Noma Tokyo criticism is misplaced and levelled by the ignorant
Susan Jung
Last month, I ate at a restaurant that's been receiving a lot of coverage, and not just in foodie publications. Noma, the Copenhagen, Denmark, restaurant that is No1 on the list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants, was doing a six-week stint at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo.
It was called a "pop-up" but it wasn't - not in the normal sense of the word. Most pop-ups exist for just a few days, not a month and a half, and usually it's just the chef (in this case, Rene Redzepi, pictured) and a few key personnel who take up residence in their host's kitchen, leaving the rest of the team to hold the fort at home.
With so much publicity, the criticism came fast and thick. In the comments section of online reports, sanctimonious readers professed outrage about the price, saying that we diners were rich and decadent, and asking how, with all the starving people in the world, we could even consider spending so much.
That's a question that anyone could ask of people whose hobbies they do not share. I could argue that the HK$2,600 I paid wouldn't have alleviated a lot of poverty, but what's the point? I don't need to justify how I spend my money, especially since my job is to eat.
The most controversial dish was the shrimp. It was killed just before being served, which meant the muscles were still twitching, and served with wood ants, which added a citrus-like flavour. Many readers believed erroneously that, because it was moving, the shrimp was still alive. Many others were grossed out by the ants, saying that eating bugs was disgusting. Insects are consumed in many cultures - I've eaten them as street food in Korea and Thailand.