When the main event isn't

[Fat Guy]

Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ssam Bar are two of my favorite restaurants anywhere, however both fail when evaluated on what they proffer. Momofuku Noodle Bar serves good noodles, but the real action -- the dishes that make it a great restaurant rather than a very good noodle shop -- is elsewhere on the menu. As for the ssam (Korean "wrap") concept at Momofuku Ssam Bar, well, it lags even farther behind the rest of what that restaurant is doing.

The Momofukus are not alone in this. When Kampuchea opened it was called Kampuchea Noodle Bar. And the noodles there are terrific. Kampuchea has better soups, I think, than Momofuku Noodle Bar by a healthy margin. But again the real action on the menu -- the dishes that make Kampuchea destination-worthy to an Upper East Sider and worth a chunk of a chapter in my forthcoming book, repeated visits, spending time in the kitchen (and eating lots of free snacks, let's not discount that) -- is all the other stuff.

And now I've just been to BarFry. I can't believe it: here we have yet another restaurant ostensibly devoted to a very specific theme -- in this case tempura -- and the best dishes on the menu are the sashimi items. Everybody I've spoken to who has been to BarFry agrees on this point. It's borderline axiomatic. What's going on here?

I'm particularly intrigued by the resourcefulness of the young, downtown foodie crowd in sorting all this out. Despite the weird disconnects between what these restaurants offer and what they deliver, the customers have cracked the code and figured out exactly how to put together great meals that are better than the restaurants' claims. I mean, BarFry hasn't been open long at all, yet the bar regulars (two different customers) I was sitting next to came in and ordered meals that included not one piece of fried food.

There was also a bit in Alan Richman's profile of David Chang, the chef behind the Momofukus, that I found intriguing:

At first, when Ssäm Bar was primarily about burritos, it didn’t do well. Just as Noodle Bar customers wanted more than noodles, Ssäm Bar customers wanted more than ssäms. When I mention to Baca that the strategic plan for Ssäm Bar appeared to be a repetition of the near-disastrous one that almost brought down Noodle Bar, he looks at me ruefully and says, “Dave’s heart was set on the Asian burrito. That’s all he wanted—burrito, burrito.”

. . . . .

The turnaround in popularity started when Baca and Cory Lane, the general manager, started arguing in favor of more ambitious food. At first, the new dishes were available only after 10 p.m. Lines formed. Soon Tien Ho, the chef de cuisine, joined in, and the burrito was relegated to lunch duty (it remains on the dinner menu as an afterthought). Dishes such as the Santa Barbara Uni, the scallops, and perhaps the most popular dish of all, fried cauliflower, appeared.

Has anybody else noticed this pattern of restaurant and customer behavior?

[markabauman]

What does this imply, what is the significance of how this relates to the concept of "signature dish"? In some places, it's hard to get away from such dishes (e.g. lobster rolls), but in others, these dishes get them in the door, but it seems there are usually way more interesting things on the menu.

[Nathan]

well, with both Momofukus it's pretty clear that what occurred was a happy accident.

I noticed that at Barfry as well...but I have no clue why.

[weinoo]

Or, it proves that you shouldn't name your restaurant after what you hope/believe will be your eponymous dish. Else, as FG says above, you end up changing the name - see Kampuchea.

So, would Bu'n qualify? There are some damn good noodles on the menu, but a lot of the action centers on non-noodle dishes.

[slkinsey]

Great NY Noodletown is best known for non-noodle dishes.

Although it is not in the name, I would argue that Otto is ostensibly a pizzeria and yet pizza is the weakest thing on the menu (I'd be happy to go there for a meal that didn't involve any pizza).

[LPShanet]

Great NY Noodletown is best known for non-noodle dishes.

Although it is not in the name, I would argue that Otto is ostensibly a pizzeria and yet pizza is the weakest thing on the menu (I'd be happy to go there for a meal that didn't involve any pizza).

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Oops, was about to post, and then saw slkinsey beat me to both of my references (though I'd specifically mention the gelato at Otto, as I haven't been overly impressed by that much else there).

Edited November 29, 2007 by LPShanet (log)

[chefboy24]

i would surmise that a restaurant has an idea for its "signature" item when it opens, but guests simply prefer other items on the menu and order them time and again. good call on otto with the pizza, although i've heard that the tempura at barfry was great - but i definitely need to go, soon.

i read this article in gq just yesterday and i can't help but wonder why people are still talking about david chang

[Fat Guy]

At least according to four articles I was able to find in the New York Times archive, the name of the restaurant is or was "Otto Enoteca Pizzeria." So it definitely counts in that regard. Then again, while I can imagine going to Otto and not getting pizza, I'm not sure I've ever done so -- I consider a pizza there to be an important part of any meal there, unless it's just a drop-in for gelato. But I've liked the pizza there much better than the foodie consensus has, since the very beginning. So yeah, I think it counts. Another data point: in 2003, William Grimes's review of Otto was titled "A Pizzeria Where You Can Skip the Pizza." So maybe Otto was the progenitor of the modern trend?

Noodle Town: that's an interesting case, because there's a whole Chinese-restaurant naming issue that may govern over the phenomenon we're talking about here. Chinese-restaurant names are often incredibly random. If you look at the menu from "Ollie's Noodle Shop & Grille," it has pretty much the same menu as plenty of normal Chinese restaurants. It may have a few more noodle offerings, and you can get grilled fish, but to call it a "Noodle Shop & Grille" is probably a stretch. If I had a nickel for every Chinese restaurant in America named "Hunan" that doesn't serve Hunan food, "Szechuan" that doesn't serve Sichuan food, etc., I'd have about 10,000 nickels -- it's rarely possible to figure out why those names are in place. Add to that the restaurants named "Peking Duck" this or that where Peking Duck represents about 1% of sales, and you've got even more nickels. I think part of the Chinese-restaurant issue is that the English names often have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual Chinese names of the restaurants. When I've been out with Chinese-literate people, I've been told things like "This restaurant is called Hunan Village but the Chinese name is Grandma Yo's Harvest Moon." That sort of thing.

[slkinsey]

Good point, Steven. I have also never once had a single dish prepared with dragon, lucky or otherwise.

[Fat Guy]

Yeah you can add Dinosaur Barbecue to that list.

[Pan]

Great NY Noodletown is best known for non-noodle dishes.[...]

←

Do you mean their barbecued items? Salt-baked items?

For the record, I think their noodle soups are very good, and also like their Ginger-Scallion Lo Mein.

[raji]

Man, gotta rack my brains over this one -

There's places like a Corner Bistro; despite the name, it is a meant to be a W. Village watering hole, and judging by the size of it's double broiler, you can definitely surmise that they stumbled upon something when their burgers became so popular -

Joe's Shanghai has an entire Shanghai Chinese menu, but you wouldn't have known based on mass ordering of it's soup dumplings 10 years ago...

There's a great takeout place in Hell's Kitchen that I stumbled upon, Sawa BBQ

http://www.sawabbq.com/index.html

A Japanese chef doing American BBQ standards. With Daisy Mae's 4 blocks away, i've never tried it, but I imagine someone told the guy "err you might try Japanese food" because now there's a chalkboard up offering standard donburi like oyakodon, katsudon, katsucurry, shogayaki, even sushi, and they're all done expertly in a neighborhood rife with Japanese knockoff eateries.

On the BBQ-tip, many people go to Daisy Mae's because they're SIDES are so excellent, although I'd argue on a good day the Memphis Dry Rubs is one of the best rack of ribs you can get in the city, as well as their beef rib...

On the Adam Perry Lang tip, If Robert's Steakhouse wasn't called Robert's Steakhouse, you could argue that it's funny you can get a world-class steak on the mezzanine at the Penthouse Executive Club, where it's mammaries, not meat, being the main event...

There's probably numerous steakhouses out there where it's something other than their steak that is the best there... the only I can think of is perhaps Keen's, where you are advised to order the mutton.

I've read several reviews of Soto which proclaimed that it was the wife's kitchen dishes rather than the sushi that deserve praise.

[jon777]

Pearl Oyster Bar is of course, best known for their Lobster Roll, not Oysters. Usually only 1 (maybe two) types of Oysters available, so not what I'd call an Oyster Bar. Although I do love their Fried Oysters, crispy on the outside, and still mostly raw in the middle.

[Mayur]

Good point, Steven.  I have also never once had a single dish prepared with dragon, lucky or otherwise.

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It wouldn't be a very lucky dragon in that event, would it?

*rimshot*

[Chris Amirault]

Chinese-restaurant names are often incredibly random. ... If I had a nickel for every Chinese restaurant in America named "Hunan" that doesn't serve Hunan food, "Szechuan" that doesn't serve Sichuan food, etc., I'd have about 10,000 nickels -- it's rarely possible to figure out why those names are in place. Add to that the restaurants named "Peking Duck" this or that where Peking Duck represents about 1% of sales, and you've got even more nickels. I think part of the Chinese-restaurant issue is that the English names often have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual Chinese names of the restaurants. When I've been out with Chinese-literate people, I've been told things like "This restaurant is called Hunan Village but the Chinese name is Grandma Yo's Harvest Moon." That sort of thing.

←

I'm not sure random is the right adjective. My guess is that most Peking X restaurants appeared in the 1970s or thereabouts, Szechuan Y a bit later, and if we set the way-back machine 40 or 50 years, when the crush of "Polynesian" restaurants started serving Cantonese food under tiki lamps and fake palms, the attempt at creating names that market to what the public wants becomes a bit clearer. Makes you wonder why restaurant owners think NYers have a noodle jones these days.