I love a challenge, especially a food challenge.  It’s not always eating 5 pounds of fried cheese balls, though; sometimes it’s just trying something new. Or in this case, several new things: cow organs, all of them, served up as gourmet entrees, snobbery included. Now, I’ve never actually had rocky mountain oysters before. But talking about it on last weeks all offal episode inspired me to make a reservation at what would either be a breath of fresh air in a downtown sea of Italian places, or just another expensive reminder that not all chefs can cook just because they’ve managed to procure a high interest loan after hurling a pot at someone’s head on TV.

Searsucker!  calm down I’m not insulting you. That’s the name of the place!  The Chef, appropriately named Malarkey, now known from ABC’s ‘The Taste’, where people may have been impressed by his ability to turn everything into a deconstructed food stack with ironic garnishes; or from ‘Top Chef’, where I’m pretty sure he slept with someone, and then lost, probably for the same reason.

We started with the Cowboy Caviar, aka testicles. Battered and deep fried to a golden brown, and served with house made fruit preserves. We dug into these balls fully expecting a gamey full mouth experience, and found that these particular love apples came up embarrassingly short, on depth and flavor. Ours resembled a sliced and fried all beef hot dog. They were uninteresting but at least unprecedented.

In keeping with our “foods that make people uncomfortable” theme, we followed with the braised beef cheek and tongue, thymus gland salad, a flavorless Carpaccio that dishonored the cow, and bone marrow, served with the same fruit preserves as the testicles, which harmed and overshadowed the delicate marrow flavor. I’ve had it done better by chefs with simple roasted garlic and capers and without a twitter following.

At some point during the meal you become aware of the raucous rumble of the other half of the restaurant occupied by a bar, but you really can’t blame the man for wanting to supplementing his income. Your comfort aside, the rent downtown is really high. The swanky minimalist restaurant is decorated in early schmuck, with bare rope chandeliers hung so low that you can hang yourself after spending $10 on the industry’s least redeeming bacon brownie. It goes to remind us that behind every egocentric celebrity chef turned restaurateur is his money man partner rolling his eyes. His restaurants are proof that 15 minutes of fame can only propel you so far up the creek, at some point you’ve got to start paddling. Ridiculous and entirely too proud of itself, Searsucker is like a smart car, perfect for a millennial who doesn’t know any better. $150 for balls and bones? As one corn cob said to the other, go shuck yourself. Of course Chef Malarkey has to get the last word: your bill comes with little red lollipops that say “see you next time sucker”, so even after you pay you can still feel the burn on your way home.