The Daily Meal has released its fourth annual list of the 50 Most Powerful People in Food, and the results are a little different than you may expect. Chefs don't appear until Jose Andres at #18 -- after that it's only Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich (#26), Danny Meyer (#35), Thomas Keller (#37), Alice Waters (#39), and Tom Colicchio (#45). Journalists and writers have an even poorer showing, with New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells at #17, followed by Michael Pollan (#34), Food and Wine's Dana Cowin (#40), Mark Bittman (#42), and Bon Appetit's Adam Rapoport (#49).
So who makes up the majority of the list? Well, it's mostly CEOs.
If braised tempeh atop a bowl of rice porridge doesn't sound particularly sexy or exciting, you haven't had the version at Samovar Tea Lounge.
Part of the same slushy rice family as jook and congee, this short-grain brown rice gets boiled with a sheet of seaweed, sea salt, and Japanese sweet potatoes with lots of water for two hours to a consistency between creamy and custardy. But rice porridge on its own won't make you the envy of other diners. It's the garnishes that add the fun ($12).
Dough, sauce, cheese, and the optional meat: a recipe so simple in principle but one that has proven incredibly difficult to expertly execute. While we can't seem to go a San Francisco block without some by-the-slice joint promising a taste of the East Coast, we are all too often left with nothing but a grease-stained napkin and an unsatisfied craving to show for it.
Even more un-Google-able than "Humphry Slocombe" and sure to generate eye-rolls for being about as remote as the landlocked Southeast Asian nation from which its cuisine hails, Maneelap-Srimongkoun has come to the Excelsior.
See Also: Oakland's Champa Garden Brings Laotian Food to Ingleside
