Dish it up

By CHRIS SHERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 11, 2001

BayWalk's Dish takes stir-frying beyond the wok with sauces such as Thai mushroom, alfredo, marinara and barbecue. You pick the ingredients and someone else does the cooking.

ST. PETERSBURG -- While an old-fashioned deli of the old country (and the old century) holds down one corner of BayWalk, a bizarre portal to an alien future is diametrically across the plaza.

It's called Dish, but it might as well be a flying saucer. This contemporary restaurant is wildly out of place in downtown St. Petersburg. The room is so full of bright colors, sweeping angles and clever features it will transport you if not into the future, at least into the present.

[Times photo: Toni L. Sandys] A chef adds another dinner to the grill at Dish, where customers pick meat, seafood, vegetables and sauces and have their dinners cooked on a giant iron grill.

The first Dish landed in Centro Ybor three months ago with a swirling burst of color and shape, a collusion of Kandinsky and Gaudi, yet in keeping with Ybor's strobelight club days. The second, in St. Petersburg, is more mature and graceful, but more dramatic in the Pinellas context. It's our largest contemporary space so far, filled with rich woods, bright tile and sweeping curves, furnished with hanging George Nelson lamps, stained glass and midcentury chairs in natural and jewel tones.

Look closely at the pattern of the polished wooden rafters overhead and at the bar and you'll realize it is designed to echo the schematics of a wooden sailing ship as sleek as anything in the marina a few blocks away.

Culinarily, however, Dish steers uncertainly between the all-you-can-eat buffets of the past and a future of freshness and diverse flavors. Because of its you-pick/we-cook format, a meal at Dish will either put you at the helm or leave you feeling rudderless. But then that's the point of the limitless choices.

You fill a large cereal bowl with pickings from an iced-down bar of a dozen meats and fish and a broader selection of vegetables and pasta, and then fill a smaller bowl with a sauce, maybe pesto, maybe habanero hot. If you want chicken, catfish and beef with rotini pasta, baby corn, olives and bean sprouts, jalapenos and broccoli in alfredo sauce, it's your dinner. Whatever the ingredients, they are cooked the same way: stir-fried on a 9-foot hot metal grill.

[Times photo: Toni L. Sandys] A customer shows off his meal at Dish, a new restaurant in the BayWalk entertainment complex in downtown St. Petersburg and Tampa’s Centro Ybor.

This format arrived in the United States more than 25 years ago from Taiwan under the name Mongolian barbecue and was a favorite of older bargain seekers. Dish belongs to a new generation of buffets that has upmarketed the concept, broadened the menu and sauces beyond Asia and given it a hip look. Most important, Dish's owners peg it as interactive, to appeal to Gen MP3, which grew up surfing limitless cable channels and the Internet. Make your own Dish and it can be bland, peppery, vegetarian, a protein pigout that would choke Dr. Atkins, or just because it's Thursday, only foods that are . . . pink.

Who needs a chef?

On the flip side, you'll hate the format if you go to a restaurant in order to leave the cooking and service to pros, if you expect the restaurant staff to think up harmonious combinations, cook them carefully, and carry them to your table or if you don't like standing in lines or hanging around the stove watching your food cook.

Which may be the same as saying, if you're older than 30.

At first I counted myself among those nay-sayers. I figured Dish would be an especially hard sell in Pinellas at this price point and that most diners who pay $15 for dinner want the kitchen to think up, cook and serve the food. Doing it yourself is a big hassle for folks with small children or other impedimentia.

After visits with friends older than 30 -- and way under -- I've warmed a bit to the appeal. So has a surprisingly large crowd that finds a big eater's smorgasbord, with fresh ingredients, a way cool setting and a large helping of fun can make a lusty meal and a fair deal for less than $20. (Must be a new millennium, if double-sawbuck dinners are casual fare in St. Petersburg.) For a girls' (or guys') night out, office birthdays or informal family celebrations, it works. Even on a weeknight in the chill of winter, the counter around the grill was lined with two dozen diners keeping three grill cooks busy. Dish founder John Schall said that the St. Petersburg Dish has drawn bigger crowds almost every night than the Ybor location, which is 60 seats smaller and feels more crowded.

For me, Dish comes with caveats. A big one is you're paying for a hip place and raw food, not creativity. That's your part, and it helps if you have some sense about cooking or at least eating. While the sea's limitless horizons are alluring, seasoned sailors like to have charts, headings or at least a destination.

In lieu of "recipe cards" or suggestions from the restaurant, take your first clues from the starch on the table: rice and tortillas point you toward Asian (stir fry or curry) or Mexican (fajitas). Or look at the sauces; they led to relatively successful Italian (shrimp and calamari marinara) and All-American barbecue (beef, pork, beans and peppers) combinations.

When assembling ingredients, keep it simple. It's hard to do and you should go for another helping to get it right. You'll find out mandarin oranges and calamari just don't work together.

Ingredients aren't high-end gourmet stuff, tomatoes are the usual, shrimp are soggy and beef is tough but it's better and more generous than in the old Mongolian barbecues. Selection is uneven: there should always be portobello mushrooms and garlic, and carrot rounds work only if they have a waffle cut.

The single best sauce I found was a thick, woodsy Thai mushroom, great on beef and vegetables. Best ingredient was the calamari, try it with marinara or alfredo. Worst fish on the bar is codfish, which disintegrates. Worst vegetables: green beans. Tough choice: Precooked pasta can scorch on the grill. Toughest demand: If you want meat rare and/or fish not overcooked, alert the cook early and often. (They've got a hot, hard job and generally do it with good cheer.) Have a plan, use restraint and you'll eat heartily -- several times.

Trimmings are minimal. Only chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert, a paltry wine list and no espresso. Now I wouldn't pair fine wines with stir-fried whatever, but Dish would be wise to stock up on more sophisticated modern essentials: bread, wine, coffee, etc.

I'd re-examine two aspects of the format, too. First I'd add some set combinations for diners who don't want to play the full game. More important, spruce up the ingredient bar and cooking area: This is difficult with a herd of trencherfolk, but encrusted sauce pots, spilled vegetables and the blackened cooking area distract from the stunning appearance of the dining room.

Indeed, what most disappoints about Dish is that it has brought us all the eye-candy of a smart 21st century restaurant but not the talented kitchen to create the food to go with it.

On the plus side, if you don't like the taste you can't blame the chef.

Dish

• BayWalk, Second Avenue at Second Street N, St. Petersburg, (727) 894-5700; Centro Ybor, 1600 E Seventh Ave., Ybor City, (813) 241-8300; Hours: 11:30 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11:30 to midnight, Friday, Saturday
• Credit cards: AE, D, DC, MC, V
• Details: Full bar; smoking at bar only; wheelchair access
• Prices: lunch, $7.50 to $11.50; dinner $14.75

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