Counsel’s Table: One too many bites

By Russell B. Selman
Katten Muchin Rosenman
Restaurant Critic

As a food reviewer, there are many times where I feel like a scout sent ahead to see if the food is safe to eat. This role is very different from my lawyering role, where the client is generally the one who is sent ahead. In both cases I remain heroically optimistic, but let’s face it, the reason why so many of us lawyers are not food reviewers is that there is a decided preference in our profession for others to taste the grub.

I admit that on occasion my dual roles overlap, and I think that I am the better for the training I have from both roles. When, for example, I recently ate out at a Florida fish house with an elderly aunt, my waiter allowed my baked potato to tumble to the floor just short of our table. The waiter apologized and said he’d bring another. My lawyer training kicked in with me braying, ”Uh-Uh-Uh,” and swaying my neck sideways like Wanda Sykes. ”You leave that potato here and bring me another and then you can take this potato away.” My 89-year-old aunt beamed at me and asked where I learned such peasant wisdom. I winked at her and pointed at my head (at least I think I pointed at my head and not at the potato).

In retrospect, such decision-making was the lawyerly part of my skeptical personality. Of course, I had no specific information that the establishment would re-serve the errant potato but, hey, why take the chance — and, besides, I had an opportunity to display my ”flashy” side to my aunt — a narcisstic double play for a lawyer and therefore impossible to resist.

By contrast, or so I wrongly thought, was my visit to Real Tenochtitlan (RT). While this place along Milwaukee Avenue is very new, the chef has successfully operated other fine establishments for many years that routinely turned out very good Mexican food. Strong flavors, moles that seem to steep and enhance flavors as the week stretches and the separate mole pots mix — a place I like to frequent. A safe reviewer’s choice: same food, new location, and typically festive, OLE! Review is done.

Things did not work out that way, this time. I started with a tamale and ended with an anecdote.

What happened was that the tamale was served cold, not icicle cold, just a ways below room temperature, so the flavors were not forthcoming. I hailed my waiter, who regretted this mistake and agreed to bring me a new, and warm tamale. Hey, it happens, no big deal, was my temperature.

After about 15 minutes, the waiter made another apologetic fuss and presented my new tamale. Now, 15 minutes seemed a long time, but it takes time to make a tamale (I told myself) and it wasn’t like RT just re-heated my old cold tamale. My waiter smiled deeply and stood by to ensure that all was well as I prepared to savor …

Time stopped, a beat or two, as I regarded my tamale, which was missing its top/bottom. ”Hey — what’s going on? My tamale’s been eaten,” I exclaimed with a passion not unlike Dreyfus’ ”J’Accuse!” admittedly uttered under dissimilar circumstances, but just as keenly felt.

My waiter, not a student of Franco-Jewish history, denied any such connection and denied the bite marks presence. ”B-b-b-b-ut, look,” I stammered, ”my twamale has a bite mark!” (When upset, my pronunciations go their own way). Since I had used a fork to cut into TWAMALE #1 (please mark the exhibit) and TWAMALE #2 has a bite (not mine, by the way, and I will call my forensics expert later, your honor) we had a diabolic conspiracy underway. I began to think about merchandizing both international book and film rights (Oliver Stone calling on line 2).

Still, and necessarily perhaps, my waiter refused to see what the whole world could see (and be moved by when I am played by Gael Garcia Bernal). ”Senor, that is not a bite,” he said, and he reminded me of the old joke about a wife catching her husband in bed with another woman with the husband saying, ”Who do you believe — me or your own eyes?”

”OK, then, what is it? Looks like a bite, NO?” Reply — ”Yes it looks like a bite, but that cannot be.” We had a standoff — yes a Mexican standoff. And I began to hear the eerie whistling of a Lee Van Cleef spaghetti Western.

So what can I say? As a food critic I took and reported on the road ahead for the benefit of all. As a lawyer, I say, a potato in hand is worth two twamales in the bush.

Pleadings:
Real Tenochtitlan
2451 N. Milwaukee Ave.
773-227-1050

Court Costs:
Appetizers $8-10
Entrees $20-30

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