Out of respect for real Cobb Salads, I will not use a capitalized c when referencing this particular wrongdoing. Because of the number of participating vegetables and meats in a Cobb Salad, chefs have a certain amount artistic license when making adjustments. I understand this. I welcome this. I anticipate this. If it were always the same, then there would be no need -and there is a need- for this blog. This was not artistic license, this was disrespect and an affront to the words Cobb Salad and to cuisine.
I’ve stayed at the WLake Shore in Chicago four or five times now. I got in around 1PM yesterday after a much delayed flight and called room-service. What arrived to room 2810 that day was not a Cobb Salad. It was a salad whose recipe had been run through a game of Telephone with ADD afflicted eight year olds. Swiss cheese, garbanzo beans. If you’re feeling dizzy, stop reading now because it only gets worse. I’m reminded of when Ms. MacNeil says “…that thing upstairs is not my daughter!”.
Beneath the dome was an anemic assortment of lettuce, dull pink tomato, perhaps some chicken, and generic bacon (far from the pancetta proclaimed on the menu), a bit of blue cheese and the above mentioned illegal Swiss and garbanzo immigrants. It was as if someone spilled a meager handful of random ingredients onto the plate, tried to tidy it up and put a ramekin of watery Dijon vinaigrette on the side.
Mustard, no matter how rare the variety, doesn’t capture my fancy. Like Impressionism though, I appreciate its artistic value and therefore didn’t substitute the recommended dressing. It was well suited to this cobb salad because it was thin, watery and insipid. The mediocre rolls were the best part of this meal even though the butter came in cheapo bulk food service style plastic foil topped individu-serv containers.
I guess what I’m saying is that one has certain expectations from certain places. We expect iceberg lettuce with julienned carrots, purple cabbage and thousand island dressing at a roadside diner. We expect award winning (or at minimum tasty) cuisine from luxury hotels. As I write this the morning after, I am waiting almost an hour for my coffee from room service. I’ve now had to call twice. I guess they’re changing the meaning of their service motto, Whatever Whenever to mean “Whatevs… I’ll get to it Whenever”.
