Well, it was bound to happen eventually – I had a meal I didn’t particularly like at Mission Street Food.  I suppose it’s inevitable - you can’t be this experimental, week after week, without there being some valleys to equal out peaks.  I just didn’t expect that when it came down, it would come down this hard.  In fact, to take it one step further, if there weren’t occasional misfires, wouldn’t that be an indication that MSF wasn’t trying hard enough. After all, if he just put out barely good enough food week after week that was edible but uninteresting, we’d call it this year’s Top Chef. (Zing!)

I think it might be important to single out the guest chef program here. When a guest chef comes into MSF, they don’t just contribute a dish or too – they take over. Not unlike how MSF becomes the heart to Lung Shan Restaurant, the guest chef that inhabits MSF takes over the menu for the night.  The heart and soul stays with Anthony and Karen’s vision, but the food on the plate is strongly influenced by who is behind the stove.  MSF becomes a reflection of the guest chef, and unfortunately this week, I didn’t like much what I tasted.   The jelly on top of the rabbit rillette was watery, the popped wild rice uninspired, and the acorn soup had a slickness to it’s texture – perhaps from the starch in the acorns? – that was particularly off putting. Worst of all was the Bison stew, which left my table barely touched, and smelled like cigarette butts. It didn’t taste nearly as off as the aroma would suggest, but was not worth eating, none the less.  Ryan Farr, please come back again!

Not everything was bad.  The mussels are excellently cooked, and I liked the walnut broth, although I didn’t like either the winter root gratin or sea palm on top. The salad was passable if not exciting, although I really liked the thin slices of raw Jerusalem Artichoke – who knew you could eat them raw?  The saving grace of the night was the the always reliable flatbread sandwich, which got into the spirit of the night with a blue corn flatbread.  But even the sandwich wasn’t up to par with it’s usual PB&J cousin. The people sharing our table enjoyed the gnocchi, but I wasn’t impressed – I thought they were gummy and heavy, and the hummus sauce gritty and unrefined.

There was something missing tonight, and it seemed to be the usual attention to detail and technical execution that really makes Mission Street Food stand out.  What I love is the modern experimental touches brought down into street food.  Last night the technical refinement seemed to be missing, and the result was muddied flavors and textures.  I feel guilty complaining – like when a loved one works hard to make dinner, and it just doesn’t come together – the polite thing to do is smile and tough it out (note to  my girlfriend if you’re reading this: you’d never make a meal that meets this description.) As a community experiment in food, we have to take the highs and the lows, and just as my favorite dish from last week will be gone this week, the same applies to the disappointments – they’ll be gone, and replaced by something new, exciting, and hopefully delicious.

Speaking of next week, know what’s on the menu?  Chicken Wings with Ranch Grits and Tabasco Granita.  If they are anything like what Anthony made for the 826 event, I’d highly recommend being there.

Tags: mission street food, MSF

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Reviews, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.