MENUS AROUND THE COUNTRY

“AFTER YEARS OF PLEXIGLASS DIVIDERS, CURBSIDE DELIVERY, masked servers and, yes, QR codes,” say The New York Times writers Priya Krishna, Tanya Sichynsky, and Umi Syam, “one thing was immediately clear: Physical menus aren’t just back. They have more personality than ever.”

And so do Priya, Tanya, and Umi, as displayed in their “Menu Trends That Define Dining Right Now,” The New York Times, January 23, 2024.

This and following images from The New York Times, January 23, 2024. 

Here are tidbits about these time capsules of culture, “reflecting the comforts, habits, flavors and values of an era,” together with my own musings of someone else doing the cooking.

You’re Having That? Priya, Tanya, and Umi say, “Trendy offerings like tinned fish and $12 bowls of olives show no signs of disappearing, but some dishes and ingredients feel especially of the moment.”

Uh, I believe our trio may eat at different places than I frequent. 

“The Caesar salad,” they say, “isn’t just a steakhouse fixture. You’ll find it at Mexican restaurants. And Thai restaurants. And Cuban restaurants. Some have miso or fish sauce in the dressing, while others are sprinkled with fennel pollen or replace romaine with snow peas.”

I like the snow peas variation. Or maybe with snap beans.

One of the family’s favorites is a Cuban restaurant, Felix Continental at the Circle in Orange, California. Its menu lists six “Cool, Cool Salads,” none with the moniker Caesar. No problem: I invariably choose among Masa de Puerco Frita or two seafood specialities with shrimp, calamari, scallops, crab, and fish. As an iconoclastic non-Cuban recommendation, I’ve seen an elegant Chicken Cordon Blue. (Note, not Bleu.)

The Aesthetic. Priya, Tanya, and Umi observe, “Like purses, menus have shrunk. Many restaurants favor a vertical, half-page menu, just the right size for holding in your hands, with no pages to flip through and, often, fewer items to choose from.” 

This, in marked contrast to “Waiter, I’ll Have the Hoiled Corned Beef and Browned Parnips.”

Our trio comments on “Honey, they shrunk the fonts!” Having studied 121 menus from around the country, they say, “Consider this a formal plea to increase font sizes so we don’t need a magnifying glass to find out what’s inside the cemitas. Some menus… had fonts that appeared to be as small as 5 points. (By comparison, The New York Times is printed on 8.7-point Imperial Regular font, though we sometimes go down to 8 points.)” 

No problem, what with My New Eyes continuing to test at 20/15 distance vision (I’m told fighter pilots are 20/10) and enjoying tiny fonts with my preferred 3.5 reading specs. 

Menus Tell a Story. “In structuring menus,” our trio note, “many restaurants have strayed from a traditional course-by-course layout in favor of fresher and more expansive sections and formats.” The menu may have a brief mission statement commenting on employee wages and benefits, or offering “just enough information to convey what a dish might actually look like or taste like, with a little mystery to keep the diner in suspense,” or returning to the wall-mounted menu board of traditional all-day cafes or burger joints.

Our trio even gets a laugh from some: “… Like the menu at Street to Kitchen, a Thai restaurant in Houston, that doubles as a three-act play.

“Because what’s dinner without a show?” our trio says. I recall one where the sommelier taught me how to open a champagne bottle with a saber. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024