Hey, there! Log in / Register
Area celebrichef apologizes, more or less, for roofie cracks
By adamg on Thu, 03/16/2023 - 9:41am
WBUR reports that Ming Tsai has apologized for asking fellow chef Irene Li if she had "roofied" him - and then joked that he put a date-rape drug in her drink - in a discussion about whether the Boston restaurant industry will face a "Me Too" moment.
Last year, Boston Police and the Boston Licensing Board warned about spiked drinks after a series of incidents at local bars.
Topics:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Ming
Grow up
Hard to believe a person with this much TV
experience has never had any media training, but that's what it looks like from this awful, cringe-inducing interview. It's like he slept through the last few years of industry outrage against criminally abusive male assholes like Mario Batali and his ilk. But it's hard to imagine anyone laughing at this type of "humor", especially with a woman interviewing you, regardless of what business you work in. Ugh, repugnant and tone-deaf, but mostly just repugnant.
get over it
Ming is a decent guy who was way ahead of the curve in creating a real Boston restaurant scene. His comments are admittedly tone deaf in the current environment, but most people I know would see that it was simply an off the cuff politically incorrect attempt at humor. The point ignored here is that he is speaking to a woman as a peer, rather than staring at her breasts.
Yes
As a professional woman, I always appreciate it when men look into my eyes as they make rape jokes. We've come a long way baby!
/s
(Seriously, maybe try to listen to the experiences of actual women in the workforce, particularly in the restaurant industry.)
I doubt it.
I doubt a man who makes casual rape jokes is actually that far ahead of the curve in creating a positive work environment (especially for his female employees), and he very clearly does not see this woman as his peer or he wouldn't be joking about raping her.
Creating a real Boston restaurant scene?
He had one fine-dining place in Wellesley that was exciting if you lived in the nearby swank exurbs and were too lazy to get to the many far-better indie places in town. I often wondered whether Blue Ginger would cut it if it had to operate in the South End. I liked his Fort Point place better, but it was hardly an engine of innovation, either. Every other successful chef here eventually tries to do a fancy version of some regional street food.
I hear Ming's Bings are very good and I'm glad he made that pivot. He's had a great run as a food TV personality. But nobody gets a pass at this particular moment for that kind of gross, out-of-touch comment. If you aren't close to the industry, I suspect you have no idea how badly overdue a MeToo kind of reckoning is here.
“If you aren't close to the
“If you aren't close to the industry, I suspect you have no idea how badly overdue a MeToo kind of reckoning is here.”
That bears repeating. It absolutely is overdue.
The hospitality industry has
The hospitality industry has long been very inhospitable to it’s female and minority staff.
Wellesley has never had a
Wellesley has never had a decent restaurant scene. It’s hard not to stand out in a cultural wasteland.
Even with this despicable event
I'd still rate him above Todd English
Agreed. At least Ming
pays his creditors. Todd English ranks up there with TFG as the kind of deadbeat asshole you'd be foolish to work with on a PO basis. Cash up front or GTFO, because when one of his restaurants goes south, Todd will make sure he's fine and you'll be left holding the bag.
Clearly a joke
People are so miserable and spend too much time looking for things to be offended by.
Please
Act your age. Anyone who thinks this was "clearly a joke" and hallucinates that those who object "spend too much time looking for things to be offended by" is lacking in decorum to the point where they shouldn't be out in public, not even at a Chuck E. Cheese. Act like a damn grownup for God's sake.
Counterpoint
I think people are so miserable and spend too much time looking for things that offend others
Of course it was a joke
What difference does that make? The whole "it was just a joke" defense is complete bullshit. There is nothing inherently innocent about humour. The nastiest, most vicious forms of racism, bigotry, and misogyny are more frequently expressed in jokes than in any other way. Jokes are used as a weapon of the strong against the weak and of the weak against the strong, of the wicked against the righteous and of the righteous against the wicked (I often think that the power of Trump over his followers could be destroyed forever by the right joke). People use jokes to make a point. Often it's a point they would never think of making any other way. Jokes are the favorite way for hypocrites to say things that they don't want to admit they really mean, even to themselves. "It was just a joke" doesn't absolve anyone of anything.
It's Schrodinger's asshole:
It's Schrodinger's asshole: when they're called on their behavior, they were "just joking" even though there's nothing funny about it.
The problem isn't that people are "looking for things to be offended by." The problem is that people insist on doing offensive things, and other people, like you, are looking for a chance to pretend that threats of violence are the same kind of "offensive" as an eight-year-old's fart jokes.
iT wAs JuSt A jOkE!
Said every grabby asshole, misogynist, racist, and bully EVER.
Grow the fuck up already. It NEVER was funny and women are just fucking done with this shit.
He sold all his restaurants a while ago...
... So he's not a Boston restaurateur anymore at all in the standard sense of the concept.
He pivoted during the pandemic to Ming's Bings:
https://mingsbings.com/
Of course, none of this excuses appalling remarks, but, this is not the "Ming Tsai" of pre-pandemic years, by a long-shot.
(Not to put-down his pivot, either, which I can only assume was quite stressful and challenging and also a very conspicuous reflection of how COVID did so much to destroy our restaurant economy.)
No Excuse but...
...has anybody considered that Ming may have a problem with alcohol/drinking? Watch his TV show that he filmed during lock-down - he seems like he is bombed half of the time. And he is very sarcastic when he talks to his son Henry. At least that is the impression I get when I watch it - it makes me cringe when he slurps down his cocktail and jokes that Henry can't have one. So maybe this is going to be a good lesson for him getting called out for his bad judgment and joke that is neither clever nor funny.
In vino veritas
Alcohol decreases inhibitions. It doesn't make you a different person than who you already are.
He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking
Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.