Re: [CH] chile descriptions

Brent Thompson (brent@hplbct.hpl.hp.com)
Mon, 22 Apr 2002 11:32:27 -0700 

> Except for those places that think Chele Relleno is a pile of grey meat,
> covered with white cheese, topped by slices of bell pepper and more cheese.

Surely you jest.  Either that, or it must be a midwest-USA thing.  Hard to
imagine why anyone would ever eat (twice, anyway) at a restaurant that
served "chile relleno" like that.

On the other hand, I have epxerienced how restaurants sometimes pervert
food to suit local conditions, even when ingredient or staff quality is not
an issue.

Here in Palo Alto there is a restaurant named Straits Cafe which
purportedly serves Singaporean food.  I know it is 2nd branch of eponymous
Straits Cafe in SF, and I have been told the original, SF Straits Cafe does
in fact serve Singaporean cuisine, though I don't personally know, and
never will, I guess.

One day I went to PA Straits Cafe and ordered Beef Rendang.  Eventually, I
was served a single big piece of grilled flank steak napped in some
greenish sauce.  When I protested that wasn't what I'd ordered, indeed
could not be what I ordered because rendang is a kind of dry stew involving
a lot of spices, coconut milk, and pieces of beef simmered until mostly
dry, the manager told me (because things had escalated by then to the top)
"yes, beef rendang is a dry stew as you've described, and that's what we
serve in our SF restaurant, but here in Palo Alto our clientele won't eat
that, so this [grilled steak] is what we call beef rendang here".

I confess we did return a few more times searching for food that at least
reminded us of Singapore, but we couldn't find such, so eventually we never
returned.  (Note I'm not impugning quality of their food -- I think that
grilled flank steak was probably very nice, if that is what one wants.  The
food there just had small to nearly imperceptible resemblance to anything
actually found in Singapore, other than using the same names.)

Fortunately, in the meantime, several very good Malaysian restaurants have
opened in this vicinity, so we are nowadays satisfied with real Singaporean
food that _does_ remind us of Singapore.  And, amazingly, enough, every one
of the tasty authentic places charges reasonable prices, unlike the
astoundingly overpriced fake food served at (pretentious, IMHO) Straits Cafe.

So, if you want to sell layered cassrole of beef, cheese, and
chile/bell-pepper, go for it and let the clientele decide -- but don't call
it chile relleno, or chile verde, or carne asada.

 ---   Brent