Never really cared to follow food trends, as I am a food traditionalist and prefer things the old, boring way. When going for fusion and other modernist or fad food pitches (including “reinventions/reintroductions” of “the traditional”), it has typically been upon the insistence of others; and I’ve generally not been impressed by all the fancy food and menu description games or pomp and circumstance that seem designed to get people to pay up more and/or to drive forward the celebrity chef/restaurant game but leave me no more wanting to return to such “look at me” restaurants than to the street-side meat grillers in polluted, poorer corners of the world.

That said, the world is a more interesting place nowadays than it used to be when it comes to eating. And more options nowadays — even if gravitating toward the same kind of stuff and ways — is better than the relative desert of yesteryears.