Delicious Gimmicks
in defense of table side sideshows
Social media is saturated with trends, especially in food. There’s mukbang, conspicuous consumption and what I’ve started calling “rage recipes.” The concept is to make a cooking video that’s sole purpose is to enrage viewers, like pouring soda in pies or whateverthefuck this recipe is.
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It increases engagement, people rage comment and hate-share “you see this shit?!” to their friends and it gets millions of views. However there’s one food trend that has emerged in food videos that most people hate but I’m here to defend- table side performances.
Probably the most notorious for this kinda content is Salt Bae, where he dons a cool guy persona who doesn’t care if it’s night, his sunglasses STAY TF ON while he casually weilds a knife around. If you order specific menu items, Salt Bae will grace your table by sloppily cutting meat and banging a steak knife around the table before bouncing salt off his elbow. Seems like a health code violation.
Love him or hate him, the dude has suckers lining up around the block to pay unreasonable prices for mediocre meals just so they can get their own video of the table side performance. The rest of us get to see this nonsense for free. What a time to be alive!
As a kid, my favorite restaurant was this Tex-Mex place in our neighborhood called Marco’s. The food was decent, the staff was always friendly and our parents could afford it, so we ate there ALOT. Marco’s had two things I relished every time we went.
Immediately upon entering the lobby, just past the front desk, was a brick room that would have 2-3 women pressing fresh tortillas. The window was just at eye-level for kids but everyone loved to watch the process. Sometimes, if there wasn’t a crowd, one of the tortilleras would open the door and sneak you a freshly made, warm tortilla.
My second favorite thing was when another table would order the fajita platter. The fucking fanfare and commotion that came from the kitchen while that was being hoisted across the restaurant, impossible ignore. Those fajitas sold themselves on showcase alone. Of course this wasn’t unique to Marco’s but I always loved to watch it.
On weekends a mariachi band would walk the dining room playing for free/tips. Ten-year old me fell in love with mariachi classics, like Malagueña Salerosa, where the lead singer has to hit some impossibly high notes. Marco’s wasn’t just a neighborhood taqueria, it was a dining experience. I fucking loved it as a kid and as an adult I still avidly support tableside novelties.
Guacamole prepared tableside? Hell yeah. Bartender sprinkling cinnamon to set my drink on fire? Let’s fucking go. Shooting sake with the sushi chef? Kanpai! A sun-glassed man with suspect facial hair is coming to our table to slap the food around? I.AM.DOWN.
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It’s easy to roll our eyes and scoff when these videos come across our feed. It’s gimmicky but that’s kinda the fucking point, right? Isn’t that why we’re dining out? Isn’t that why we get a little dressed up, hunt for parking and order some food we probably wouldn’t ever cook at home? Whether it’s food trucks to fine dining, I fucking love a gimmick.
So the next time you’re microwaving dinner just to shovel it into your mouth over the sink, maybe you’ll appreciate the flare that restaurants offer alongside your meal. Hell you’re paying for it, might as well enjoy it.
Thanks for joining us here in The Broiler Room. Tomorrow Michelle will have a Winter Lemon Loaf recipe for our Sunday subscribers.
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Hahahaha - well, I used to work at the place whose sole reason for existence was table sideshows - Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor. (I know, most of y'all weren't even born yet during its heyday in the late 70s/early 80s.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_U-924q9QM My eventual job was to actually train people to do some of the stuff you see in the video. Remember the Zoo? A giant metal bowl in which an enormous complicated ice cream creation was made was then dropped into a hole in a custom-made stretcher, that went on the shoulders of 2 employees who proceeded to RUN it all around the restaurant (sometimes switching it from one to the other without moving themselves, flipping it - yep, that occasionally resulted in a really big mess on the floor - sometimes it would even get run around the parking lot and/or out in the mall!) to loud announcements, sirens, drums, tambourines, and more. THAT was a sideshow - and there was a LOT more! I'll just sit here and reminisce, chuckling to myself...(and try NOT to remember the uber-unhealthy food).
I would love to join the close friends group on IG! my handle is @brie.loves.life
Thanks for everything!