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Dec. 16, 2000

It's The Pitts
By Lee Pitts

It has been pointed out to me by my accountant that if I became a food writer or a restaurant critic that I would be able to deduct any meals eaten in restaurants. (Although, I should point out that my accountant’s letter was written in a cell in a federal penitentiary where he is doing advanced studies in creative ac-counting).

So with this column I begin my new career as a food writer. For my initial cafeteria critique I decided to try a new restaurant that just opened up by the name of "Wild Bill Wong's Western Chinese Barbecue." Obviously the confused chef is trying to cash in on the ethnic food craze currently coming to a full boil in this country. Alas, after sampling the fare at Wild Bill’s I must report that like most restaurants featuring regional cooking the recipe is missing something. Taste got lost in the translation, I’m afraid.

This is a common problem for restaurants trying to cook regional fare. Recently I was traveling outside Yakima, Wash., when I saw a billboard that promised "Food and Gas Ahead." Unfortunately they were both being dispensed by the same restaurant. The special of the place was "Authentic Texas Barbecue."

Now, I LOVE real Texas barbecue. But this wasn't it. There were no baked beans, no white bread to sop up the sauce, and no slaw for heaven's sake! But what really turned me off was that when I ordered a glass of iced tea I was told they didn't have it on their menu. I didn't understand why not; everything else was on the plastic menu including the worst barbecue sauce I have ever tasted in my short career as a highly taxed food critic.

I would think that if I was going to open up a restaurant featuring food from another state that I would have at least visited there once. It is surprising the impression that some people have of places they have never been. For example, in Albuquerque I ate at a restaurant featuring "California Cuisine." The waiter was wearing sandals with white socks and had an earring in his ear. He was the kind of guy who wouldn't eat animal cookies because he was a vegetarian. Instead of reading from a menu he recited the house specials.

For appetizers they had a delightful dry curd cottage cheese and pumpkin bread with kiwi fruit. They didn't have Thousand Island salad dressing, but instead featured a herb vinaigrette with goat cheese and baby quail eggs. Their main entrees were duck breast roasted and served over cilantro corn flakes and a duck chile relleno served over brie cream sauce and garnished with hazelnuts. For dessert they featured a delightful date stuffed with pear chutney and a stomach pump. I’ll admit that California is full of fruits, flakes and nuts but I assure you the preceding is not what prune pickers eat!

Cajun food is a "hot" item now and restaurants from New York to Boise are trying to imitate the food that can only be properly prepared in Louisiana. I love blackened red fish, so when I spotted a restaurant in Omaha that featured Cajun food it was only natural that I patronize the place, despite the fact that I had never eaten Cajun food for breakfast before. Omaha's impression of Cajun food was to lower the lights, raise the prices and to blacken everything. I ordered breakfast and got blackened bacon and blackened wheat toast.

In my highly valued and fully tax deductible opinion, the ethnic food that gets messed up more than any other is Mexican food. I have eaten tacos in nearly every state and Canada. In every case they were prepared differently: rolled, folded, flattened and stuffed with beef, chicken, beans, even duck. Order a taco and you never know what you'll get. But what really surprised me was that when I ordered a taco in Mexico the waiter looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. It turns out they don't eat tacos in Mexico.

A good rule of thumb is to never eat Mexican food north of Denver, Cajun food west of Chickasha, Texas, barbecue outside of Texas or California Cuisine anywhere.