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| - I have never been accused of being "hip". In fact, having used the word hip in a sentence probably indicates how far off I am. But I've been around long enough to know that our attention starved society thrives on the mindless pursuit of trendy behavior that leap-frogs from fad to fad in a desperate attempt to stay relevant in a culture where being odd is more highly valued than being - well, just about anything else.
Traditionally, this type of pursuit has never served the restaurant industry well. Most attempts to shake up the culinary comforts of the nation as a whole have failed with spectacular results. Even those few dubiously places who manage to grab the attention of the culinary media, with a spotlight on some cable food program, usually end up falling out of fashion as fast as they rose into it.
Trying to be different in the culinary scene is never as successful as trying to be better. There is a reason places like Franklin Barbecue in Austin Texas have people standing in line for hours every single day, they serve better barbeque than anyone else - in a place that saturated with barbeque. You could try and recreate barbeque in Texas - I mean, it's a stupid idea, but you could try. You might even get Guy Fieri to stop by on his road show, or have Adam Richman try to inhale 20 lbs of Macedon brisket in 15 minutes. If you do, chances are you will have massive success in your new stupid adventure (for a short time at least). But after your 15 minutes of culinary fame have ended and Guy no longer answers your phone calls, what you'll be left with is a small but dedicated troupe of regulars that can't afford to keep your stupid alternative barbeque restaurant in business.
Trendy but doomed restaurants are usually very easy to spot. Take for example this place called SkinnyFATS. See what they did there? Clever huh? They took skinny AND fat, and put them together in one place - - hash-tag: mind-blown - POW!
I wish I could explain to you how SkinnyFATS dichotomy of culinary concepts works, how the fat and the skinny are magically brought together in one revolutionary concept, but - well, I have no idea. And from the looks on the faces of everyone else standing in line, they didn't know either.
You see, SkinnyFATS fancies themselves as being on the leading edge of cool, hip, trendy (whatever you want to call it) culinary fashion. So much so, that their menu is a clusterf**k of confusion - "I mean a literal clusterf**k of confusion." You see the name of the menu item, and read through the entire description under of its ingredients, and you still have no idea that they are talking about a stupid burger. I wasted an ungodly amount of time on the skinny side of the menu, and didn't figure a single thing out. In fact, the only thing I am sure SkinnyFATS has on their menu is a burger with cherry peppers, because that's what I ordered (of course, I had to confirm it was a burger first).
Now listen, the burger was really good! I mean it, I enjoyed it immensely. I will probably go back at some point, although I am not certain I will ever order anything else off the menu, just for fear of having an aneurysm trying to discover what it really is.
As for the trendiest of trendy culinary fashions on their menu, the truffle fries - well, they just plain suck. I mean it, stay away! It's not real truffle oil, it's not made from truffles at all. It's a nasty chemical concoction that is made from petroleum and some cheap oil, and it tastes like crap. The fact that a single gram of truffle costs around $26 should alert you to how obviously fake these fries are.
The staff appear to be enjoying their time as the cool kids on the block, they have an air of superiority that is well deserved, since they are most likely the only people who know how to translate the menu. Don't get me wrong, they are the "friendly" cool kinds on the block - they're not likely to pull your shorts down to your ankles and laugh at you, but their collective indifference is plastered across their faces. Usually this type of unfriendly customer service is a result of being forced to labor for less than a living wage under greedy owners, but I'm only guessing - maybe young people just hate work all together.
I am not disappointed in SkinnyFATS, in fact I appreciate the fact that they have chosen a moniker that is the culinary equivalent of a book with a picture on the cover of a muscular man (with long flowing hair) holding a woman (with a 12 inch waistline) in his arms - it pretty much sums up what's inside.
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