GQ USA – May 2017

most remarkable thing about Rooster Soup

Co.: the fact that 100 percent of its profits

benefit a local food charity, the Broad Street

Hospitality Collaborative. Here is definitive

proof that a higher mission doesn’t require

diminished deliciousness.

Something of a diner’s spirit lingers at

Detroit’s Flowers of Vietnam, if only in the

short-order station and plastic-letter menu

board of the onetime “coney” it occupies. The

euphonious name evolved, through a series

of misreadings, from “Flavors of Vietnam.”

The entirety of what the charismatic, media-

ready chef George Azar has created here feels

just as much like a happy blend of improvi-

sation and accident: the son of Palestinian

immigrants cooking Vietnamese food in a

Greek diner in Mexicantown. One hopes

Azar’s gig cooking with the Noma team

during its residency in Tulum this spring—

while Flowers undergoes a renovation—

doesn’t polish too many edges o≠ the charm

of his operation, not to mention the honeyed

funk of his glistening caramel chicken wings,

the puckering fresh bite of his papaya salad,

or the richness of the Vietnamese egg-cream

co≠ee he o≠ers for dessert.

Surely, if ever there was a year when

sheer fun was a good reason to recommend

a restaurant, this is it. The giddy, riotous

Kemuri Tatsu-ya, from a team that owns

Austin’s popular Ramen Tatsu-ya,is pure

escape. A so-called “Austin izakaya,” its

walls are covered with a surreal pastiche

of Japanese-Texan kitsch, a saloon out of

a Quentin Tarantino fever dream. That

immaculate zaniness is reflected equally in

wild shochu-based tiki drinks and in dishes

like a tamale packed with sticky rice, beef

tongue, and shiitakes and a ri≠ on Frito pie

made with creamy octopus takoyaki topped

with chili, cheese, and smoked jalapeño—a

patently stupid dish that my table ordered

a second portion of the moment it was gone.

As one of my companions said, “If you’re not

having at least a little fun in here, you’re on

the wrong Tinder date.”

Every year there’s a restaurant on my

list that beguiles and calls to me on name

alone: This year it was Young Joni, evoc-

ative of fresh faces, spring meadows, and

endless possibility. That it turned out to be

a combination of owners Ann Kim’s and

Conrad Leifur’s mothers’ names somehow

didn’t diminish its power. Twin Citians

have already long enjoyed Kim’s extraor-

dinary pizzas at Pizzeria Lola and Hello

Pizza. Young Joni, in a large industrial

space crisscrossed by communal tables

and highlighted by a huge copper-skinned

wood-burning oven, expands the o≠erings to

small plates: grilled

say, ramen, it’s a dish that leaves its cook
nowhere to hide. The result is nakedly,
unabashedly chicken-y—the beige of a mop
with bits of yellow globular fat. It is also, in
Lee’s version, utterly transporting, meaty,
moist, and beguilingly fragrant with ginger.
A mandatory side order is a soy-marinated
egg: Its yolk is a golden shooter marble the
texture of a Godiva tru±e.
Taking a step up the formality ladder, we
find ourselves at that great American inven-
tion called the diner. Everybody nostalgizes
diners; with their beautiful utility and rough,
democratic hospitality, they are the perfect
antidote to the excesses of foodie-ism. But
nobody seems to open diners. This year, the
team behind Philadelphia’s Federal Donuts
empire, which includes Israeli superstar
chef Michael Solomonov, opened some-
thing awfully faithful to the feel and func-
tion of one. Occupying a subterranean space
not far from Rittenhouse Square, Rooster
Soup Co. re-creates a perfect Nighthawks
luncheonette—from its red swivel stools to
the absurdly flu≠y coconut-cream pies sit-
ting in a case behind the Formica counter.
Open from breakfast through early-bird
dinner, it o≠ers loving re-imaginings of
East Coast Jewish-inflected diner favorites:
chicken schnitzel served with beet-and-dill
spread on homemade Martin’s Butter Bread;
a chicken potpie enlivened by hawaij, a
Yemeni spice blend; smoked-matzo-ball
soup. The soup is made with chicken parts
left over from the Korean fried chicken
they serve at Federal Donuts; the smoke
is thanks to borrowed schmaltz from the
smoked short rib down the street at one
of their other restaurants, Abe Fisher. But
creative use of casto≠s can’t account for the

Kato, in a West L.A.

strip mall, serves a wildly

affordable tasting

menu of Japanese,

Taiwanese, and

Southeast Asian dishes.

MEAT TREND

• BABY STEAK
  Lalito, New York City
  Steak has always been a maximalist ˆ
  game, a pissing contest measured
  in ounces instead of inches.
  But what if what you want is three
  and a half just right ounces
  of dry-aged strip? If this isn’t
  sweeping the nation yet,
  I pray it will soon.

BEST OF

2017

LETTER

• K
  Kemuri, Kismet, Kali, Kuneho, ˆ
  Kato, Kitsune, King,
  Kyōten Sushiko, and Killen’s STQ.
  This was the year my to-visit
  list had more K’s than a Noah
  Syndergaard scorecard.

BEST OF

2017

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