Susur’s right! NYC is parochial and smallminded…
This week Susur gave an interview to the Toronto Sun and candidly talked about his soft landing in NYC where he didn’t make much of a splash. Like let’s see Alain Ducasse or for that matter Gordon Ramsey.
Were New Yorkers ready for Susur’s Asian fusion? “You know what, looking back … no, I don’t think they were ready,” he says. “It’s a question of culture. On Asian cuisine they are not that advanced.” He also says, that Toronto is much more daring than New York when it comes to food.
According to friends in NY (and according to some Chinese diplomats and reporters) there is NO good Chinese food in New York which clings to anachronistic dim sum joints. Reason: After the handover, Hong Kongers chose to come to Canada (a commonwealth country) rather than the US. We got the new blood and the new cooks.
“New York is always difficult,” says Lee – nailing Manhattan’s self-absorption, – “Your idea has to be suitable for New York. No matter how creative you are, if they don’t understand, they won’t come. Tradition is really important here.”
Does he still think that New York is the hottest place on the planet for food? “No, China is to me. The food is so awesome. I had the best duck in Beijing recently. There is so much to learn from China,” he says.
Bang on Susur. Once, when the New Yorker was funny, iconoclastic, apolitical and irreverent, and Fifth Avenue was elegant and irresistible, New York was ditto. Also open to everyone. But that changed in the seventies (when I left) as the city began its long decline. Today the governorship once occupied by FDR and Nelson Rockefeller is held by an illiterate (Gov. Paterson is blind and can’t read braille) and the city is broke. Increasingly New York has become defensive.
Suddenly it blows its horn as a great food city. Really? Not so long ago, I took a long walk around midtown looking for one of those small neighbourhood restos where i could eat simply and cheaply,and all I could find were chains like Chiplotle Grill. I finally settled for a dreck sushi place on W. 56th. The old French bistros on the West side and for that matter on Lexington in the sixties, are parodies of themselves, not a patch on local French bistros here. New York assimilates and Americanizes foreign food. Neither Nobu or Vong push beyond an acceptable Asian-American format.
And Toronto simply overwhelms New York in the matter of available food. Reason: we take multiculturalism seriously so we have food from all over the world. And a strong fresh and local movement that shows up in most shops. Did you know that according to John Rowley, America’s oyster expert, Toronto is the best place to eat oysters — we get more varieties of oysters here (the US has health/trade issues) and they’re better presented!
So what’s New York got to teach us?
Oh I forgot the rule of the late John Hirsch, director of the Stratford Festival who said any problem and “Send for the Governor General.”
Replace GG with New York and you got the local restaurants’ cultural cringe.
So it was last week at Terroir 2010, a culinary tourism event hustled up by the U of T, New York media types headlined a panel designed to help restaurants with their profile/marketing.
Wow. How about BEGGING to be condescended to? What Toronto doesn’t get is that New York has a vested interest in putting down everyone else. If Toronto starts looking good, squash it.
Why not get media from Chicago, a city far closer to us in every way, and a vibrant food city as opposed to one dictated by fashion.
Wait a minute, Chicagoans might talk sense. that’s not what meetings are for!
Overall I agree with what Gina has to say however, I do want to bring a few alternaive ideas to the “table” if you will. The Chinese who have come to Canada did not chose it over the United States, it’s MUCH easier to come to Canada. All you have to do is open a business here and employ a few people. Actual numbers seem to change; ie., the number that you must employ and the amount you must invest. I have heard $30,000 investment! So the choice that the Hong Kong people have made to come to Canada is one of expedience.
Please also remember that it is MUCH easier to open a restaurant in New York than in Toronto. In Toronto the laws are so restrictive that the wonderful scents created by amazing culinary experts is considered offensive in Toronto and delightful in New York. Pass by a resto here and you will never smell what they are cooking. New York lures you in OR forces you to pass by because you rely on your senses.
I accept the fact that NYC is PROVINCIAL, however, it is for the most part because it is singularly entitled to be so. Bashing one of the great cities in the world because it may not have a great Chinese Restaurant is like saying Chicago is a second class city because its Pizza is thick. New Yorkers are not easily impressed. Perhaps that may explain some people’s success and or failures in that unique city.
I will close with this: I would rather have Mayor Bloomberg running Toronto that Constable Miller.