Mogadischu Sneaker
Why doesn't Ithaca have a Sushi Tango? The restaurant business is a $40 million industry in I-town and how many really trendy bistros are there anyway? Some people jive on Stella's (Ez always thought that the waiters should dress in Italian t-shirts and all vaguely resemble Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire." The there's Simeon's but that's just an overpriced hick Applebee's. Occasionally you can still bump into ex-mayor Al Cohen but he's not in a position to sell you a tract down by the inlet anymore so what's the point of chatting?
Ez has always wanted to open a restaurant. There's a certain romance to working 28 hours a day in a busy kitchen, tossing knives at the bus boys, berating the waitresses, practicing your backhand catch on a Cornish game hen. Occasionally, whenever Ez wants to take a break from reading the Rig Veda in the original Sanskrit, he turns on the telly and watches Hell's Kitchen or one of the other tv kitchen reality shows. You don't the meaning of 'mean' until you see this Chef Toynbee, oops I correct myself --Chef Ramsey on Hell's Kitchen -- you get the drift, he's a Brit with a mouth like the Thames, browbeat some salad bar attendant from Detroit with aspirations of running a Vegas restaurant. Anyway, if you ever wanted to find out what happened to civility, ask a Brit. They invented the tabloid press, gave us Jack the Ripper and brought the Maxim gun to Africa.
However, Ez didn't start out to insult the British, he was surveying the bistro scene in Ithaca. There are now two Mexican restaurants, two Thai, how many Chinese, two sushi bars, two or three Greek grease traps, several Italian, one cheese dog palace(Moosebox) and a really, really --and Ez thinks it's the best in I-town, vegetarian restaurant --the ABC Cafe.
But no Sushi Tango. What kind of food does Sushi Tango serve? Hell knows, Ez's never eaten in one, he just likes the catchy name. It bespeaks of fusion, melting pot, cultural menu-rubbing. We Americans love that shit. After all we invented the tv dinner, dehydrated macaroni and cheese, spam (the meat.) Now we've discovered ethnic cuisine. Bring on the French Chef, Taco Bell, we're all about melting pots, that term must have been thought up in a sociologist's kitchen. We still need those fureenerrrs to clean our bathrooms, wash the dishes and nanny our young'ins so we might as well co-opt the finer points of their cuisines.
So Ez took out a yellow legal pad and started figuring out how he could liven up the boring culinary scene in Ithaca and, incidentally, make a million or two in the process. First he thought of what he could do with Polish fusion and he ran down a list of possibles. Kielbasi tapas, Pierogi lo mein, Salmon stuffed Golabki. Now that's interesting.
In the end, Ez decided that he would introduce authentic Somali cooking to Ithaca. But, you know, give it an American touch. Wow, camel burgers. Chili con carne with goat meat. Doro Wat with a side of fries. That's chicken stew and hadboiled eggs, if you didn't know. Oh, yeah, Ithaca is definitely ready for this. Those students will eat anything and camel meat is the perfect date food. Maybe, Ez will call his bistro Mogadischu Sneaker. Nice ring to it, eh?
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 8:30 AM
