1988: Economic Currents

Drawings by Lucey Bowen, after Gourmet, 1988, photographs accompanying articles on shopping in Hong Kong (upper left) and Bangkok (lower right).

     In his 1988 review of Sushiden in New York City, Andy Birsch, who had replaced Jay Jacobs as reviewer of New York restaurants, broke Gourmet's "no negatives" rule when he referred to "the current economic unease between Japan and the United States."  (The source of this unease was the trade deficit and weak dollar.)   That rule justified the absence of negative restaurant reviews and the omission of bad news, like genocide and famine, in the magazine's early years.
      Let us focus then on good things:  Shun Lee Cafe apparently brought Asian street food to New York menus.  Great Shanghai expanded New Yorker's knowledge of the range of Chinese cooking to include the regional Soo-Hang food from Soochow and Hangchow.  Chin Chin brought Chinese food served in haut (French) style to New York.   Cafe Katsu carried that trend even further in Los Angeles, as did Joss.  Silks seems to have done the same in San Francisco.  Or at least the adjective Japanesque modifying ragout led me to believe.
     The afore-mentioned Sushiden illustrated another trend: it was the offshoot of the largest chain of sushi restaurants in Japan.  Chains might have been bad news for Japan's mom-and-pop sushi bars, but this one was good news for New Yorkers.
     Good news was also the message of Geri Trotta's "Shopping in Hong Kong." China's luxury goods, silk, porcelain, jewels, furs and antiques, were readily available.  With the advent of jet travel, American tourists could visit the emporiums themselves instead of waiting for a clipper ship to come in, as was the custom in the 19th Century.  Good news, too, for Londoners: Hong Kong, the former seat of the British Empire, the former colony was sending young chefs galore to man a slew of elegant new ethnic restaurants in London.
   
     In January of 1988, my daughter was born.   To the surprise of my colleagues, I returned to work, and the round of pig roasts and picnics followed by snowy New England Thanksgivings and Christmases and warm stays on St. John in the American Virgin Islands, continued, like Gourmet's covers.
     And then the bad news of the year: On December 21, 1988, a bomb destroyed Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people aboard the London-to-New York flight were killed.   Suddenly tarnished was our golden age of jet travel.


The currents of change have washed over the restaurants reviewed in 1988's Gourmet:

New York:
Sushiden  at 19 East 49th Street is still Sushiden.
Great Shanghai at 27 Division Steet is now Jing Star.
Samraat at 175 Madison Avenue is USA Dental.
Shun Lee and Shun Lee Cafe at 43 West 65th Street are stull there.
Anatolia at 1422 Third Avenue is now Brasserie Julien.
Chin Chin at 216 East 49th Street is still Chin Chin.

San Francisco:
Silks at the Mandarin Oriental is still Silks.
Plearn at 2050 University Avenue, Berkeley is now Plearn at 1923 University.

Los Angeles:
Joss at 9255 Sunset Boulevard, just beyond Doheny, is closed.
Matsuhisa at 129 North La Cienega Boulevard is still Matsuhisa
Cafe Katsu at 2117 Sawtelle Boulevard is now Restaurant 2117, organic and        
natural Euro-Asian cuisine.