How funny, I’ve never really enjoyed this review.
We ate at Le Cinq a year after that review. It was an outstanding dining experience. Food, service, and wine list were great.
I truly hope Guy Fieri wasn’t anyones sacred cow.
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I referenced that earlier as Jonathan Gold’s worst miss, which unfortunately happened right before he died. Incidentally he was at the table next to us that evening.
The thing that generally made Jonathan gold the best food critic of this generation was his love for the Los Angeles food scene, all of it, which made this review a huge miss for me.
My favorite thing about JG was that he has clearly been to all the hole in the wall neighborhood spots that served the best food of a specific genre, but wouldn’t review them out of courtesy although he might reference them in an article. In a review of Meizou Dongpo he referenced the Dongpo pork at Chang’s Garden in Arcadia, likely the reference for that dish in LA. He went to every goat taco joint in East LA, even being invited to some private homes.
Suffice it to say no one will be making a movie about Pete Wells anytime soon.
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not many people love Majordomo as much as me but I get what he was saying and so did Chang. It was like a tough conversation between a mentor and mentee to don’t believe the hype and you can better but done in the LA Times.
I think there’s more disagreement with the vision than anything else. Personally I loved the concept and felt it was exactly what LA needed, especially in the location where it is. Back when foie gras was still legal, that strawberry fois gras bing was one of the best 5 dishes I’ve been served at any restaurant, ever. A mass of microplaned foie gras served over a piping hot buttery bing with strawberry preserves, just absurd. The replacement bings are nowhere as good. Lots of other great dishes, but combined with a great, deep wine list, excellent cocktails, amazing design and architecture, an edgy location, elevated, but still authentic Asian food, even per Gold the galbi Jim would be top 5 in the city.
I think in the 6 years after Gold’s death there have been a big uptick in this style of restaurant in LA, with varying degrees of success. None, imo have been done with quite the style and flair of Majordomo. I think perhaps this is because it was shown there is a market for upscale Asian food in a cool setting with a great wine and food program. Even some traditional Asian chefs have tried to elevate their spaces. The chef of the above mentioned Chang’s Garden opened his own restaurant in Alhambra, Jiang Nan Spring, in a more elegant space and format, which made Addison’s top 100 list a couple years ago. The food is good but I don’t think it’s quite as good as the original Chang’s Garden in its prime. There are lots of other examples. I’ve posted on this topic a lot in the past and am pretty passionate about it because I felt the review was trying to gatekeep creativity in the Asian food space which I think is the opposite of what is needed.
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I disagree completely. The way I read it is that you can get more authentic and to Gold better Korean food 10 minutes away in Korea town. And I am sure Chang understood that. Watch the Gold doc, Chang laments about every time he found a new hole in the ground restaurant Jonathan had already been there. I can’t remember where I heard him say it, probably on his podcast, that review hurt Chang deeply.
As I said above don’t misunderstand me I LOVE Dōmo and have eaten there more than 30x and I primarily live in NYC.
Anajak? Anajak feels like the original Ssam to me.
Have you been to Sun Nong Dang? I’ve been there quite a few times. It’s a dramatically different place than Majordomo. It’s a hole in the wall place tucked in a plaza in Koreatown, where there are dozens of ppl milling outside and they put your name and party size on a whiteboard in front of the restaurant. If you aren’t there in maybe 10 seconds when called, the attendant will gleefully yell off the list and cross your name off. Seating is at Formica tables and your choices of beverages are Coke, Diet Coke, or Hite. The food is great, but the overall experience isn’t for everyone.
David Chang was trying to bring top quality food from places like this to an elegant elevated space with a top tier wine/cocktail list. I think for the most part, he’s achieved it, as well as brought some other interesting riffs on Asian inspired dishes that I really appreciated. Is every dish as good as the best possible iteration in the city? No. But that’s an impossibly high bar to clear.
Yeah Anajak is the obvious example, and it’s great, but on a less ambitious scale than Majordomo, and was already a restaurant long before Majordomo was built, if very different.
I have not been there. I been a customer of Momofuku since the very first week of Noodle bar and have easily dined at their restaurants over 500x in the last 20 years. I know what Chang does and for me it is incredible. I remember walking into Seiobo in Australia and immediately being treated like a VIP because half the kitchen knew us from NYC. I love what they do. Jonathan Gold was not going to give them a pass on the food because everything else was so well done. Like I said it felt like a private conversation in public. Chang worshiped Jonathan Gold, he says in the Gold doc we all wish he had a Jonathan Gold in NYC.
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It’s probably worth visiting next time you go to LA, the food is certainly very good and if Jonathan gold says they’re the best galbi jjim in LA, I’m certainly not going to argue with him. That being said, after visiting, you may then better understand my point.
On the list! Thank you. Heading to LA tomorrow but have a pretty jam packed eating and social schedule Anajak, Baroo, Kaiseki Motoishi, Camelia, the Hojokban popup at Melody and a few others!
Jiang Nan Spring is worth checking out sometime as well. The dongpo pork and crispy fish are especially excellent.
Cool. Thank you.
Two excellent meals. I reported earlier in the thread about Kawabun. I returned for lunch and it was great. The Unagi is fantastic.
And dinner was at Eyval. I LOVE this place. I don’t understand why this is not talked about more amongst the foodie crowd. It is always packed with a very diverse Bushwick type crowd. There were six MIT tech bros sitting next to us and we heard every word of their conversations about building AI programs to predict salesperson success and the tatoos of the tech bros. Glad their MIT education is being put to good use. Back to the food, if you like Persian food with a hint of sweetness combined with a melange of complex flavors and super fresh ingredients, this place is a must. Corkage is $40.
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One star used to mean good place, I should go there. When I was coming into dining adulthood in the Bryan Miller days those were always the restaurants I targeted. Now the stars are pretty meaningless as far as I can tell.
In this (thankfully) final missive, PW comes across as grouchy, exhausted, and, worst of all for a writer; with nothing interesting or original to say.
After such a long tenure, you’d think he’d hand it off to the readers and the next reviewer with something more hopeful and positive. There’s so much greatness in NYC dining - what a missed opportunity.
I Reviewed Restaurants for 12 Years. They’ve Changed, and Not for the Better.
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