Trading on Tao

    I have to respond to the splashy front page article in today's NYT that reports on - or should I say fawns over - the hip Las Vegas party restaurant, Tao.  It's all about style and money and celebrity and money and social posing and, of course, money:

This is Tao Las Vegas, the highest grossing independent restaurant in the United States, according to Restaurants & Institutions magazine, which for 24 years has been ranking the top 100. In 2006, its first full year open, Tao did $55.2 million in business, or $16 million more than its closest competitor, Tavern on the Green in New York.

 It is a bit painful to see the word "philosophy" used in reference to "Tao" in this way:

The philosophy at Tao Las Vegas is at once high concept — multiple opportunities for eating and drinking under one roof — and blue collar. Much like a factory, Tao wants to squeeze revenue from every square foot of its plant as close to 24 hours a day, seven days a week as possible.

 "Blue collar"? I don't think so.  Just hell bent on pulling in as much money as possible from the crowds of shallow celebrities, and celebrity seekers, that throng to Las Vegas chasing dreams they will never attain.

      Don't get me wrong.  I am not a moralizing prude.   I like a gin and tonic as much as the next guy, but the orientalist exoticism of this marketing strategy is depressing.  Notice how the walls are lined with Asian faces to lend an air of Eastern "spiritualism" and "wisdom":

 

        All very mystical.

      But all very un-Taoist.  It hardly needs to be said that using the image of Tao to sell drinks and food at exorbitantly high prices in the epicenter of ersatz culture (they even have a fake New York!) is not what Tao is about:

The five colors make man's eyes blind;
The five notes make his ears deaf;
The five tastes injure his palate;
Riding and hunting
Make his mind go wild with excitement;
Goods hard to come by
Serve to hinder his progress.

Hence the sage is
For the belly
Not for the eye.

Therefore he discards the one and takes the other.

Tao Te Ching, passage 12, Lau translation

     The distinction between belly and eye here relates to those things that are essential and grounded (belly) versus those that are flashy and unnecessary (eye).  As is obvious from the first stanza, gluttony takes us away from Tao.

Comments

[Angela]

Thank you for this wise commentary; also for your wonderful site.

[Dave Martin]

My first introduction to Chinese culture was a bright red post-World War II cookbook that must have spent as much time explaining how to organize and enjoy a dinner as it did on how to prepare it. After a bit of searching, I'm pretty sure it was
"Chow! Secrets of Chinese Cooking 75 Selected Recipes with Notes on Table Etiquette" by Dolly Chow (Mrs. C.T. Wang). I was left with a feeling humble food could make for a fine dinner if the people at the table make it so.