The Yucatan-style sea bass is to subtlety what Trump is to interior decoration
I mourned AA Gill by chain-reading his work, bingeing on interviews, restaurant reviews, travelogues: all fearless, curious, unbothered by the bourgeois notion of giving offence, a clear-headed vision with unique literary elan. In one interview, these lines struck me: “Everything is so overflavoured now,” he said, “dominated by the East and by Latin America and these enormous, big flavours. This style of cooking is fantastic, and I love it. But actually, I was just thinking, when was the last time I ate a blanquette de veau that was just white, and just soft, and wasn’t shouting at me?”
Now, I swoon at a cacophony of tastes as much as the next palate on a journey to jaded, but Gill’s words resonate as I take possession of a series of Breddos’ signature tacos. They are unspeakably delicious, but I feel bludgeoned, bewildered, bloated with flavours. Normally when reviewing, I’m a hideous plate-sniffer, trying to identify individual components, parse technique, understand context; I’m a whole lot of fun on the job, me. Here, I can’t see the food (it’s dark), I can’t hear others’ observations (it’s loud) and everything arrives at once in a great, untrammelled blurt of hot-sour-sweet-crisp-gooey-chewy shoutiness. It’s a mic drop moment.
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