The six of us trekked all the way to Jamaica, Queens, (braving over an hour’s worth of traffic, mind you), to get to the grounds of JFK International Airport.And despite the vehicular challenges we faced, we loved visiting the “TWA Hotel” which is housed within a beautifully refurbished “TWA Flight Center” — a now landmarked structure originally designed by noted architect Eero Saarinen. (It’s an awesome building and space. Check it out next time you’re in the area.)
This is also where you’ll find “Paris Café,” a restaurant headed by noted chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Given his many restaurants around the globe, we never imagined our dining experience was going to be as horrid as it was.
A case in point was the “Snake River Farms Wagyu Beef Tenderloin” — habanero hot sauce emulsion, spinach and crispy onion — which came with a steep $38 price tag. (Trust me, I was tempted to publicly excoriate the guest who had the chutzpah to order that high-ticket item, but was curious to see what Jean-Georges’ kitchen would deliver.)
Wagyu’s popularly is due to its professed superiority to other breeds of cattle. Among other attributes, it offers higher levels of marbling (intra-muscular fat), a finer texture, and yields some of the “juiciest,” “richest” steaks around.
Snake River Farms’s website claims this tenderloin is from a cow that’s a cross between a purebred Wagyu and traditional American cattle. That “mix” is supposed to produce meat that’s “extremely tender, intensely flavorful.”
Not surprisingly (given all the lapses we were experiencing that evening), this meat was tough and dry. Because it lacked any of the juiciness, richness, tenderness, or even the flavors that we had hoped for, this disgraceful $38 dish scored an “F.”
[I ask you (rhetorically): What kind of chef doesn't know how to treat his meat?]
# # #
Follow Lucas on Instagram: @lucasaferrara
