Critical Reviews

[Pontormo]

Judith Klinger, known here as Hathor, has opened what looks like a wonderful restaurant in her hometown in Umbria (Italy). A recent predicament should be linked here because of its relevance: Erba Luna.

Cf. Post 49 which I excerpt:

We have a little, very local magazine that gets distributed to all the stranieri (foreigners). It has a fair amount of influence and exposure with foreigners who live here. It probably gets delivered to the local agrotourismos, etc.

They came for dinner last night, 2 people from the magazine and 2 friends, for a 'social' evening. We comped them on the wine ($$ expensive wine) and desert. They then explained that they are now doing restaurant reviews, and that it costs 450,00 euros to have your restaurant reviewed....and she's a vegetarian...in Umbria. She did let me know that they were impartial, and did give some bad reviews, but that they submitted the review to you prior to printing. Am I crazy, or is this just about the strangest 'review' situation you've ever heard of?

Please read responses in that topic, too, especially what Divina contributed this morning (Post #55)

[Carrot Top]

because the foods they serve are what most people want.  What we are talking about here is not so much a question of absolute quality but of expectations, and when Ms. And Mr. X walk into any restaurant or eatery, they will be satisfied so long as their expectations are met.

←

Oh yes. And what is happening here where I live is that the village has a good number of restaurants but not enough to make the environment really challenging enough for any one of them to be "great". There seems to be a consistent pattern of opening to much excitement, with good goals and intentions, then rather quickly that is the only thing that is consistent: good intentions. Consistency in the food is shockingly low, and I'm not talking rocket science here, just rather simple menus for the most part. And that is what Ms. and Mr. X have grown to expect here: inconsistency. One is as likely to go out and really waste money on any level meal as to be able and willing to actually eat it and enjoy it. Inconsistency is a really wierd thing to see people adjust to, just "because".

Your self-declared "rant" is valid when it comes to small towns.  It is not as valid when it comes to the "big cities".  The critics who write for many small town newspapers have very little impact indeed – that partly because those newspapers cannot afford professional/full-time critics and partly because such newspapers are overly dependent on and thus cater to local businesses.  (As I said earlier – a form of whoredom)  National newspapers and major newspapers on the other hand rely more on critics who earn their keep from that profession.  Such newspapers can also afford to set aside the need to become whores.

I agree, and I resent it being that way in this small-to-middle size town I live in. A big university sits right plop in the middle of this place and one would think that those with minds to use would find a way to use them to demand quality in their places to dine. And I sit here and look at the restaurants, and know the simple systems they require to find the consistency that is so sadly lacking, and can not believe that nobody is using these (management) systems. They may be in place in some places, but they are not being followed up on. Instead of rising higher, everybody sinks lower.

Also to keep in mind.  It is not the critic's goal to "change" a restaurant.  It is his/her role to inform, to report on the existing status.  If changes do occur as the result of a critique that is to the joint credit of the restaurant and the critic.

I am shouting into the wind in my frustration at the way things are here. I am trying to find something to grasp upon that would be an "answer". But as I noted mid-way through this discussion, there probably isn't one, for here. I do appreciate your thoughtful response very much though.

They then explained that they are now doing restaurant reviews, and that it costs 450,00 euros to have your restaurant reviewed....

←

I hope her response was that she had a bridge to sell that could serve as a trade-off.

Edited September 5, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Marky Marc]

I currently work in a pseudo-polynesian restaurant that at one point was serving some seriously unique polynesian style food. Some food critic came in and gave the food a bad review. The restaurant in part of a larger umbrella corporation and home office got wind of this bad review. Home office decided that it would be in the restaurant's best interest to remove what was the current fare. In it's place came a load of bullshit mashed potato and butter sauce drenched food that really only succeeds in making people's asses fatter.

Anyone on the staff that viewed food as artisanal was gutted.

[Daniel Rogov]

Judith Klinger, known here as Hathor, has opened what looks like a wonderful restaurant in her hometown in Umbria (Italy).  A recent predicament should be linked here because of its relevance: Erba Luna.

Cf. Post 49 which I excerpt:

We have a little, very local magazine that gets distributed to all the stranieri (foreigners). It has a fair amount of influence and exposure with foreigners who live here. It probably gets delivered to the local agrotourismos, etc.

They came for dinner last night, 2 people from the magazine and 2 friends, for a 'social' evening. We comped them on the wine ($$ expensive wine) and desert. They then explained that they are now doing restaurant reviews, and that it costs 450,00 euros to have your restaurant reviewed....and she's a vegetarian...in Umbria. She did let me know that they were impartial, and did give some bad reviews, but that they submitted the review to you prior to printing. Am I crazy, or is this just about the strangest 'review' situation you've ever heard of?

Please read responses in that topic, too, especially what Divina contributed this morning (Post #55)

←

There is a highly technical term for publications of this nature - they are known as "pure and unadulterated bullshit"

There is no way on God's green earth that a review that is paid for is going to be objective. That the "author" says that the guide reviews only restaurants "that I like"

is mere and meaningless verbage! Such publications (print or internet) exist primarily as a source of advertising and should never, never, never be taken the least bit seriously.

Now if the above is not an absolutely furious rant - nothing is!

[Busboy]

In reading Carrot Top's lament I am wondering if the problem is not just one of fawning and uneducated local reviewers, but a lack of respected (or feared), consistent and well-known national criticism, a la Michelin or Gault-Millau. Bad reviewing not only fails to distinguish the good from the bad and the ugly, it cheapens the value of the good reviews to the proprietor and to the diner.

For those unfamiliar with CT's neighborhood, she lives up in the Blue Ridge, to my mind one of the most beautiful places on Earth and therefore a perfect spot for kind of less-formal but nonetheless wonderful restaurants scattered with rerasonable regularity across France and (I am told) Italy.

But, as I discovered during a truly awful dining experience in another college town in roughly the same neck of the woods, it's difficult to find any local restaurant guide that doesn't reek of incestuous boosterism or at least ad sales quotas which, in turn, makes falling back on a chain restaurant or just settling for whatever the restaurant with the most compelling add on the three-fold brochure available at the tourist office (along with the guide to local B&Bs and Civil War battlefields) considers fine dining. Even were a talented chef and well-trained staff to attempt to make a go of it, it would be hard for me to find them.

Now, last time I was in France I decided to to drive up into the Cevennes for a little rusticating, pulled the cork on a bottle of local pink and, within an hour had found a small town with two "Bib Gourmand" hotels and a like number of Bib Gourmand (for those unfamiliar, a rating slightly lower than one-star, but signifying an excellent price-quality rapport). Thus, one of the hoteliers and two restaurants received a reasonable reward for showing the talent and discipline to run better-than-average establishments: a desireable listing in a respected guidebook, and a trio of free-spending Yanks as customers.

In addition to the tourist trade, I'm sure that in the off-season, the local eqivalents of the Chamber of Commerce, the Ladies Historical Renovation Society and every jeune homme attempting to influence a first date or make a memorable engagement has an instinct to patronize the local establishment with the "ojectively" "best" rating.

In only Western Virginia had a similar guide that was willing to slap down (or ignore) mediocrity and bring business to those who rise above it, we might see more talented chefs take advantage of the beauty and raw materials available to open unique, excellent establishments.

(Might put a little pressure on the local critics, as well, to think about something besides winning friends and influencing people through glowing reviews).

[Carrot Top]

Carrot Top's Lament. I think you've found the title for my first novel, Sir Charles.

..............................

I guess the closest thing we have to a national guide is the Mobil one? Does anyone use that?

We don't have a tradition of nation-wide respect for any particular authority in dining such as has occured in France with Michelin or Gault-Millau, do we?

I wonder who could wear the shoes. If anyone.

[Busboy]

I've always thought of the Mobil Guide as more geared to hotels -- you hear a lot more hotels describing themselves or referred to as as "Mobil 4-star" than you find restaurants making the same claim. But, just for fun I spent a few minutes on the Mobil travel site to see what would come up if I looked for restaurants in or near the Shenandoahs -- Blacksburg, Lexington, Staunton, the Blue Ridge Highway and so on. The few restaurants that did come up tended to look unappetizingly generic or were mom n' pop country cookin' places (not that there's anything wrong with that). Given some of what's been written about the restaurants on that run of land, it might be easy to assume that generic and homey are the only options. But when I looked closer it appeared that a couple of the better known places up in my end of the Valley (if being 60 miles east of Front Royal allows you to claim your own end) -- the kind distinctive, well-regarded spots that you might want to hunt down after a hard day of hiking or antiquing -- didn't make the website at all. Very curious.

I think Fat Guy pointed out on another thread the difficulty of creating a standardized national guide for a country as big and populous as the U.S. But something pocket-sized, regional and critical might be well-received, if not by the chefs and hoteliers who've been coasting for too long (If Michelin rated the Homestead, how many stars would its restaurant earn?).

[Carrot Top]

(If Michelin rated the Homestead, how many stars would its restaurant  earn?).

←

I don't know. What would your guess be? That's probably a fun idea for a topic: If Michelin rated (such and such a place insert any restaurant here) how many stars would it earn?

Would there be debate or consensus, in general . . .

As for me, I've decided that if I do not feel like cooking, at this point after this run of disappointments that I kept trying to make excuses for like a good townie, I'm simply staying in and making a baked potato. A simple baked potato for dinner tops any of this sh*t.

Grim, isn't it. Grim.

[docsconz]

Carrot Top's Lament. I think you've found the title for my first novel, Sir Charles. 

..............................

I guess the closest thing we have to a national guide is the Mobil one? Does anyone use that?

We don't have a tradition of nation-wide respect for any particular authority in dining such as has occured in France with Michelin or Gault-Millau, do we?

I wonder who could wear the shoes. If anyone.

←

Though it is much maligned and not truly national at least not exhaustively, probably the closest thing to a Michelin or Campsa like guide in the US is Zagat.

[Carrot Top]

Though it is much maligned and not truly national at least not exhaustively, probably the closest thing to a Michelin or Campsa like guide in the US is Zagat.

←

Oh yeah. That maligned thing.

I was trying to figure out why it didn't come to mind but then I realized that if the bookstores here carry them they are buried somewhere deep and hidden, one or two dusty copies.

The last time I thought of Zagat was when I saw it bright bold and beautiful displayed on the check-out at Barnes and Noble in Charlottesville.

And as we know, Charlottesville is not here. It's there.

I'll have to try to discover where this invisible geographic line of stupid clumsy food actually starts. I appear to be in the center of it, at the core.

Obviously it is not the only Circle of SCF. Princeton was mentioned before as another region of insult.

[Carrot Top]

To be just slightly more serious for one moment, I think the regional guide thing would be a good thing in general but would it really have an impact (or an 'effect' for those who can't swallow impact) on the quality or consistency of local restaurants, even long term? I'm not so sure. This, is our culture. I'd like to be happier with it but have to admit I am not. The place I live is no different than many many places across the country. If not most places across the country.

The thing that was most bothersome about this to me though, was not just that it is this way. It is the attitude that exists in general about it. And the book I'm reading ("Born to Kvetch") (ha, ha) had several things that defined this thing better.

Where, at least since Hegel, the standard Western view of the nature of things is thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis;

[ . . . ]

"Whatever it is," says Alexander Pope, "is right." "Whatever it is," we say, "it isn't good enough." Adam gave names to all created things; his Yiddish-speaking descendants offer critiques.

I do feel as if I live in a desert in terms of what I know to be available in some other places as far as level of public dining places. I've been other places, so I know. But bottom line, it is because I think in Yiddish (a genetic reminder of my father perhaps) that I am tormented, both in terms of the restaurants and the critical reviews.

If I lived somewhere else where the restaurants were better, I'd complain too. But probably not about the restaurants, which seem to me at times as vital to decent living.

There is no worthwhile synthesis to be found in this situation of the quality of dining where I live. One can be found, of course. But it is not worthwhile. Nor particularly useful. It's just plain boring.

In a world where indifference is the very best that can be expected, the principle of astselakhis (very literally, "in order to provoke anger"), the impulse to do things only because someone doesn't want you to, is sometimes essential to the world's moral balance.

So regional guide or not, I'd love to see small-town disaffection alter itself into world-quality performance every once in a while, or even more often. Astselakhis has its place here, in the form of reviews that are truly critical rather than (as Busboy mentioned) "incestuous boosterism".

Edited September 8, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[docsconz]

Though it is much maligned and not truly national at least not exhaustively, probably the closest thing to a Michelin or Campsa like guide in the US is Zagat.

←

Oh yeah. That maligned thing.

I was trying to figure out why it didn't come to mind but then I realized that if the bookstores here carry them they are buried somewhere deep and hidden, one or two dusty copies.

The last time I thought of Zagat was when I saw it bright bold and beautiful displayed on the check-out at Barnes and Noble in Charlottesville.

And as we know, Charlottesville is not here. It's there.

I'll have to try to discover where this invisible geographic line of stupid clumsy food actually starts. I appear to be in the center of it, at the core.

Obviously it is not the only Circle of SCF. Princeton was mentioned before as another region of insult.

←

I didn't think the location was C'ville, unless the food quality there has changed drastically for the worse. While it is not necessarily the greatest restaurant community in the country it was pretty decent in my day there.

While Zagat probably still does a fair bit of business via books, I think their internet presence is now where it is at. Instead of selling copies of books they sell internet memberships that allow for specific uses depending on the level of membership. It also allows for a much wider range of services. I think that it still is the closest thing to a national Michelin in the US. It is not as if Michelin gives a wealth of specific restaurant information either. Zagat gives as much or more than Michelin. Also like Michelin, there is disagreement on specific ratings for specific places. but then will there ever be universal agreement on anyplace?

[gfweb]

I think that the issue of lousy food is a mix of economics and ignorance. Economics, in that you can make money selling lousy food and not work so hard at it e.g. Chili's, TGI Friday's et al. Ignorance, in that many (most...almost all?) diners don't know well-made food from crap. I consider the stuff I was fed as a child and wonder that I haven't turned vegan.

A national review of restaurants that penetrated the small towns and applied a uniform and high set of standards to all, would have to elevate the public taste and also the available product. GREAT idea!

[nibor]

OK, so tell me this. Do any of you contribute to Zagat’s? I did once - when I lived in awful little Princeton!

I went out to a restaurant with a good Zagat rating. I came home incredulous and I admit, a little drunk, and dashed off an email review to Zagat. They emailed back to say they loved it, wanted more, and gave me a free one-year online subscription.

Said restaurant was not listed in the subsequent Zagat. That was about four years ago. I just checked and although it still in business, it is still not listed in Zagat. Which makes me wonder - can restaurants opt out?

[docsconz]

OK, so tell me this. Do any of you contribute to Zagat’s?  I did once - when I lived in awful little Princeton!

I went out to a restaurant with a good Zagat rating. I came home incredulous and I admit, a little drunk, and dashed off an email review to Zagat.  They emailed back to say they loved it, wanted more, and gave me a free one-year online subscription.

Said restaurant was not listed in the subsequent Zagat.  That was about four years ago. I just checked and although it still in business, it is still not listed in Zagat.  Which makes me wonder - can restaurants opt out?

←

I used to contribute to Zagat's until I got involved here and put my excess energy into this organization. I couldn't say how they decide what restaurants get listed.

[Carrot Top]

I wonder what would happen if local cops in various places decided it was time to arrest people who decided to serve carelessly prepared food.

Apparently one cop got mad in just this situation, and this is what he did:

Learn To Cook Right, Or Else.

A McDonald’s employee spent a night in jail and is facing criminal charges because a police officer’s burger was too salty, so salty that he says it made him sick.

Kendra Bull was arrested Friday, charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct and freed on $1,000 bail.

Bull, 20, said she accidentally spilled salt on hamburger meat and told her supervisor and a co-worker, who “tried to thump the salt off.”

Thank you to the police officer who decided enough was enough.

Thump it off, indeed. A new cooking procedure and obviously not one that works.

Edited September 10, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[hjshorter]

Carrot Top's Lament. I think you've found the title for my first novel, Sir Charles. 

I like it. "In which we follow the Lady CT in her quest for genteel sustenance..."

I guess the closest thing we have to a national guide is the Mobil one? Does anyone use that?

Doesn't AAA try to do something similar with their diamond ratings? I never look at such things while traveling in the US, but in France we frequently consulted our little green Michelin book. I didn't question it at the time, but thinking about it now I trusted the impartiality of Michelin far more than that of any US travel guides.

We don't have a tradition of nation-wide respect for any particular authority in dining such as has occured in France with Michelin or Gault-Millau, do we?

No, we don't, but we should. Maybe we should put our heads together and start a publication? Edited September 10, 2007 by hjshorter (log)

[Carrot Top]

We don't have a tradition of nation-wide respect for any particular authority in dining such as has occured in France with Michelin or Gault-Millau, do we?

No, we don't, but we should. Maybe we should put our heads together and start a publication?

←

For me, it would be an honorable task but a dreary one.

I would consider it if that cop could be my (working) partner as I travel through my assignated places, though. For how often have I thought: "These people should be arrested for serving this sh*t."

Edited September 10, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Pontormo]

I would consider it if that cop could be my (working) partner as I travel through my assignated places, though.  For how often have I thought: "These people should be arrested for serving this sh*t."

←

Working title: Eats Sh*t and Leaves

Edited September 11, 2007 by Pontormo (log)