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“Toloache”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Latin/Mexican	Midtown	Moderate	Good

MY DINNER AT TOLOACHE
The other night, after having dinner at Toloache with Craig and our friends Jim and Laura, we leaned back in our seats and held our bulging bellies and started to talk about the meal we had just enjoyed. Jim, a good friend of Craig’s who’s also a playwright, started to say that he thought the suckling pig was delicious, and though I agreed—it was a mountain of slow cooked oven-roasted shredded and pulled pork (worthy of a North Carolina barbecue), ramped up with a sweet-hot sauce made from oranges and habanero chiles, and topped with crunchy potato chip sized pieces of chicharon ($25)—I had to stop him because I have a ban on delicious. Not delicious food (please, bring it on), but the word delicious.

My delicious veto started about seven years ago, when my editor at the New York Times, an amazingly talented guy named Sam Sifton, returned a piece I had written for him with one comment. “Never use the word delicious,” he said. “It’s banned in my book. Gimme something more than that.” He was right. Delicious? What a cop out. It’s too easy. He wanted me to work for it, to dig deeper. And I don’t blame him. Now that I teach a food writing class, I’ve borrowed his advice for my students. Last week at our first class, I broke the news to them. “There’s one word I don’t allow in my class and it’s delicious,” I said. They looked alarmed. Why?” They asked. “Because it’s not good enough. I want to know why it’s delicious. Is it the flavors, the textures, the temperature, the contrast of all three? Give me more. Delicious is just lazy.”

Writing, for me at least, is a product of intimate details, of layering images, tastes, senses, so that the food—and the experience of the meal—is really brought to life. You’ve gotta give me more than delicious to make my mouth water. Craig added that he has a ban on the word interesting for similar reasons. I prefer descriptions and words that tell me how this food makes you feel, tell me what it tastes like, tell me what memories or moments in your life it takes you back to. To illustrate my point, of how not to use the word delicious, I’ll give you an example. This is a line from Frank Bruni’s Del Posto review in which he was describing the restaurant’s arugula salad: “…the arugula here makes arugula ... [more, click below]

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Posted: October 1, 2007

Other restaurants in Midtown :
+ Lever House   + Aquavit   + RM   + Joseph's (formerly Citarella The Restaurant)   + Town   + Artisanal   + The Oyster Bar   + Geisha   + David Burke and Donatella Restaurant   + Riingo   + Amma   + Cafe Sabarsky   + The Stone Rose Lounge   + BLT Steak   + V, The Steakhouse-- Closed   + Bar Masa   + Cafe Gray   + The Bar Room at The Modern   + The Cafe at Aquavit   + The Cafe at Aquavit   + Bistro du Vent-- Closed   + Shaburi   + Xing   + The Modern   + Bar Americain   + Alto   + Park Blue   + Mainland-- Closed   + Nobu 57   + Quality Meats   + Dona-- CLOSED   + Daisy May's   + 7Square-- CLOSED   + Amalia   + Fireside   + Anthos   + Patroon   + BLT Market   + Toloache   + Mia Dona   + Park Avenue Summer   + Convivio   + The Oak Room by guest reviewer Julie Besonen   + At Vermilion by guest reviewer Elaine Weiner   + Lunching at Inakaya, by guest reviewer Kathleen Squires   + Marea, by Guest Reviewer Susan Kane Walkush   + Le Bernardin   + New York Central -- A Reason To Eat at the Grand Hyatt Again   + Pampano Botaneria by Dara Pollak   

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