, 11:59 AM
Bissage said...: After studying that photo long and hard, I will note that Brad Pitt's head is two sizes too small but I will not make a red carpet joke.; 12/3/08, 12:22 PM
Darcy said...: Brad and Angie are beyond creepy to me.; 12/3/08, 12:27 PM
former law student said...: Speaking of restaurants, I learned yesterday from the NY Times that for a year, Ann lived in the pizza vortex:

Ray’s Real Pizza, secret Southern Italian recipes and all, moved from Eighth Avenue in Manhattan to Hazlet, a town near the Jersey Shore, about an hour and 10 minutes by car from Times Square.
...
Customers, like Ad Augeri, a musician, are particularly happy to be served the pizza. “I’m from Brooklyn,” Mr. Augeri said. “It’s a pizza vortex there. And the Russos’ pie is as good as anything I’ve ever had.” He added, “It’s neat that I’m eating the same pizza that Diddy and Alec Baldwin enjoyed.”; 12/3/08, 12:42 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Well, I suppose it's only a matter of time before Chip animates a pizza vortex....; 12/3/08, 1:16 PM
Sofa King said...: I've been ruined: I simply can't read vicious food criticism now without hearing Gordon Ramsay's voice.; 12/3/08, 1:23 PM
veni vidi vici said...: IN that photo, Brad Pitt looks like he's the proprietor of a dandy boutique neighborhood bistro in West Hollywood that he's owned and operated since 1986, after a few years of work as a waiter and maitre'd at various Hollywood joints like Le Dome. He's very proud of himself and his little spot on Santa Monica Boulevard, with its good reviews, balanced but unambiguous menu, and the ability to stay relevant and maintain a regular clientele, without being too extravagantly expensive.

In the photo, he's guiding his most famous client to her table, where she will await her younger brother for dinner. The brother that the press is under strict orders not to mention, lest her pinup star status among the randy midwestern non-homoerotically-inclined high school varsity jocks be eroded by association with her brother's "lifestyle"...

He actually looks like DiCaprio did in the Howard Hughes movie, which is quite a leap for Bradley.; 12/3/08, 1:42 PM
Simon said...: Live by pretentious food, die by pretentious food, I suppose, although any pretensions of the restaurant are outdone by those of the reviewer, who whines like a little bitch about the "ethnically indistinct assortment of dishes" and "pro forma salads and sides." File under "too limp-wristed to have a grip."; 12/3/08, 3:29 PM
Ralph L said...: Now that Pitt's over 40, will he save his face or his ass? Or is it waist for men?

Why do women find girly-looking boys like Pitt and early Leonardo attractive?; 12/3/08, 5:56 PM
Graham Powell said...: I think Pitt looks a bit like Robert Redford in that pic. But a bit of a dandy, yeah.; 12/3/08, 8:17 PM