Coming Soon…Casa de Vietnam

By any measure, the United States represents the perfect notion of living in a “melting pot”.  Where I live, the idea of living in a region where cultures co-exist and even coalesce becomes almost an afterthought at times.  I have always been a believer that diversity enriches people.  When it comes to food, I can’t think of an easier way to experience the delights of a different culture.

I live in a city where you can try a different cuisine every night of the year and not run out of new adventures.  Portuguese one night, Persian the next.  How about Italian?  But do you want Northern Italian or Southern, or how about getting even more specific with Sicilian?  Twenty-five years ago, going out for Chinese meant a choice of perhaps three restaurants, one of them was purely for Chop Suey and the other two were basic variations of Cantonese food.  Now, you have Szechwan, Hakka, Hong Kong seafood style, Vietnamese-Chinese, those specializing in hot pots, and many, many more.

But even the best intentions can sometimes go too far.  Or maybe I’m more conservative than I thought I was.

I’m referring to a relatively “new” cuisine called Fusion.  It may also sometimes be called Pan Asian or California cuisine.

My best guess as to the origins of this cuisine is that it started when a restaurateur was brainstorming new ideas for a restaurant, but was hard pressed to come up with a truly innovative idea that had not been done before.  At some point, he must have thought, “Sure, you can have Japanese food one night, Cajun food the next, and Italian the night after that, but what if you could sample seven or eight cuisines, all from the same entrée?”

All of a sudden, entrée ideas come out from nowhere, nouveau chefs sprout flamboyant new creations and the world is full of possibilities.  Excuse me, make that the balsamic vinegar infused-world is full of possibilities.

Here are a few entrees I pulled off from a local fusion restaurant I visited recently:

Ancho-sesame BBQ Free Range Chicken – Anchovy barbeque sauce, wild rice with currants, apples & walnuts topped off with a wild watermelon-jicama-lime salsa.

Shaved Grana Salad – Sardine filets over romaine lettuce with lime pepita dressing, sesame bread sticks, and red tortilla strips & roasted pepitas along with chile-fennel mahi, prawns or chicken.

Air-dried Roasted Duck – roasted air-dried Virginia wild duck served with a ginger-cherry sauce and a mixture of wild and basmati rice

Good Things Growing – Eggplant & roasted bell roulades, garam masala butternut squash ravioli & tempura yams with nut crusted tofu.

The last entrée stated that “A portion of the profit from this dish will go to benefit the Humane Society.”

I wonder why they reserve so much compassion for the animals yet spare no mercy when it comes their meals?

As for what I ordered that night, I looked long and hard for an entrée with ingredients that I could actually identify.  I settled for duck-filled dumplings in some sort of broth.  I like duck.  I like dumplings.  Who doesn’t like broth?

What I ended up getting was a dish covered with deep fried green onions and some other vegetation I couldn’t identify that covered the entire bowl like a marsh from the Florida everglades.  Once I hacked through the brush, I came upon the dumpling soup I ordered.  Although I was somewhat put off by the fact that there were only three dumplings in the broth (which comes out to be about four dollars a dumpling), after my first bite I realized that the scarcity of dumplings was more of a blessing in disguise.

Of course, tasting the dumpling becomes a challenge when it is drenched in the soup itself.

It was like drinking a bowl of boiled honey.  It was tooth achingly sweet.   I didn’t know whether to drink it or pour it over some ice cream.

It took hundreds, if not thousands of years for some cultures to establish the unique flavors and ingredients of their cuisine.  All of this tradition and custom is now vulnerable to the “Hey, let’s try this!” philosophy of Fusion cuisine.

I reject mango rumulade on my steak.  “Infusion” is a medical term, not a culinary one.  I don’t know what ingredient “garam” is, and I don’t want to find out.  Tofu should not be on a pizza.

This is culinary creativity run amuck.  Something must be done before someone starts making Portuguese sausage flavored gelato or fudge brownie clam chowder – with balsamic vinegar, of course.