Super Peach is the newest David Chang Restaurant that has been barely open a Month. Is it worth it?

It’s not gay to take a picture of yourself in front of Super Peach.

Now that I’m a published food journalist, I must make it clear from an ethical standpoint that I have a history with DC. He doesn’t know who I am, but he yelled at me for breaking a water carafe near an ice machine one time. Even though I’m totally over it and not still bitter at all, there is no way this review can be as objective as someone writing this who was not yelled at. Then again, no review can be completely objective.

I make sure to take a picture of the column near where we park, only for Diego to move to a parking spot closer to the escalator. He feeds me a tomato that is in his trunk for some reason before we ascend into what may as well be Elysium starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. “How did you hear about us?” one of the hosts asks us after we enter Super Peach and make it clear we want to be put on the wait list. We make sure to let the hosts know I worked at Majordōmo and that Diego is a James Beard-nominated chef, but, while they oblige us with oohs and ahhs, they still tell us it will be at least an hour for a table. I do appreciate this. We go to the Container Store, the Lego Store, and Eataly as one does, and when we walk back in after an hour and we are able to get a booth with only Diego’s slightest bit of cajoling. I take in the navy popcorn ceiling and retro-futuristic aesthetic. You are in Los Angels, but you could be anywhere. Perhaps in the long term, that’s the idea.

What if this was full-blown Barbarella though fr?

You can’t be a chef unless you’re on your phone all the time amirite?

The restaurant seems dark at first, but the booths have bright, soft lights directly above them. That makes it very easy to read the menu and take pictures, but I still do a double take: it seems like the menu is mostly made up of drinks. “Our food menu is streamlined,” our server clarifies. We order the Glazed Pork Belly, the Really Spicy Bluefin Tuna off the Kimbap section, the SP Chicken Salad, the Slow Roasted Baby Back Ribs which come with coleslaw, and the Baked and Glazed Sweet Potato as another side. Diego orders a lemonade and I order a The Last Word which is under the “Classic Cocktails” section. The Last Word is one of those “cool cocktails” that Your Favorite Bartender’s Favorite Bartender would say is their favorite. The last one I had was in Austin with a friend I was fucking at the time. This one tastes like Musso’s gin gimlet, perhaps also made with Rose’s brand product (I would have thought it was their lime juice if I didn’t read the menu). Perhaps this is what all The Last Words taste like, essentially it is just a modified gimlet after all. But I didn’t realize that until now, and, while it is appropriately smooth and tart, it is also deeply not what I want.

Amirite? (landscape edition)

Two complimentary, carefully-selected rice crackers served with lime and Tajîn double as a cheap and diet-friendly answer to bread and butter as well as an homage to chicharrón. It’s always nice to snack on something before food arrives, the first of which in our case is the salad. It’s a mix of cabbage and chicken topped with thin little crispies of some sort, obviously a take on a Chinese Chicken Salad, probably invented in Los Angeles not by Wolfgang Puck but by Sylvia Wu of Madame Wu’s. The shredded chicken is unexpectedly moist because most shredded chicken simply is not. The salad’s classic ginger-tinged dressing and few ingredients allow it to be confident in what it is, and fresh mint adds a tad of mystery. “My mom could eat this without the crispies,” I think, and it might be the most flavorful salad she’s had in a long time.

Sweetgreen could never truly honestly.

The pork belly arrives in one long strip, a thick piece of bacon a la Peter Luger. Thanks to DC, we know what brown sugar and salt and nothing else can do to pork belly, and Diego moans at its first blast of flavor. Then the Super Spicy Bluefin Tuna arrives. It too is exactly as simple as your first supermarket sushi experience, with the advantage of so much better fish – I imagine one of the most unique meals in Los Angeles right now could be a dinner at Super Peach composed of only its Kimbap offerings. But it did not deliver on its promise of being Super Spicy. A spicy tuna roll from Whole Foods is simply spicier than this Super Spicy Bluefin Tuna situation. Maybe this is a kitchen mistake, but something tells me it is not. My The Last Word is finished and I do in fact deserve to get something else. The manager comes by and she has excellent energy. The Duke’s Style Martini is not only listed in the cocktail section but also in the appetizer section. As a basic beezy, this is in fact what I wanted all along.

Get in my belly? More like you are belly. Pork belly. Yum yum.

There were an even number of pieces which is very much appreciated.

The ribs and the potato come out as I wait for it to arrive. They are sticky and sweet as ribs are wont to be, a touch on the sweeter side. The meat falls off the bone not from the cooking process alone but also from being stored in a hotel pan wrapped with plastic wrap and held in a Cambro. The coleslaw that comes with it lacks acid and salt, perhaps in a nostalgic sort of way, perhaps not. The purple sweet potato is somehow topped with something that alludes to the Smoke House’s cheesy bread but it itself is quite purposefully al dente. I take bite after bite, trying to decide how I feel about it, when my martini arrives. It’s made with two kinds of gin and a twist and arrives in the same coup as The Last Word does. I sip.

Wants to be Wood Ranch so bad.

I do prefer my sweet potato to be just a touch softer but I respect the al dente decision.

Doesn’t look like much but…

Suddenly, I’m transported back to my first boy trip to Vegas – we were on shrooms and smoked cigarettes in the lounge at Caesar’s, Ian ordered us martinis like his dad did growing up and they were each $24 not adjusted for inflation. Those martinis were not well-balanced, unlike this martini, which is purposefully vermouth-free and a bit too boozy. It’s not eveyone’s idea of what a martini should be, but it is utterly drinkable and demands a slow pace – to savor. In this box of a restaurant in a shiny rectangle of a building that is designed to appeal to all walks of life with cash to burn, it is a martini with a point of view. It is a martini that has something to say.

What the martini is saying to me right now is, “I’m giving you exactly what you didn’t know you wanted, and you’re going to come back here just for me.” But one does not simply walk into Super Peach. For one, it most certainly requires a reservation – at least right now. Unlike the Cheesecake Factory designed with ample bar space for walk-ins, Super Peach’s bar is smaller with a more exclusive feel. For two, while it may not actually be that much more expensive than the Cheesecake Factory, it certainly feels more expensive. It’s a place to go where you want to impress even though you are still at the mall. For three, its base-ass menu is ostensibly designed for mass appeal, but every dish is a reference to something else – references that only well-versed food snobs like me would get. Granted, it really loves these references. In true Momofuku fashion, it wants to educate. But as the not-spicy “Super Spicy” kimbap attests, I wonder if it is meeting people at where it thinks they’re at rather than giving them the choice to reach its level.

Steakhouses and chains are really hot right now, but a smart chef’s version of a “dumb restaurant” can never be as dumb as what he’s borrowing from. The martini works not because it’s a chefy take from a drink at a corndog restaurant, but because it’s an expertly-crafted drink inspired by an immovable vision. It’s OK to be a chef. Embrace that. Or don’t. But you can’t be both. Let mid things be mid. Otherwise, you risk being mid yourself.

Our server doesn’t ask us if we want dessert – indeed, we are too full. The spit-flap display advertises “Momofuku Classics” from 3 pm - 6 pm, and all of a sudden you’re craving pork buns. I wonder what the “Midwest Mom” would think of Super Peach if she happened to stumble up on it with her family. Would she find it to be generous? Or is she actually just going to Bubba Gump at the pier?

Either way, I expect to be back.

As soon as Diego can remember where we parked…

TIL this thing is called a spit-flap.

We did eventually find our car but not before reaching the other side of the parking garage first.