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All That Jazz
The latest entry
to the pet-peeve list: ‘upscale,’ as in ‘upscale soul food.’ In the year and a bit since Keith Hicks created the marvelous
Ovation (6115 Camp Bowie Blvd.), that’s become the media’s and the public’s sound bite: ‘Ovation ... home of upscale soul food!’ Argh, argh,
argh. First of all, Chow, Baby can’t even say ‘upscale’ without making little jazz hands. Ooh, upscale. It’s true, we needed a word to replace ‘gourmet’ now that that’s been slapped on every other food product at Sam’s Club. But both those words have code meanings, depending on
the nouns they’re attached to. In ‘upscale steakhouse,’ upscale just means ‘expensive and gloomy’ (no jazz hands). When these words are modifying an ethnic
cuisine, though ( as in Cantina Laredo’s ‘gourmet Mexican food’ (
Chow, Baby can’t help but think there’s some kind of culinary
gentrification at work. It’s cleaned up! It’s closely policed! It costs more! It’s now safe for middle-class white people!
Not that all soul
food has to stay in Como, or all Mexican food on
the North Side. Bring it to Sundance Square, bring it to the West Side (
just
bring the real thing, please. Like Sonny Vuong did
when he opened Sonny’s Diner (6220 Camp Bowie Blvd.) a few months ago. Yes,
the dècor is bistro-y. And the menu gives
pronunciation guides for the few non-English words. But the food ( the food is not ‘upscale’ (there go the hands). It’s the same selection you’d find anywhere along Belknap, albeit at higher prices. Spring
rolls (two for $3.25) and egg rolls (two for $2.50) have all the right stuffings, and are served with non-wussy
housemade peanut and sweet-and-sour sauces,
respectively. Steak pho ($6.75) is the
long-simmered kind. Vietnamese iced coffee ($2.50) comes with its own little
drip pot. It’s all the real thing.
At Ovation ( in a different Camp Bowie strip mall, but also
pretty inside ) the real-thing chicken & waffles ($10 at lunch) are
served with collard greens, just like Chow, Baby remembered from its last
visit to 1930s Harlem. True, at Ovation the dish also comes with fancy
cinnamon-blueberry infused butter. And the traditional fried catfish ($9) is
served with greens, hush puppies, and, hmm, a candied-sweet-potato coulis. Here’s yummy
fried green tomatoes ($8.99) ... with béarnaise sauce. Once you start
getting French words in there, it kind of takes the wind out of Chow, Baby’s don’t-call-Ovation-upscale
sails.
OK, a new argh: Other than because Chef Keith is black, why do
people persist in calling Ovation’s menu ‘soul food’ when half of it draws
from other cuisines? Here’s a creamy chicken
fettuccini Alfredo with pancetta ($17.99). Steaks ($28.99 and up) are
Midwestern perfection under a red wine reduction or brandy-peppercorn sauce.
Sandwiches include cheesesteak, Cuban, carnitas tacos, and Black Castle burgers ($8), the last
being Chef Keith’s version of sliders. It’s all fantastic, but it’s all over the world map (
and
that’s Chow, Baby’s rebuttal to its own don’t-call-it-soul-food argument. History bite: Soul food
originated when plantation slaves took the house’s discards ( turnip tops, ham bones, pig’s feet ( and made trash into
treasure. Chef Keith has better ingredients to work with, but he’s using traditional cooking techniques and ingenuity to turn
out some pretty amazing stuff. In that sense (
possibly
so broad a sense as to make the term meaningless (
Ovation’s whole menu is soul food, and the swanky touches do make it
... no, Chow, Baby can’t bring itself to use the
u-word. It needs both hands for attacking those amazing sliders.
Contact Chow,
Baby at chowbaby@fwweekly.com.
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