Alana's, Columbus

Alana's: I owe the discovery of this gem to Amy. I had not heard too much about this place, but I knew I was going to like it when I saw one of the menu options, a mere $25.99, being "excessive whining." I like when restaurateurs have a sense of humor. The poor waiter we had seemed quite the opposite: a little nervous and a little morose, but he did good by the end.

Alana's boasts having an organic menu and one can actually taste the food. This was yet another meal that I forget what I ate specifically--I know that I had some kind of lamb appetizer and a whitefish for my entree, but what was really nice about Alana's was that it allowed me to reacquaint myself with my love of and for creme brulee. I ordered the bananas foster creme brulee which was every bit as good as it sounds, except that they could perhaps go a little easy on the dried banana garnish.A few years ago, my friend Dale had suggested I keep a creme brulee diary and make a note of all the types of creme brulee I tried. I can't remember the where and whens of all this, but even randomnly, I can recall a cardamom creme brulee at Sara's (a fusion Indian place) in New Orleans, two mini creme brulees--earl grey and green tea--served with chai biscotti in South Deerfield, Mass., Tahitian vanilla creme brulee at Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Mass. I know I've had chocolate creme brulee, various classic versions of c.b., and I've had creme brulee cheesecake (in Granville, I think!). I also had a really bad version of a Thai creme brulee at a restaurant in NYC: it was a downer of an end to an otherwise SPECTACULAR meal.

All this made me think again about why is creme brulee the seemingly malleable dessert, the item that can somehow lend classiness to otherwise banal food? In some ways, it kind of annoys me because creme brulee is nothing more than fatty creamy goodness with burnt sugar. As always, I return to Bourdieu and his notion about cultural capital. I know I've written about this someplace else, but creme brulee is one of those things that has a great deal of cultural capital--and so is thus almost expected in menus of fusion places where Asianness becomes 'elevated' through its interactions with Frenchness (embodied in the creme brulee)

But yet again, my ramblings have nothing to do with Alana's--but I had a good meal, perhaps everything was a little too rare for my South Asian palate, but with a good banana dessert to end my meal with one of my favoritest peoples, Amy: this girl will find herself back at Alana's for more, I'm sure..