Talde Review: Talde is aight
The most interesting thing to hit twitter yesterday (for food lovers at least), was the dust up that resulted from this Gilt Taste article between Francic Lam (Gilt Taste editor) and Eddie Huang (Baohaus). It’s a fascinating read if you haven’t seen it. Just like most of the time, I think people need to relax about whities cooking ‘ethnic’ food, because if you subscribe to Tyler Cowen’s belief that “all food is ethnic food,” then everyone is cooking ethnic food. If you don’t know who Tyler Cowen is, he’s like a genius economist that loves food. I’m gonna trust his take on what is or isn’t ethnic. And as for white chefs cooking Asian food, I think that’s just how it is in America sometimes because it’s got a lot of white people. But sometimes you get Asian food created by an Asian (I’m careful not to say cooked by Asians because we all know who cooks in the kitchens), that’s catering towards whities. Ain’t nothing wrong with that either. This is the land of capitalism and I want everyone to make a buck. Then if you make too much, I think the government should tax the shit out of you because those that complain they’ll move if the tax rate is too high usually don’t pull a Savarin.
So this food that’s created by an Asian and largely served to yuppies is from a restaurant called Talde. It’s the work of David Massoni, John Bush, and Dale Talde (of Top Chef fame). The restaurant is on 7th ave in Park Slope, Brooklyn near the 9th street subway stop. It’s totally yuppie-ville. The prices are very Park Slope. The food are Asian inspired and fairly good tasting. If you go on the weekend during lunch, they serve you the ‘dim sum‘ menu. It’s wrongly named because dim sum has to be dim sum. I mean, there’s pad thai on the menu served in normal portions. That’s not dim sum. You know what’s dim sum? Shrimp toast. And they got this if you got like nine Washingtons. That done make this like the most expensive shrimp toast is all of New York City probably.
The food all comes on these plastic (i think…) plates that you used to see a lot in the 80s and 90s from cheap Chinese places. There’s your typical decorative Chinese designs. The toast were cut into triangles and were studded with ground shrimp. It was also topped with an egg with runny yolk and Chinese sausage gravy. Now I get that this is more than your typical shrimp toast, and if you’re gonna make your brunch bed in the land of six-figure whities, you probably gotta swallow the price point. This was delicious even without the awesome gravy. The gravy was gravy.
One time I was chatting with Jonathan about how I judge ethnic restaurants by the clientele. There is a difference between serving Chinese food where the majority if the clientele are whities versus serving Chinese food to mostly Chinks. I’m not sure what that difference is, but THERE HAS TO BE A DIFFERENCE. He mentioned a good point, which was that rich people in Hong Kong go eat at the expensive places, and it’s filled with Asians. I think maybe those rich Chinks over there have seen a bao with lobster in there. Or shark fin if they’re inconsiderate pricks. But the first time I saw lobster in a bao was at Talde’s.
These baos are $14. The most expensive baos I have ever eaten by far. This is essentially the lobster roll but done up on a bao instead of a buttered hot dog bun. Thinking of this dish as a bao is unfair to baos and will make you hate the price. Thinking of this dish as a lobster roll with a weird bread is better, because I think you get a just-right amount of lobster in there. The lobster is cold and has been tossed with mayo or something. The thing about the bread is that baos are way better warm than at room temp, which is why the buttered and toasted hot dog bun is actually a better vehicle for lobster rolls. You can’t butter and toast baos really. I mean, you can. They just didn’t do it like that. Point is, $14 for a lobster roll in Brooklyn is aight.
And then we ate tacos. Yup. Straight off of the dim sum menu. Cuz we awesome! These were also $9, which meant each taco was like $4.50. That is straight up gangsta. But halfway through our meal, the restaurant got packed. So people in Park Slope don’t give a damn about the price. This is fair price for the neighborhood. The Asian part of this taco came from seasoning and the bits of kimchi in there. I would still say this is a Mexican dish but it was good.
I’m not gonna worry too much about non-Asians serving Asian food to greater fan fare than Asians serving Asian food. Or Asians serving food to mostly non-Asians. Who cares? I’m sure it’s great for someone to write a really detailed observation about all of this, but every single observation about who cooks Asian food in the United States of America will be full of holes and incomplete.
Oh and Jeremy, I dunno if you’re reading this at some point, but as good as this place is, I don’t know if it’s worth the walk from where your apartment is.
Talde369 Seventh Ave.Brooklyn, NY 11215347-916-0031
Posted by Danny on June 7, 2012 at 6:37 pm
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