Herr Jakob, Muellerstrasse, Zurich
Oct
2015
Cous-Cous salat
Tiger frisst Schwein
Süsskartoffel frites
Rechnung
What will make your favourite food critic happy ? A nice restaurant with good food. Herr Jakob” raises an eyebrow at first, but then drives home one of our key arguments. They feature some vegan dishes not because they’re vegan, but because they’re good food. They prioritize a culinary ethos over any ideology, which is the only way to approach dining on an intellectual and ventral level.
It’s another casual dining setup, which are becoming more and more popular in the Kreis 4. Our first dish was a Cous-Cous salad with vegetable tempura. The salad had great flavor and was seasoned by a pro! One could tell the great amount of care that went into the tempura. Fresh, tasty and crunchy vegetables covered in a very light batter – there are even Japanese restaurants who don’t have tempura this good!
The Bao Burger was very nice as well – of course the inevitable pulled pork with all kinds of addons. The slaw and herbs gave it the spice and acid it needed to make it a good dish. Only the Bao part was slighlty debatable – on a proper brioche bun this might have worked even a bit better. The sweet potato fries were okay and are served with your choosing of sauces. Beware that even if your accustomed to spicy thai food, the chili sauce is a challenge…
Long story short – we liked the place. The food is actually really good and prepared with care. Looking forward to going back.
19/10/2015 at 12:20
“They prioritize a culinary ethos over any ideology, which is the only way to approach dining on an intellectual and ventral level” would that mean that the noma which puts obviously his nordic mad ideology over a culinary ethos (whatever this means) is still “the simply the pinnacle” even if it is in your view on the wrong path?
19/10/2015 at 12:47
Depends on what type of gourmet you are – a terroir versus an international one. I see the going regional – even in the Noma extreme – less as an ideology than going vegan is.
19/10/2015 at 16:58
So even with a manifesto and calling themselves a movement you thin ny nordisk mad is not an ideology? interesting. So the ones replace lemons with ants and the other replace meat with chickpeas both for more or less the same ecological reasons. So basically you just do not like vegans. Because with the same approach (and it has been done) you can run a restaurant as good as noma just with the vegan restriction.
22/10/2015 at 15:54
Noma is strictly regional, essentially using everything as long as it’s within a certain area. Vegan consciously excludes readily available items from their menus. The motivation is different, Noma is celebrating a rather puristic form of their heritage, vegans make their choice based on other reasons. People working at Noma do so at the restaurant, but most will not eat strictly scandinavian cuisine outside of their workspace. Lastingly reducing your culinary options doesn’t make sense. You’re limiting your options for reasons you believe to be true and that sounds very much like an ideology.