slkinsey

Poison Dart also somehow makes me think of Tiki. Is there a way to make a Tiki-style drink with Green Chartreuse.

I wouldn't disagree with this. The Corpse Revivers Nos. 1 and 2 are completely different drinks, with the only commonality being that they were either originally or notionally thought of as morning pick-me-up drinks. So why not serve a different drink as a "Corpse Reviver"? My only preference would be that the drink be in the spirit of a short pick-me-up. I wouldn't want a cooler-type drink, or a crushed ice drink to be called a "Corpse Reviver." There were all kinds of drink categories back in the 18C -- although I think that most of them "defined" a feeling and perhaps a style, time,situation or manner of imbibing rather than more well-defined categories such as a Julep. This we have from Notes and Sketches of the Paris Exhibition, by George Augustus Sala (Tinsley Brothers, 1868) on page 374: I wouldn't mind an ice-cold Moustache Twister or One of Them Things myself. (ETA: The quoted work is in the public domain.)

This is not to say, I think, that soliciting comps can't be or isn't now occassionally abused. But just because something can be abused doesn't make it automatically unethical in all cases.

I will excerpt the portion of your post from the other thread that relates to restaurant comps, since continuing the discussion about the restaurant side seems more appropriate in this thread. So, if I understand this properly, your main argument is that accepting free wines in performance of wine criticism is okay whereas accepting free restaurant mealsin performance of restaurant criticism is not because: 1. You don't digest the wine whereas you do digest the restaurant food and 2. Wine tasting and evaluation is "hard work" whereas restaurant evaluation is not. I'm sorry... but that seems like a pretty thin justification for approving one and condemning the other. If we're going to split wine hairs as fine as you have been splitting restaurant hairs, I simply do not see how there can be any ethical justification for accepting the wine. Any ethical conflict as to favorable treatment that comes along with accepting a free restaurant meal automatically comes along with receiving free wine -- especially if one is permitted to "save the best wine tasted in a given day for dinner." It's pretty easy to extend the logical argumets made in this thread to wine: If you receive a wine from a you are going to feel beholden to that consortium, importer, distributor or winery and this may influence you to write a better review -- even if only subconsciously. Furthermore, if you do write a bad review of the wine, there is the chance that the consortium, importer, distributor or winery (and perhaps others as well) may no longer provide you with free samples for evaluation, which may further influence you to write a better review. In consideration of the fact that you cannot afford these wines yourself and do not have a job that reimburses you for wine expenditures, you would like to continue receiving free wines, without which your wine-reviewing career would be impossible. This is further influence to write a better review. As you say, some wineries send bottles for tasting and others to not. This is a further influence. You do point out that the wine critic "should not 'hold it against' any winery that does not send wines for tasting"-- but that's like saying that a restaurant critic shouldn't be influenced by comps. How do we know that either is doing as he should? How do we know that the wine critic won't be biased in favor of wines he tastes at home compared to wines he has to evaluate at organized tastings? Daniel, it seems clear that you give these things a lot of ethical thought, and so my going-in assumption is that you don't have any ulterior motives in making these different points. But I can't help pointing out that, in the case where you have a salaried/reimbursed job doing something you couldn't afford to do on your own dime, you have constructed some ethical logic to come out against comping; in the case where you are a freelancer who is not reimbursed for somethign you couldn't afford to do on your own dime, you have constucted some ethical logic to come out in favor of comping. I can't help noticing that both of these things justify your own special case, and I can't help saying that hinging the ethical logic that differentiates these two cases on something as esoteric as digestion versus non-digestion and "hard work" versus "less hard work" (which I submit will depend greatly on the individual -- ask the NYT critics how much "fun" they're having eating at restaurants 14+ times a week) seems a little weak.

Sure as all get out it was not me. I never was and never will be wealthy enough for that. If you factor out the notional anonymity of the restaurant critic, I don't see how there can be any ethical difference between accepting comped wine from a consortium, importer, distributor or winery, and accepting a comped meal from a restaurant.

I have to say that my biggest peeve in all of cocktailery is the inappropriate naming of a new cocktail after an old cocktail, or an old category of cocktail This is most pervasive in the practice of naming a cocktail the "[something or Other] Martini" -- but it can be seen across the board. A drink that does not include Cognac, Cointreau (or at least an orange liqueur) and lemon juice just shouldn't be called any species of Sidecar. Period. For example: Phil Ward mixed me up a great Sidecar-inspired drink at Flatiron Lounge several years ago. It consisted of blended scotch (instead of Cognac), Drambuie (instead of Cointreau) and lemon juice, all in the recognizable Sidecar ratios, along with a short dash of Anostura. It was a tasty cocktail, but I would suggest that "Scottish Sidecar" or "Scotch Sidecar" would not be a useful, good or imaginative name. If one were determined to reference the Sidecar (and there is no reason to do so, considering that the Margarita is equally closely related) there are any number of names from which one could choose. For example, you could call it a Knockhill Cocktail (Knockhill being a major racetrack in Scotland where sidecar races are held). I do think there are a few circumstances where naming a new drink after an old one makes sense: First, when the new drink represents a minor tweak, a house formula or a specific iteration of the classic. For example, as we know, a simple gin and dry vermouth Martini can be made in almost infinite variations. A "Hoffman House Martini" tells you that you're getting a 2:1 Martini with orange bitters. The "[insert Name of Bar Here] Martini" may specify certain brands of gin and vermouth at a certain ratio, etc. Or, for example, The Violet Hour might have a house Martini fomulated to be refreshing on a hot day and dashed with some of Toby's Summer Bitters. It would not be inappropriate to call this drink their "Summer Martini." Second, when the new drink is clearly evolved from and fundamentally related to the old drink. As it so happens, two drinks that always come to mind when making this point are from Audrey Saunders: her Tantris Sidecar and Gin Gin Mule. A regular Sidecar is made with Cognac, Cointreau and lemon juice. The Tantris is made with Cognac, Calvados, Cointreau, Green Chartreuse, lemon juice and pineapple juice. At first glance, these don't seem to be very much related. But really what the drink has is Cognac and supplemented with a little Calvados to result in what could be considered "apple Cognac"; Cointreau supplemented with a little Chartreuse to result in what could be considered "spicy Cointreau"; and lemon juice supplemented with a little pineapple juice to result in what could be considered "tweaked lemon juice." Now we're back to Cognac, Cointreau and lemon juice: a Sidecar. If the Cognac were replaced with Calvados instead of supplemented by it, or if the Chartreuse overwhelmed the Cointreau to the point that the Cointreau might as well not be in there, or if the drink just didn't taste like it had any relationship to a Sidecar -- then I wouldn't want to call it any species of Sidecar. The Gin Gin Mule, which substitutes gin for the Moscow Mule's vodka, could be seen as less strongly related to the old drink which inspired it -- but it's also true that there have historically been any number of cocktails named "Mule" (which presumably refers to the "kick" of the drink). Similarly, I wouldn't begrudge a properly styled drink from calling itself a species of "Corpse Reviver." I think there are a lot of good names out there for drinks, if the mixologist just uses a little imagination. The Introduction to Aperol, the Silver Monk, the Van Brunt, the Red Hook, the French Pearl. . . the list could go on.

So, it was more of a limited-edition thing? Mostly for the California market? That sucks... I thought they were really going to start making the stuff.

HA! I'm with you on this one. I bought the square Lodge grill pan and I've used it twice in the last year. Why fill the house with all that smoke just to cook some meat. I guess it would be a good pan if you had a big range hood with enough power to suck your hair up like a Flowbee. Count me among you. Mostly, I don't think a grill pan is very good at cooking meat. It's not like using a real grill, where the meat is getting lots of radiant heat from the fire and even more conduction heat from the grill (causing the grill marks). With a grill pan, just about all the heat is coming via conduction from the fins. This tends to equal, in my experience, dry unappetizing meat or meat that is not uniformly cooked. The only thing I could see using a grill pan for is as a "marking" pan -- cook the steak to the appropriate level of done-ness in a cast iron pan (either stovetop or in a low oven basted with butter), and meanwhile get the grill pan screaming hot. Then a quick sear, rotate, sear, flip, sear, rotate, sear to get the criss-crossing "grill marks" (which are purely aesthetic when using a grill pan anyway) and have done with it.

Thread: THE BEST: Manhattan Korean

I'm curious: Who paid for all the wines you reviewed in "Rogov's Guide to Israeli Wines"? Was it you, or your publisher?

I'm not sure I agree. Certainly this would be true with respect to a critic that is overwhelmingly and universally negative (and they do exist). I can't believe than any restaurant ever likes to see this guy. But a critic who has been known to be positive and supportive of the places/things he likes and critical of the places/things he doesn't like, but overall balanced and fair, would likely still continue to be comped. I suppose the one concession a comped writer might need to make would be if the meal was truly horrible, he might go back to the restaurateur and say, "I have to hope that the kitchen was having an off night, because that was terrible. If you want to invite me back later, I'd be willing to give it another try before doing my writeup." This, frankly, is something I would hope that a responsible reimbursed food writer would also do. Otherwise, there are always some good things and some bad things to write about most any restaurant. "Benefit of the doubt" doesn't equal "overall positive review" -- and, Brit reviewers notwithstanding, a place really has to stink to get a shellacking.

I don't think it takes too many negative reviews following comped meals for the restaurant community to pick up on the idea that a comp doesn't guarantee special treatment from a certain writer. But, if the writer is good enough, fair enough and/or influential enough, and/or if they want reviews badly enough, and/or they have enough confidence in the quality of their restaurant, they'll take the risk anyway. This is exactly the relationship opera and theater companies have with the critics they comp.

Holly: What about if a restaurant comps the writer a meal, with the expectation that there is likely to be a review, and the writer replies: "I am happy to come and experience your restaurant, but I hope you understand that I can't pull any punches if I write about your place, and I can't make any guarantees that I'll find space in my column." ETA: I do agree that it's not right for a writer to approach a restaurant and demand comps.

Danny: I think we all agree that, at least for the sake of appearances if nothing else, it's ideal if the writer is reimbursed (or pays out of his own pocket). But really, if a writer is going to allow his ethics to be swayed to the extent that he goes easy on a place or turns in an undeserved glowing review of a place simply as the result of accepting a press comp. . . how ethical is that writer going to be anyway? How good is his work going to be anyway? Would that writer's work be meaningfully better, or meaningfully more ethical if the comp were removed? I'm inclined to believe that there would simply be other forms of potential influence and ethical conflict that would sway this writer's work in one direction or the other, and the quality would remain low.

I guess I should follow up on the "shenanigans" bit. . . My feeling is that a good, ethical reviewer is able to mitigate any potential sources of influence to the greatest extent possible and still produce a reasonably unbiased report. In some ways, I think it's easier for a comped and non-anonymous author to do this, because he already assumes that he's getting special treatment, whereas the supposedly anonymous writer dining out on the company dime may not. But, really, the proof is in the pudding: If a writer is unduly influenced by being comped and other "shenanigans" then this will come out in his writing, which won't reflect a fair and accurate assessment of the restaurant, and therefore won't be very high in quality. And so that's not a writer whose work I will value very highly. I don't doubt you when you say that a free meal in Miami is a ticket to a glowing blog entry. You're certainly in a better position to know than I about Miami. And it may be true to a certain extent in New York as well. We all know that there are certain bloggers or freelancer/bloggers who always seem to give a positive review. Probably these writers are unduly influenced by being comped, not to mention any number of other things. This, to me, says that they're not very skilled at their jobs. I don't care about their work, because it is not shedding any useful and meaningful-to-me light on the restaurants those writers review. Of course, its also the case that I can say the same thing about several reimbursed writers working for newspapers in this town. So, if I consider the fact that the acceptance or non-acceptance of comps doesn't seem to have a meaningful impact on the usefulness, accuracy and overall quality of restaurant reviews in New York City (else the quality of the reimbursed-meal work would stand head and shoulders above the comped-meal work), and in further consideration of the fact that some of the best, most useful, informative and critical work around NYC of which I am aware has been turned in by writers to accept the occasional comp, what am I to conclude? Are comps ruining the craft of food reviewing? Not as far as I can tell. If all these writers were to follow Holly's model or your model, I guess we'd have three or four reimbursed restaurant reviewers in NYC turning out mostly mediocre work, and then either lots of reviews of hot dogs, pizza and cubano sandwiches or a glut of non-restaurant food writing. Meanwhile, no one would (except enthusiasts with deep pockets) be getting any experience in either dining at or writing critically about restaurants in the middlebrow and higher category.

Good for you, Danny. But, I suspect this may be because possible for you to do this work because you are not making a living with food writing, and also I suspect this is affordable for you because most of your food writing is in "cheapeats" -- it's a lot easier to foot your own bill if you're writing about food trucks or $11 paella than if you're writing about 3-star restaurants. How much writing do you do on restaurants that cost North of $200 for a complete experience? But, you know, maybe you've got a point there. Can a critic really be above-board in his evaluations when he's not footing the bill himself? How can we trust whether the critic really feels the restaurant experience is worth unless he pays for it out of his own pocket? Maybe Frank Bruni should be paying for all those meals, then we'd know no one can impugn his integrity when the "who paid for this" sh*t hits the fan. Of course, there may be plenty of other, perhaps more important reasons a critic's integrity can be questioned, but at least we'd know everyone's got that particular one locked away.

So now we finally get to the REAL heart of your argument, SK. Perhaps it is not comped meal vs. paid meal that matters to you, really; or having ethical doubts (or not) about receiving comped meals, etc.....But non-paid writer versus "salaried" writer. You seem to be saying that anyone with a computer is as reliable as anyone else with a computer. That is a completely different argument my friend. And I don't know about NYC, but here in Miami, a free meal is a ticket to a glowing write-up in the 'new-media' (by which I assume you mean bloggers). I'm guessing that probably happens more often than you'd care to believe, even (or perhaps especially), in New York. Sorry, but that strawman's all your own. I was merely making the dichotomy between freelancers, many of whom could not work without comps -- although some publications do reimburse (albeit often stingily) -- and non-freelancers. Although, now that you mention it, there are plenty of food writers for the web (either avocationally on blogs, professionally on blogs, professionally on "web publications" or professionally for web sites associated with either print or television entities) that I think are a lot better than the usual newspaper and magazine food writers. Ultimately what I care about is reading something that demonstrates that the writer knows what he's talking about and that sheds some kind of useful and meaningful-to-me light on the restaurant(s) being written about.

I'm not arguing that newspapers shouldn't reimburse their restaurant critics. I think we'd all like it if there were more of that kind of thing. I'm just not willing to say that I think that the critics who are comped are ethically compromised such that their work can't equally valuable and valid compared to the reimbursed critics. As I've said any number of times: There are food writers of whom I am aware, food writers I know dine to non-anonymously and I know to accept occasional comps, whose work I think is better, more reliable, more informative and more ethically sound than the writing of most any reimbursed, salaried food writer of which I am aware. I'm not sure I think the value of their work would be increased in my estimation if they were to land in fully reimbursed salaried newspaper or magazine gigs, but I'd certainly be happy for them if they did. What I am certain of is that I wouldn't think they were any more ethically pure in their new reimbursed jobs than they had been prior. It's just removing one potential source of ethical conflict among hundreds. I sometimes have to wonder whether reimbursed salaried food old-media writers focus on this aspect of their craft because it is one of the few remaining advantages they have over their new-media peers.

I agree that what Chris is talking about is better described as a loss of flavor (not taste) largely brought about by a loss of smell. But scientists are increasingly thinking that the old "four dimensions of taste" is not accurate, and that there are myriad possible tastes. Hervé This has a small and illuminating section on this in his otherwise disappointing book, Kitchen Mysteries.

This goes back to what I said before about BMI: It's useful on an epidemiological basis, because averaged over large populations BMI does tend to correspond to a certain lifestyle, etc. But individuals tend to be individual, and may have mitigating factors. But there are individual differences. For example, a Lancet study showed that someone with a >30 BMI but who scores in the top 40 percentile on a stress test has better health statistics than someone with a <25 BMI who scores in the bottom 20 percentile on a stress test. However, it is also a fact that we're talking about small populations of people. On average, people with a <25 BMI have a better level of fitness than people with a >30 BMI, and if fitness levels are equal one would expect the <25 BMI population to have better statistics. So, no BMI isn't the absolute last word. But it's hard to imagine anyone with a BMI of 40 who could be described as fit.

You're saying that you think that all these papers have a salaried restaurant reviewer and that these papers pay for the full cost of all meals eaten by the restaurant reviewer in performance of this function? All I can say is: don't be so sure. Don't be so sure that some of them aren't making the reviewer pay for his own meals out of his own pocket; or that some don't have such a small budget that the reviewer is forced to subsidize out of his own pocket. Okay. And how much of this kind of work is there to go around, realistically? Even the lowest end of freelance piecework in food writing involves scrounging up assignments to crank out 100 word blurbs on restaurants or bars for things like Time Out's web site -- a form of "reviewing" in other words, which would presumably not be allowed. Not to mention, how is the aspiring restaurant reviewer going to get any reasonable depth and breadth of experience that might make him a good reviewer, especially at the higher end, considering that I assume you would also frown upon comps for this person? Of course, a person who worked away at this stuff as long, hard and successfully as it would take to accumulate the experience and reputation that might lead to one of the "company dime" salaried food writing jobs would, by that time, be a restaurant and food industry industry insider in that city, known to everyone in the business and with lots of relationships. This, in turn, would set off hundreds of "anonymity" and "professional/personal relationship" ethical alarms among the food writing police. Surely you wouldn't approve of that guy who wrote about the apprentice's first day in Ducasse's kitchen writing the review of Ducasse's restaurant. This kind of guy would get special treatment everywhere he went, and certainly couldn't be trusted to write an objective review of a restaurant where the chef gave him that great quote about sous vide, and the guy supplying the tomatoes appeared on that article he wrote about microgreens, and the head waiter is the one he trailed at a different restaurant for a week for that "front of the house" article last year, and, oh yea, the dishwasher is the one who hooked him up with that dude who delivers the best weed in town right to his door. So, in effect, you're suggesting that the aspiring writer guy work his ass off writing about growers, chefs, restaurateurs, dishwashers, reservationists, waiters, a day in the life of a kitchen and so on in one city (or perhaps lives nomadically for however long) in the hope that he'll get on someone's radar, whereupon he would then have to move to another city where he doesn't have any potentially ethically-conflicting relationships and is "anonymous" so he can take a job as that town's restaurant reviewer. Well, no wonder there aren't many food writers who pass the ethical and quality test!

Here's a theoretical question: Suppose the New York Times and all the other newspapers and magazines in the NYC area declared: We're not paying for the meals we review any more. From now on, the industry standard is going to be that our reviewers are comped and make reservations under their own name. Our expectations is that our writers will not be given inordinate special treatment, and our writers will be on the lookout for such treatment and adjust their reviews accordingly. Does anyone suppose that there would be a drastic lowering of the quality of NYC restaurant reviews?

Danny, the point that I am making is that there are myriad influences and ethical dilemmas that a writer may face. To focus on comps as though accepting a comp somehow breaks a writer's ethical cherry seems silly to me. And, as a performing artist, I have to say that all of my colleagues laugh and laugh and laugh when they hear that foodies and food writers believe that accepting a comp unduly influences a writer to go easy on the restaurant. Comping is standard in the theater -- so much so that some larger companies actually hold back a certain number of prime seats every night and have a person standing at the entrance, ready to hand those comps to any writer or music-world notable who might just happen by without a ticket. And yet, bad reviews happen all the time. Really bad ones, sometimes. Do some reviewers always give positive reviews because they want to keep on getting invited? Sure. But plenty don't. And the number isn't any greater than those who, for example, always give a great review to the hunky baritone who is often staged shirtless. Theatrical companies know that it's a risk -- they might get a great review/they might get panned. But it's a risk they know they have to take, because they want a review. So they comp the critics anyway. And everyone understands that the critic is not beholden to the company for the comp. So, what I am suggesting is that it's silly to focus on comping as the Great Satan of restaurant criticism and reviewing. If the writing isn't generally very good, comps are pretty low on the list. And, frankly, if food writers were more skilled and and more ethical to begin with, comps wouldn't be a problem. And, again I toss down the gauntlet that no one has been brave enough to pick up: Taken as a group, the salaried "company dime" food writers aren't very good; and one can find a larger number of comped freelance food writers who are better than the salaried "company dime" food writer. This seems like a strong indication to me that it's not comps and the notion of "anonymity" that we should be worried about. I'd trade comps and notional anonymity for experience, knowledge, enthusiasm, a critical eye and something to say any day of the week. I would also suggest that, if some food writers write glowing reviews based on receiving a comp or attending a press preview, it's more a question of experience and skill than it is ethics. ETA: If, as you suggest, sportwriters are on the whole more experienced and knowledgeable in their field than food writers (something with which I would agree), how do you suggest that food writers gain this experience and knowledge if not with comps? Should newspapers have "young food writing talent development" programs, where they pay for meals on behalf of food-writing trainees? Right, that'll happen. Or will food writers have to be drawn from the ranks of the wealthy, who could afford to educate themselves? Former restaurateurs or restaurant workers are out, of course, because they would have to many biases and connections for you. So who?

So, here's a question: How many restaurant reviewing jobs are out there where the employer pays for all of the writers meals? Let's just make a ballpark guess for the entire United States. 25 jobs? Maybe? I happen to know, by the way, that certain NYC papers do not pay for the writers' meals. So don't assume that every regular newspaper restaurant writer is eating out on the company dime. So, absent of comps, how are we going to get new food writers -- especially writers who have any familiarity with, and basis to write critically about the more exalted (and expensive) styles of cuisine? I guess the prospective writer has to be rich and pay for all these things out of his own pocket? Work his way up from writing about Ray's Pizza to Alain Ducasse somehow? Has that ever happened? Or, is it more likely that newspapers will do what the NY Times has done in recent years, and bring over a writer from some other discipline as their new restaurant critic? Because, you know, that's really been great for the quality of food writing in this town.

Let's examine this. . . Dinner at a restaurant only happens once. Most restaurants are never reviewed by the same critic more than once, and most of the time based on only one or two visits. You are also not correct that theatrical shows or opera productions are never re-reviewed. For example, it is fairly commonplace for a newspaper to run a second review of an operatic production if there is a noteworthy change in the cast that would be of special interest (just like re-reviewing a restaurant after an especially noteworthy change of chef). It is also somewhat common to re-visit long-running musical theater shows after several years have gone by. Keep in mind that the "menu" (songs, staging, costumes, many of the same performers, etc.) at Cats never changed, so there was actually less need for a revisit compared to a restaurant's evolution after a year or more. Each meal is a separate event as well, although that's not most of my point here. My point is that a sports writer who enjoys special access to players and team officials (and the attendant career benefits) has a strong influence to not write anything negative about that team and those players. Why? Because if he does, he may find that special access cut off or given to a competing writer. This is especially true of beat writers who cover a single team or a single city's teams. If that team and its players cut you off, it's not like you can write about the team down the block. You might have to leave town and start over. In contrast, a food writer can always go on to the next restaurant down the block if he burns himself with one. It seems obvious that these are much more compelling reasons for the sports writer to be influenced to go easy on a team or a player than receiving a comp from a restaurant might influence a food writer to go easy on a restaurant. And yet, as I have pointed out, sports writers do hard-hitting and critical stories on teams and players all the time. So, here we have the evidence that sports writers, who have much more powerful reasons to compromise their ethics in favor of a team or certain players, seem nevertheless to be able to make ethically uncompromised critical comments about these same teams and players. Indeed, this is the norm in the field. And yet, you and others are arguing that food writers, based on the comp of a single meal at a single restaurant, would be unable to do the same. What conclusion are we to draw here? That food writers aren't as good, or are somehow morally and ethically weaker than sports writers? You say this as though the quality of food writing coming from "company dime" salaried writers is categorically better than the quality of food writing coming from comped freelance writers. I disagree. There is good and bad to be found in both groups. As I said before, there are any number of comped freelance food writers whose writing and judgement I value over that of most any "company dime" salaried writers. So I think you're off-base to suggest that it's comps that are reducing the value of food writing. If so, what is the explanation for the overall poor state of the writing we are getting from "company dime" salaried writers? Of course, there are comped freelance writers who may be swayed by "royal treatment," which you seem to equate with comping (I would suggest that salaried "company dime" writers are much more likely to receive special treatment than any comped freelancer -- and candid reports from restaurateurs tend to support my suggestion). But my larger point is that a critical writer or reviewer has any number of potential outside influences that may sway his writing in one direction or the other. A skilled ethical writer tries to account for these potential influences and mitigate them to the greatest extent possible; a less skilled or ethical writer may be less willing or able to do so. What I don't see is that comping necessarily equates an unmitigatable influence and ethical conflict that stands head and shoulders above all other potential influences and ethical conflicts. For every writer who is unable or unwilling to consciously consider and mitigate the potential influence and ethical conflict inherent in accepting a comp, there are any number of writers who are unable or unwilling to consider and mitigate the potential influence and ethical conflict inherent in the fact that they want to screw the head waiter, or admire the restaurateur, or want a certain kind of restaurant to succeed, or don't like pasta, or feel that the chef/restaurateur has "dissed" the town's restaurant culture, or were likely recognized by the restaurant staff, or were in a bad mood that day, or were reviewing the restaurant of a major advertiser, or didn't really understand a particular style or restaurant/cuisine, etc.