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Photo: Patrick McMullan

In light of David Chang's recent public hatred of San Francisco, many (but not all) are calling the Momofuku chef out. You'll recall that Chang said, "Fuckin' every restaurant in San Francisco is just serving figs on a plate. Do something with your food." Grub Street commenters took issue with that. ScottRose called "toro excrement," noting La Folie's bone marrow crusted beef tenderloin with wild hedgehog mushrooms and truffled celery root. Chipsandguac vaguely sided with Chang — "imagine what NYC could do if we had that sort of produce." But where we expected a bunch of local blogs to yell "oh no he didn't!" there was silence. So we asked some chef-bloggers to weigh in. Line Cook's Richie Nakano sent us his thoughts via e-mail.

About Chang, that's sad to hear...for 2 reasons:
1) There are chefs manipulating food here (whether its good or not is another story.) But you cant deny what Daniel Patterson, David Kinch, and James Syhabout are doing.
2) The quality of ingredients here is so high, why would we fuck around?

I admire David Chang, but he's still dragging his spoon through sauce like it was 2003. I think there's going to be a point where the manipulated food at Ko (and Ssam to some degree) gives way to the original simplicity of Noodle and Milk Bar.

Earlier: Ten Things Anthony Bourdain and David Chang Hate [Grub Street NY]