Is it just a craze?

Okay guys, today I'd like to cover the Asian craze among restaurant owners and chefs and the deeper question which underlies the entire issue: is it just a craze or is there some kind of merit, that mall-based chain restaurants are somehow missing?

Personally, I think the rise in popularity of high-end Asian cuisine over the last ten years has been due in large part to two pioneers, each of whom has gained celebrity status for their vision and panache: Nobu and Morimoto. 

These two men--while pioneering and altering their cuisine to suit the American pallet--have effectively made Asian cuisine and the resulting Asian fusion, far more accessible and acceptable and for that, we owe them a debt of gratitude. 

The sticking point for me is when I talk with other chefs, friends or colleagues and I sometimes hear them say they prefer "Asian food." As a wise man recently said, "Asian is pretty big and encompasses a lot. How good can you be at all of it?"

Another issue that's become a problem is when people use only or or two key ingredients in a dish and then having the stones to call it Chinese or Japanese or some derivation thereof. Look, don't get me wrong, this isn't a sensitive issue for me, but at some point enough it enough. The cavalcade of copycat replicas popping up at strip malls and cooking aisles of books stores is staggering. I mean really, what is Asian food? That's a continent, not a country! Do we say African food? Absolutely not. We're generalizing a continent and "fuzing" it with something wholly unrelated. Sometimes this works (peanut butter meets jelly, Run DMC meets Aerosmith, etc.) but sometimes, it just simply doesn't. Which brings us back to the original question, is this just a fad, or is there some real merit to this craze?

For the moment, the jury is still deliberating. 

Regardless, those of you at home, get creative. Use your ingredients with creative abandon. Who knows, you might be the next Morimoto. 

Until next time.

Jonathan Martin