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Introducing Guest Blogger Tom Benton

7 January 2009 396 views View Comments

Tom Benton is a new friend who is extremely knowledgeable about food — and I’m pretty certain a whole lot else. He’s the kind of guy you want on your team when playing trivia, and to accompany you at 8 a.m. on a Saturday to check out the best BBQ in the world.

He is visiting his parents on the East Coast during a break from school and wrote me the wonderful late-night rant below from his parent’s home in Lexington, Virginia. The town is located three hours from D.C. for those of you planning a road trip to the Shenandoah Valley.

Read This and You Will Smile.

redhenIt’s been an interesting food trip so far. I’ve loved cooking in my parents’ proper kitchen and today discovered….oh my….the Red Hen.

We went there for lunch – it’s the first restaurant I’ve been to here or in the vicinity that actually appeared to have any understanding of itself as an actual restaurant, which it did smashingly.
This is as opposed to the seemingly popular “We cooked some food and have some tables and let’s see what happens” school of hospitality. It started with the space – beautifully simple, understated, refined but casual and completely welcoming. 22 seats, open kitchen, one cook. The freshly printed menu looked just like the space and read like this:

Mixed Greens with Walnuts, Poached Pear and Maple Vinaigrette
Root Vegetable Soup
Soup and Salad
Beet Risotto
Lamb Curry with Wheatberries
Grilled Hamburger with Slow Cooked Egg Mayonnaise and Quinoa Salad
Seared Trout and Grits with Braised Kale

That’s it. Four entrees. I love this.

exterior_001The single waiter was friendly but polished and clearly knew exactly what the hell was going on in his dining room.

And the food…so good. Nothing on the plate but what you see above. I guess they’re calling this ‘Nouveau American Barnyard’ or some shit in NYC. Local, straightforward, simple.

Iced tea with simple syrup on the side. And mignardises with the check! (Handwritten with careful style that matched every other god damn thing in the place.)

Fine. I want to hump this restaurant. I said it.

In contrast, we’ve been to a number of other places my parents wanted me to check out and while some of them did food and other things very well, there was always something really glaring that just didn’t make sense to me.

The obvious one would be “Great food served by disinterested teenagers.” It’s not even that we got bad service (which we kinda did), but it’s clearly as if it didn’t even occur to anyone involved that service might have an impact or mattered beyond some bare, obligatory minimum.
Or the country inn going for an ultra-refined French country chalet vibe: white tablecloths, candles and flowers and shit crowding the tables, silent diners fearful of gourmet demerits, enormous menus packed with warhorses like Veal Oscar and Steak Diane. The wine list, however, was scribbled on a dry erase board the size of a tailgate that the waitress dragged from table to table as required. This was the dessert list also.
The people who ran it would have been “charmingly amateur” anywhere else – here they were like cheerfully rampaging bulls in their own china shop. I cannot imagine they would actually enjoy the experience they were trying to replicate. I’m not a fan myself, for that matter. So weird…

Shaved_Lamb_HeartI don’t mean to sound like an uptight asshole – it’s not like these inconsistencies turned these experiences sour. They just puzzle the hell out of me. I just walked into your restaurant 20 minutes ago – why am I already confused by your basic intentions and what you might have been thinking?

We had a friend over for dinner tonight and my mom was joking that I’d spent my visit tearing down local eateries and my dad butted in: “I hope Tom scores a serious job when this grad school thing is done, because he’s acquired some pretty posh taste.”

It made me a little angry, because I think he believes that shit, that if I can be critical of a “fancy” restaurant, it must be because I’m doubly fancy myself. The Red Hen, my new restaurant lover as of today, was cheaper than anywhere we’ve been by several times over. Really, I just want things to make sense.
The next time my folks are in Austin we’re gonna go to nothing but taquerias and Vietnamese joints with dirty floors and no English spoken. I love them, and they make more sense than anything.
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  • The Humble Chef

    Thanks for the love Tom it was gret meeting you and I'll look you up if I'm in Austin this summer for some great Viatnemese and Mexican.
    Tucker

  • tom benton

    Pho Van?

    "I'm thinking of the pho places so indistinct that I don't even know their names."

    Try again.

    We need a descriptor for these places - it occurs that they're the total Vietnamese analog of the bistro or the taqueria...that is, the menu from once place to another is going to be near-identical, with differentiation based on subtle refinement rather than invention. And their aesthetics tend to be largely or completely utilitarian.

    Tam Deli is fantastic. The banh mi is great and the golden-fried shrimp po-boy (of sorts) will knock your head off.

    Also, I've been amiss in not mentioning one dining spot in Lexington with perhaps greater logic and internal-cohesion that the Red Hen. Like it or no, there is nothing at the Waffle House that is not 100% perfectly Waffle House.

  • Jodi

    I'm headed to Sunflower tonight with some of my best buds. Sara is in town from Brasil so we are going to be sharing the awesome Fried Prawns in Garlic Sauce and Shaken Beef. However, the service and atmosphere will be terrible, as usual.

  • Adam

    I'm partial to Pho Van when it comes to Viet-linoleum fusion. Unfortunately I haven't been by Tam Deli in years but I hear that they are very solid as well and supposedly have some of the best banh mi in town.

    Not sure if you're referring to Aster's or the old World Beat Cafe but either way Tex is awesome.

  • tom benton

    Le Soleil? What are you, Warren Buffet? No, I'm thinking of the pho places so indistinct that I don't even know their names. I've been to Sunflower and Hai Ky and some of these other places, and enjoyed them, but it's linoleum and bowls of steaming round that seem to haunt my dreams. Is it that they're all so similar that my good feelings about them simply aggregate into a massive fondness for one house of Uber-Pho?

    What was the African place on MLK? I took my parents there in some ill-conceived multi-cultural adventure. My dad's review: "Tommy, if I wanted to eat third world food I would have stayed in Korea."

    Yeah, I'll put in a good word for you to be a regular guest feature, mofo.

  • Adam

    What up Tom... Let me be the first to say mazel tov on your burgeoning new relationship. I for one am strongly in favor of equal rights for human-culinary establishment couples and eagerly look forward to your impending nuptials. Your review was great and a fun read. I can't imagine why I would be in Lexington anytime soon unless I was a.) visiting you, or b.) looking at Washington & Lee for my kid 20 years from now, but if I happen to pass through I'll keep the Red Hen in mind.

    A more pressing concern, however, is identifying these Vietnamese places you are going to drag Tex to kicking and screaming. I'm always hard pressed to name lovable places here among the throngs of acceptable, fulfilling, and moderately enjoyable places. Jodi and I went to Le Soleil a while back and had a good time (http://tastytouring.com/2008/1... but I need to sample more of the menu. I was never a big fan of it's estranged ex-lover Sunflower. So spill it... what's your Viet-pleasure?

    Oh, and if you play your cards right I'll put in a good word for you to be a regular guest feature. I'd love to hear more of your food rants. Even if you are all posh.

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