Le Grand Fooding: Unauthorized Possession of Prohibited Figs

Grid View

The theme of the second annual Le Grand Fooding event at P.S.1 this weekend was the supposed rivalry between chefs from New York City and San Francisco: "Unauthorized possession of prohibited figs," read the staff's tongue-in-cheek long-sleeve t-shirts. Surely there must have been a better way than having the chefs "challenge" each other by preparing completely unrelated dishes using totally different ingredients? To declare a "winner" frankly seems a bit silly under such circumstances. In a blind taste test, could you actually identify the east coast and west coast chefs? Probably not! And after waiting in line for 30 minutes for a small plate of something, you were probably just really hungry and didn't care. Surprisingly (and thankfully!) the drink lines were short and fast-moving: Jim Meehan of PDT was the savior of the night.

Saturday night was all about waiting in crushing, interminable lines. Luckily we didn't go on Friday: Word on the street was that Friday was even worse (the term "shitshow" was bandied about by many).

How long are you willing to wait in a line for a slice of pizza? If you answered 45 minutes, you would have fit right in. Apparently Mourad Lahlou (Aziza, SF) was serving squab? We never got any because he completely sold out. Anyway, standout dishes included Dan Barber's (Blue Hill, NY) beet sausage, Laurent Kalkotour's (DB Bistro Moderne, NY) Camem-burger, and Melissa Perello's (Frances, SF) pork confit, and Daniel Patterson's (Coi, SF) ersatz vegetable Smörgåsbord. But how do you compare one against the other exactly? Everyone's a winner in our book! See more coverage of the event here and here.