Playing Footsie Under The Tabla: Floyd Cardoz and FreshDirect
Apprehension is a most natural response when confronted with chefs who dabble in commercial ventures. After all, such pursuits have yielded the Hell’s Kitchen video game and Paula Deen Bean Pot (for the life of me, I still can’t figure out my Guy Fieri Artificial Horse Inseminator) - although with those harlequins you almost expect it. So then, what to think when a lauded chef from the Danny Meyer empire makes microwave meals?
The chef is Floyd Cardoz of Tabla, and a while back, he - along with Terrance Brennan and Roberto Santibanez of Rosa Mexicano - partnered with FreshDirect and nutritionist (and hotshot swing dancer) Maggie Moon to create microwaveable entrees and side dishes that acted as a more gourmet alternative to the standard TV dinner and were meant to serve as a representation of that restaurant’s cuisine. It was hit or miss.
FreshDirect recently unveiled some of Cardoz’s reworked dishes, like spiced salmon with black quinoa and tomato chutney and lamb and vegetable curry, which live up to expectations better than their predecessors. The lamb curry turned out to be three half-inch thick loin medallions that cooked to a perfectly acceptable medium, laid over aggressively spiced yams in a mild curry. Salmon was medium-rare, devoid of crisp skin or skin altogether (due to the steaming) and lacking seasoning. It was greatly aided by its tomato chutney and nutty black quinoa.
You’d need the patience of a Tibetan monk and the hands of a Vatican monk to get your plate to look like that.
As the consulting nutritionist, Ms. Moon had many hurdles to overcome when helping select ingredients. None was more daunting than that scourge of the Mayor’s office, sodium. Asked to choose a favorite, she picked the shrimp, vegetable and brown rice biryani made with a creamy yet virtuous yogurt-based spinach sauce.
New too is a more streamlined container design outfitted with a single dotted line of perforations to let out steam; less clunky (and most likely more “green”) than the old valve system. As is always the problem with microwaveable fare, presentation suffers since everything is cooked in the same container. There was also a fluke container (the others cooked seamlessly) that imploded; the microwave creating a vacuum effect. While it certainly looked cool, it quickly thwarted any hopes of proper plating.
A FreshDirect change in inventory wouldn’t normally be pressing news, but the new Cardoz dishes coincide with the unveiling of Tabla’s newly streamlined menu, which incorporates much of what made the sorely-missed, value-conscious Bread Bar so popular. Case in point: a seared half-lobster for $23. And even though the scratching of backs between Cardoz and FreshDirect is palpable, the customer eventually reaps the reward of a $25 gift certificate to Tabla with the purchase of one of Tabla’s 4-Minute Meals for all orders placed through February 28th - making it possible to have multiple discounted meals (though you kind of have to already be buying groceries since there’s a $30 order minimum).
With New Yorkers as food-conscious as ever, Cardoz, Tabla and FreshDirect have done something admirable in making three-starred cuisine that much more accessible to a dining public that grows more knowledgeable by the day, and whose members are spread across a huge demographic. Just don’t bring your microwave to dinner.
