It feels as though Park perhaps took his training wheels off a little too early. Eleven Madison Park and the Spotted Pig are impressive places to have on your résumé, but it's hard to think of any profession in which a nine-month training program and two internships prepare someone to be CEO. Park's cooking lacks nuance and technique.
There is simply no way to underestimate the value of working your way up in a kitchen, starting on salads, spending night after night at the sauté station, making damn sure the skin on that fish is crisp and the fat on that duck is rendered.
PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN
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On something as simple as Black Hogg's cast-iron chicken, the chicken is cooked too hard and too fast, the skin singed on the outside and still flabby and white on the underside, the meat a little too dry, the pan drippings a little too watery.
Octopus on the "grilled octopus chana masala" is tough and rubbery, the chickpeas and potatoes so aggressively spiced and salted that no clean flavors shine through.
For dessert, a dulce de leche pot de crème is thick as tack — there's no crème to this crème. It makes what should be a generous, silken dessert stiff and unfriendly.
There are some fantastic Silver Lake moments to be had at Black Hogg: One night, the very loud music playing in the restaurant prompted a Warren G "Regulate" sing-along, featuring half the clientele and at least one waiter.
And many people genuinely like Park's cooking, even the dishes that I found hard to swallow. "I love the popcorn bacon!" a friend told me, even after I warned her against it. Just read the Yelp reviews and you'll see that most of the neighborhood is in agreement with her.
But I do think that, even if salt and fat and overkill are the artistic media Park feels drawn to, his basic skills need developing.
It's an odd thing, that title of "chef." It can mean so many things. Culinary schools are actively engaged in making prospective students believe that a relatively small time commitment and thousands of dollars will earn them the title. I know cooks who have been running kitchens for more than a decade who have yet to earn it.
Eric Park understands the food of the moment enough to know where and how people will eat it, but I'm afraid he still has many hours to log in the kitchen — preferably under a benevolent, experienced mentor — before he's likely to understand how to make his food truly shine.
BLACK HOGG | One star | 2852 W. Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake | (323) 953-2820 | Tues.-Sat., 6-11 p.m. | Reservations not accepted | Beer and wine served | Street parking
See more of Anne Fishbein's photos of Black Hogg.
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