Can someone please explain to me who thought of the concept of "fusion" dining? I mean really, what is that?
The only context I remember ever hearing about fusion was in high school science class. Something about nuclear reactors and the combination of atoms or nuclei or something. I don't really know, once I heard the word atom, I glazed over like a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
So when my ex-girlfriend called me up wondering if I wanted to do dinner here in D.C., I thought, what bad could possibly come of this? I figured that since I'm in the city and she's interning for a senator, dinner made perfect sense. After all, it is the D.C. thing to do: "Oh, I'll meet you over dinner, we'll discuss the troop levels, ahem, and then we can have a reading of the tax code, blah blah, federalism."
I didn't know squat about this town, so I let her pick the eatery, if I dare call it that. She chose to take us to Chinatown. Great. I was excited about exploring another part of town, roughly seven metro stops away from my dorm in Tenley. Plus, I've heard Chinatown has excellent food, especially Chinese food. (Who knew?)
We met up outside the Chinatown Metro station and walked to our destination; let's call it Matchstick. (I don't want to get sued, so my memory fails me as to the actual name of the place.) It's a vintage pizza bistro.
"You have to be kidding me," my schizo side said in my head. "Oh this looks great," my polite half commented with a smile. What was I supposed to think? This place screamed Sauce (aka 4400 Highland). Remember those one-hit-wonders of Davis Square? We all know what happened to those "fusion eateries." Meltdown!
Inside Matchstick the lighting was bright but dim at the same time, the brick supporting walls were exposed, and I could vaguely make out what the building previously housed: a grocery store. But that former life was cleverly disguised with halogen lights, wooded floors and tables, and numerous flat-screen TVs pumping CNN's The Situation Room theme song.
After the obligatory 15- to 20-minute wait for a table, we were escorted to the second floor balcony. I have to say, it was quite the romantic experience, if you discount the heavy fondling that went on under the table.
Ahem. Where was I? Ah yes. The table was inlaid with what seemed like garbage, but instead turned out to be old matchboxes and match books. A little disturbing, really, to see a completely wooden restaurant with so many matches everywhere. And that isn't even taking into account the dangers of "nucular" power.
The kicker for me was the menu. Like most mentally healthy humans, I'm a lover of food. I appreciate a good meal and I especially appreciate good Italian food (don't be fooled by my Irish last name). So when I see the results of "fusion," like mini-hamburgers and deep fried "Italian" bread next to each other on a glossy menu, my heart sinks and then dies a little.
My ex and I spent very little time talking about the restaurant or the food. Most of our banter revolved around catching up on the events of our lives. How can you do that after, what, two years of change? And yet there we were, dancing around our social lives, and instead debating Obama vs. Hillary and how Mitt Romney's hair is amazing - how does he get it to be so presidential? We were saving the world, one topic of discussion at a time.
When it came time to order, I couldn't resist the urge to get something more traditional than, say, chipotle pizza. My ex went for the steak-salad dish, which sounded kind of creepy considering it brought together big beef and big E. coli in one plate. "How's the shrimp scampi?" I asked our server. I don't know what I expected for an answer. "Oh yes sir, it is overpriced and mediocre; I highly recommend it, one of our most popular dishes."
The service was friendly and the food was just what I expected, not like anything I've ever had. The beauty of making up a new genre of restaurant, the fusion restaurant, is that you can also make up a new genre of food. You can take perfectly perfect dishes, like shrimp scampi, and "zest" them up with some "fusion" radiation and voil? ; you have God-knows-what for 25 bucks. And no one can say it tastes funny because, hey, you fused it, you invented it: "It's supposed to taste like death, sir."
The shrimp wasn't bad, and from the looks of the salad smothered in beef, it wasn't bad either. I just don't understand the virtue in categorizing a place as fusion. Everything and everyone is trying to find some sort of exciting new identity. Normal categories just aren't enough, so when they can't settle on one identity that suits them, they can't help but make up another one.
Come on, please, someone open an "Identity Crisis Eatery." I would rather eat there and know what I'm getting than ever trying another "fusion" gimmick again.
-Jamie Bologna is a junior majoring in Political Science. He can be reached at James.Bologna@tufts.edu.
