AILSA CHANG, HOST:
When a restaurant is an institution, when it does more than simply feed people, it sustains an entire community. Former Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema set out to get a taste of America for the country's 250th birthday. He dined at six of the country's oldest restaurants, setting out over nine months to eat more than a dozen meals coast to coast. And he joins us now to talk all about that eating extravaganza. Welcome, Tom.
TOM SIETSEMA: Thank you for having me. Good to be here.
CHANG: Oh, thanks for being with us. So among these six, very old restaurants, did you have a favorite?
SIETSEMA: You know, it's hard to ask a critic about favorites, but I think...
CHANG: (Laughter) Really?
SIETSEMA: ...I had the most fun at Galatoire's. Friday lunch is really special there. I refer to it as the happiest place on Earth, adult division. It is boozy and musical, and everyone dresses up. And you have these old, old waiters cracking jokes.
CHANG: Yeah.
SIETSEMA: Regulars know not even to look at the menu. You know, you just trust your waiter to tell you what looks good that day.
CHANG: Oh, I love it when that happens.
SIETSEMA: Yeah, it's great. And, you know, they famously don't have any art on the walls, and they don't have any music in the background. One of the managing principals told me that, you know, the people are the music, and that is definitely the case there.
CHANG: OK, well, you have dined at beautiful restaurants all around the world. Would you say that the food at these six of some of the oldest restaurants in the country, that that food was on par with some of the best restaurants you've been at? Was the food any good?
SIETSEMA: The food was good. I didn't want to write about a place that had a great story and awful food.
CHANG: (Laughter) Well...
SIETSEMA: That was part of this, right?
CHANG: ...I was going to ask you about...
SIETSEMA: And I think I know which...
CHANG: ...The Chinese restaurant in Butte, Montana...
SIETSEMA: Yeah.
CHANG: ...'Cause it's gotten epically poor reviews, hasn't it?
SIETSEMA: Well, there was a Yelp incident. The owner brought this up in the course of my interviewing him, Jerry Tam - lovely guy, fifth generation family member to own the restaurant. And he says, look, it's about this story here. It's a story of survival. It's a story about family. And my food is - sure, it's brown or beige, and it's served in big portions. They don't cook with any recipes there. My favorite dish, actually, was a former off-the-menu dish that his father used to serve to regulars, and it was this boiled chicken wrapped in foil with hoisin, oyster sauce and peppers and all these things. It was absolutely delicious. I love that. And I think you can love restaurants for other than food.
CHANG: Yes.
SIETSEMA: And people go to restaurants for other than the cooking.
CHANG: For sure. I would still be curious to go to the Pekin Noodle Parlor in Butte, Montana, for the story, the history, because it's a beautiful story.
SIETSEMA: You would love it. Yeah.
CHANG: And now I will order the chicken wrapped in foil.
SIETSEMA: Chicken wrapped in foil, among other things - there are a few other things, too, that I enjoyed, but that one stands out because it has a good story behind it, too. No one used to get it unless you were a VIP or a friend of the family's.
CHANG: So other than all of these restaurants being longtime institutions, what did you find that these restaurants had in common? Like, was there some sort of secret sauce, literally or figuratively, that seemed to help keep these very old restaurants open for - what? - in most of these cases, more than a century, right?
SIETSEMA: Yeah, I set out to answer that question. And the common thread among these six restaurants, you have mostly steady stewardship. You have longtime employees. The pasta maker at Old Ebbitt Grill - the chief pasta maker - has been there since 1983.
CHANG: Wow.
SIETSEMA: Right?
CHANG: That's so cool.
SIETSEMA: I think most of these restaurants have an iconic dish or two or three. I think the cooking is true to the mission. And I also think hospitality factors into it, too, right? There's nothing quite like those rat-a-tat waiters at Tadich Grill. There's an art to these places.
CHANG: So I'm curious how many of these places made big changes over the years and how many of them just kind of kept doing their own thing.
SIETSEMA: Well, you know what? The secret to this - and almost to a point, every owner or chef told me this - you have to make certain changes. Like, at Galatoire's, for years, they didn't take credit cards.
CHANG: (Laughter).
SIETSEMA: The waiters made their drinks and chipped ice for the drinks. But I love the fact that El Charro, for instance, they still dry their famous beef on the roof.
CHANG: Oh, I love that.
SIETSEMA: And there are two men who do this, a father and son who do this, right? And I think they can grandfather in some of these things. You can't just throw beef on the roof and air dry it, you know, in most restaurants. But they are able to.
CHANG: You mean because of the health department (laughter)?
SIETSEMA: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's netting and screens and things involved. But I love the fact that they are still able to do some of these older things. And here's something else. It's interesting - there are no cabbage or potatoes served on the menu at old Pekin Parlor, in part because back when they opened, the Irish merchants at the time refused to sell to the Chinese...
CHANG: Oh, how...
SIETSEMA: ...The Chinese immigrants.
CHANG: So they institutionalized that racism (laughter).
SIETSEMA: Exactly. And it goes way, way back. To this day, they don't have cabbage or potatoes in any of their dishes on the menu.
CHANG: What America tasted like more than 100 years ago. There's a whole tour that Tom Sietsema lays out. Former Washington Post food critic, Tom Sietsema, thank you so much. I so enjoyed this.
SIETSEMA: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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