Has Fusion Restaurant Taken a Backlash by the Purist Chefs?

Today is my second day as a professional blogger and I made $.47 so far. Yes, you heard right. 47 cents. But am not giving up hope. I don't expect to quit school to do this endeavor but I am hoping it will support me while I am in it. Well, with $.47, I can maybe get one copy from a copy center. Great.

Today my topic is about fusion restaurant. Fusion restaurant is a modern culinary concept that has taken many chefs hostage. Fusion is mixing and matching two maybe even three different ethnic cuisine and blending the spices together to form one fabulous meal for your gastronomic pleasure. I googled the word, Asian Fusion Restaurant, and came up with 1.5 million hits. Browsing through the titles, I see there's some in New York, SF, Washington DC and so forth which is to be expected. Then I see some in places like Texas, and Ottawa. I even saw one in Sydney, Australia and Cornwall, UK. (Do I even know where that is?) I guess this is a global phenomenon. So what started this trend? According to Wikipedia, the culinary fusion was started since the 1970's and quotes.

This type of restaurant's success depends on a number of factors. Among these are:

* Clientele's (or prospective clientele's) cultural diversity
* Clientele's travel patterns and experiences.
* Clientele's culinary sophistication and openness to new eating experiences.

These factors have made this type of cuisine accepted and popular in places like California and in large metropolitan areas. California Chef Wolfgang Puck is known as one of the pioneers of fusion cuisine. However, his restaurant Chinois was named after the term attributed to Richard Wing, who in the 1960s combined French and Chinese cooking at the former Imperial Dynasty restaurant in Hanford, California.

One of my favorite fusion restaurant is Asia de Cuba which is part of the world famous Morgans Hotel. (They have the most delicious Champagne Sangria ever!) There's a marble banquette (pictured above) where Manhattanites would be forced to sit cramped together in a city where personal space ismore sacred than anything in the world. It was obvious that fusion cooking had reached its pinnacle. But there might be an excess of it. Every new opening of a restaurant now a days is fusion and some fusions makes me twitch my nose. Is Indian and French do able?

And there has been some backlash by a faction of traditional and purist Chefs. I think my best friend is among them. He sniffed to me once, Fusion is so overplayed. It should be dead I am not sure if fusion should be dead. America is one melting pot and I think fusion cooking is a reflection of that. And we could hardly believe that we are the creators of fusion cooking. It surely had to start with global imperialism. (Did anyone ever have the Vietnamese BBQ Pork Sandwich?) But could we please edit ourselves with this whole fusion thing? No, we don't need another Japanese-French sushi restaurant. We have millions already. (as attested by Google) Sometimes what we need a simple concoction of bland flavors which the Brits are well known for.. Black Pudding and Sushi, anyone?