The Other Critics

Kauffman Goes Haute, Loves Benu; Reidinger Riffs on Radios at Citizen’s Band

Photo: Brian Smeets/Grub Street

Jonathan Kauffman writes that chef Corey Lee “is capable of some of the most beautiful food being served today,” and while his food is “engaged in a direct dialogue with San Francisco hip… Benu’s take [on haute cuisine] hardly constitutes a revolution.” As for specific dishes, he calls the super-rare beef rib cap dish “the kind of thing you put in your mouth and then thank the gods you still eat meat,” and he calls the faux shark’s fin soup one of the “tours de force” of the tasting menu. As for the squid and pork belly entrée, it’s “all concept and no satisfaction,” but Kauffman sounds duly impressed overall, only making the pronouncement that Lee’s cuisine probably needs another six months to a year to evolve to the four-star level. “Lee’s technique is so exquisite, his sensitivity to aesthetics so acute, that the language he’s developing is certain to rival that of Vladimir Nabokov or David Foster Wallace. It’s not quite there yet.” [SF Weekly, Earlier: The Illustrated Tasting Menu]

In creating the requisite tangential, cultural references for his review this week, Paul Reidinger riffs on Citizen’s Band’s connections to truck stops and the open road, discusses a couple of French films, ponders the CB radios scattered about, and throws in a reference to C.W. McCall’s 1975 truckers’ anthem, “Convoy.” He then writes, “Chef Chris Beerman’s menu includes elements of what we might call comfort cuisine, including macaroni and cheese and a burger with fries, but it also soars into the higher airs of the gastronomic ether,” going on to call the red trout with panzanella “a delight” and devouring his burger with relish. [SFBG]

Kauffman Goes Haute, Loves Benu; Reidinger Riffs on Radios at Citizen’s Band