The Long Shortlist

As an INTJ, I love lists. My days are lists. My speech is involuntarily devised in the form of lists. Heck, I have lists reminding me to make lists. But the authoritative simplicity lists so boast can be just as quickly gnarled into oversimplicity, thereby discrediting them of any viability and reason, rendering them no better than slews of words, linearly arranged, optionally parsed by ascending numerals.

And because if you’re here you clearly have a penchant for prolonged prose, hence I’ll allow myself the indulgence of subjecting you to the following long shortlist – an entirely self-serving elaboration of fully subjective (though not at all unjustified) preferences. Be offended. Be vindicated. Be apathetic. Be enthused. All of the above would be appropriate for each of the below.

Ten things I found absolutely quizzical in 2024 (in no particular order, they all befuddle me):

1. Lemon desserts that aren’t sour, or chocolate desserts that aren’t bitter, or salted caramel desserts that aren’t salty really, really piss me off. I get it – from a maker’s perspective the lure of appealing to the masses sounds like it would be good for business (similar to how policies tend to converge somewhere in the middle even if party ideologies claim to be much more clear-cut which is a direct result of the median voter theorem). This is great in the short run, you’ll probably see complaints go down, and you will likely also see the item sell decently for a while. This is a slippery slope, however, because median is precariously close to mediocrity and that’s where price wars start to look like the only way out. At the end of the day, small businesses are in the game of differentiation – you’ll never have the economies of scale of a chain operation – so you need to be memorable, which being mid absolutely is not. For an exemplary lemon dessert, my mind still goes straight to Aloette’s lemon pie which they’ve had from day one, and has since made a cliché of itself as icons tend to do. I also think people who order lemon desserts then complain that they’re too sour are laughably ludicrous – it’s like asking for a gluten free beer.
2. Over-trimmed steaks, in particular strip steaks or rib steaks feel like receiving a bonus that ends up bumping you just to the next tax bracket. Sure, it’ll sputter a little less (unconfirmed), cook a little faster (on the autobahn to dryness), and look nice and neat (which I suppose is a very first world thing to ask of your meat), but similar to the lemon dessert argument, if a customer didn’t want the fat, they’d have ordered the tenderloin or the token roast chicken. If they’re really anal about it they can cut it off themselves once it arrives at the table – steak will still have more flavour and be more moist than if it were trimmed to pitiable nakedness. I personally find chewing on lovingly coaxed beef fat to be one of the most delectable details of a steak dinner, and on the topic of lists, Selene’s dairy cow 12 oz strip sits apex on mine for those I haven’t tried.
3. Fish without skin, with the exception of raw applications, is as cardinal a sin as chicken without skin. It befits one of my least favourite words and one I reserve only for the most dire of disappointments – flaccid. Oh, but what if we’re not going for a glassy sear or a whole fish fry? Oh, but have we been living under a rock? One of the greatest dishes of all time is a cantonese steamed whole fish. Hai Jiu’s is inculpable but to be honest I haven’t met one that wasn’t great. Besides, fish without skin just generally a red flag for fish fraud (white and flaky describes a multitude of specimens) or improper handling (spoilage and oxidation typically work from the outside in – to a certain extent if you trim far enough you’ll still get to the “servable” stuff).
4. Fresh toast on a cold plate ask for the bottom (more architecturally important side) to steam in its own escaping moisture and become soggy. Let the toast cool for a bit on the rack, wave it in the air a couple times if you’re impatient. It’s breakfast, do it right. Or maybe it’s happy hour and you literally have zero seconds to waste – then lay a napkin on the plate first like L’Abattoir does with the toasted brioche that accompanies its terrine of duck foie gras that is, without exaggeration, really quite sublime.
5. Ice cream in un-chilled vessels guarantees a sloshing mess by the time it reaches the diner. If I wanted a milkshake I would have gone to Wendy’s. Sunny’s didn’t start out that way, but they get it now and it’s the type of class act their soft serve deserves. I myself store my coupes in the freezer – it literally is no more effort than putting it in the cupboard.
6. “Fresh cut fruit”. I’ll risk it for night market durian, papaya, and pineapple in Taiwan. Not for a fucking party fruit platter.
7. Desserts stuck on the gelatin crutch rely too heavily on the substance as the source of its structure, often at the expense of flavour. Gelatin is inherently flavourless (at best, and animalistic at worst), and works by uncoiling into a web-like structure as it is heated, then tangling together as it cools to hold onto water molecules. Used correctly they can help stabilize a mousse, set a panna cotta, thicken a custard, but used incorrectly it blocks the tongue’s ability perceive flavour by too tightly latching onto the flavour compounds and preventing them from making proper contact with our taste buds. I like my gelatin how I like my foundation – imperceptible. For a masterclass on gelatin, look no further than halfway around the world at Asako Iwayanagi Patisserie’s hyper-seasonal Parfait Bijou, eating through which was like the scene in Spirited Away where Haku leads Chihiro through the dizzying hydrangea garden. Nobody needs to know that at the end of the path were her porkified parents.
8. Lukewarm lattes are less likely to make the establishment that serves them legally liable in lawsuits of coffee being “too hot”, so yeah, I get it. They definitely still suck though.
9. Overcooked rice and overcooked noodles are actually tragic, because there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to salvage them. Overcook a steak? Turn it into a stir-fry. Overcook some fish? Make a fish dip. Overcooked some veg? Make a soup. Overcook rice? Okay, maybe I can make arancini, but do I ever think to myself hmm, I really feel like eating a plate of deep fried soggy rice balls? No. So don’t try to be a smartass – measure your rice, measure your water. Same with pasta, use a damn timer. For the best bowl of rice I had this year, Mhel takes the whole entire cake. And while you’re there, get the kimchi, painstakingly made by Ji’s mother, with love – like everything else there.
10. Loud music puts me on edge, but when it gets in the way of me feeling the crunch of the potato pavé reverberate through my skull or the carbonation in the cava I just ordered tickle my hard palate, we have a problem. And for this point alone, I’ll never get tired of eating at home with none other than the luxury of quiet.

Peace,

A