Bid

[NewYorkTexan]

Steven-How much did you have to pay Grimes to review the restaurant Bid the day after you highlighted it in your newsletter.  Excellent timing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/05/dining/05JOUR.html

[Fat Guy]

I think he's getting a Monet.

[Andy Lynes]

Grimes' review could have been written from a read through of the menu and a walk around the dining room. Did he actually eat there? There is absolutely no mention of the type of service he experienced, how busy the place was, whether or not he actually enjoyed his meal, or even the slightest indication that he even looked at a wine list, let alone drank anything from it. What about the bread and coffee?

Is this just a brief first run to be follwed by a more in depth review, or is this his usual style? Very odd.

(Edited by Andy Lynes at 3:00 pm on Oct. 5, 2001)

[Steve Klc]

Andy--my sense is that Diner's Journals are not meant to be reviews--think of them more a pre-review reviews--and I don't think Grimes wants to tip his hand.  (Steven--correct me if you have a different sense.)  Mostly these Diner's Journals highlight a newish, just opened or heavily hyped place--that is just too young to be properly, ethically reviewed.

I can tell you from personal experience, that getting a mention in the Diner's Journal or a Florence Fabricant column early on is good--it allows you to step up the service and begin to adjust from "preview-mode" to the greater demands that going from 10 covers a night to 140 covers a night presents, seemingly overnight, when you get written up in the Times.  Otherwise, you just get slammed, and sometimes never recover.

[Fat Guy]

There's only one person who can explain fully the current mission of "Diner's Journal," and that's Mr. Grimes. I'd be thrilled were he to post something here about it. Perhaps somebody with a direct line to him will ask if he's willing to do so.

My thoughts: "Diner's Journal" used to serve the purpose of what is now "ษ and Under." It was a place for the reviewer to cover restaurants that perhaps were not worthy of a full review. Now that Mr. Asimov has the "ษ and Under" column, which I think dates to the creation of the separate Wednesday dining section a few years back, "Diner's Journal" has less of a clear mission. I don't really see the point in writing about a restaurant without tipping your hand. Florence Fabricant, after all, writes relatively non-judgmental preview pieces in "Off the Menu." I think "Diner's Journal" was useful when, for example, a new chef came to Marika. There Mr. Grimes used the column to mention that the new chef represented an improvement over the old, but he stopped short of re-reviewing the restuarant (which isn't practical -- or helpful -- every time a new chef appears on the scene). But overall I'd rather see two full reviews a week, or perhaps the creation of a third price-range for coverage.

[Andy Lynes]

That makes more sense to me now. I think I need to read some more of Grimes' NY Times stuff to getter a better idea of what he does, when he does it, what is and isn't a review.

Do we know if he has actually eaten at the restaurant, or was purely an overview of the menu and surroundings based on a look-see.  

[Steve Klc]

I just did a quick search on the Times site of a few restaurants I remember reading about:

Tamarind got the 409 word Diner's Journal on February 16th and a 1,174 word review on April 4th;

Ilo got the 467 word Diner's Journal mention on June 22nd and a 1579 word full review August 15th;

Thom warranted a 452 word Journal mention on August 3rd and a 1,266 word review on September 26th;

Citarella got a 422 word Journal mention on August 31st and then was fully reviewed this week, October 3rd.

[Bux]

I've thought the diner's journal was meant to report on relatively new restaurants considered interesting or important enough to warrant more than a notice,  but not ready to be reviewed. Perhaps more correctly, one which the reviewer was not ready to review for any number of reasons including a limited number of meals there.

[Fat Guy]

Okay, so let's say that's the current purpose of the column (historically, I don't think it is, but presently it may indeed be). What's the point of doing it that way? Why be so coy? What's the harm in saying, "My first impressions are really positive/negative . . ." or something of that nature? Isn't that what people want to hear, and rightly so?

[yvonne johnson]

This is from memory, but the Diner's Journal has been at odds with the full review, and not far apart in time. Citarella for example.  I understood the DJ entry to be very positive. The full review was, overall, postive and Grimes liked the dishes he admired on the Diner's Journal visit, but not subsequent ones. After what I thought was a glowing DJ write-up Citarella finally got 2 stars in its full review.  [An aside: Grimes is wrong in in writing that "Young has brought *one* dish with him from Pop...civiche". Young has also brought the shrimp with basil in a crispy roll.  I've been to Pop lots of times (that very under-rated restaurant that no longer appears in Zagat). Sorry, this is a record I play from time to time.]

For another record (that I play again and again) I admire Grimes, but, to me, he sometimes writes reviews that are so favorable in the narrative form then he assigns only 2 stars. No doubt, the assignment is akin to grading a student's paper. It's fine, covers all the points, but doesn't have sparkle and doesn't earn an A. Maybe I'm falling for the US inflated standards. Everything has to be 4 stars to be worthy of notice. Grimes may have a point. We need to remember that 2 stars means "very good". And, "very good" is a fine grade.

[Steve Klc]

Steven--there is no harm in stating things directly and simply.  We'd all be better off.

Yvonne--we're at a disadvantage here, since we've been to Citarella and commented on that experience elsewhere, but I too, was severely disappointed to read the extended review "narrative" and conclude with but 2 stars.  You rightly point out the discrepancy--I thought Citarella warranted 3 stars on Grimes' own, newly established scale.  And it is not that 2 stars is a disappointment--Grimes' pledge to restore meaning to the star system does have merit.  It's the grey area between 2 stars and 4 stars that is the real problem in interpretation.  In two cases, at least, restaurants (and diners) have been hurt by being lumped into the 2 star catch-all when they've deserved 3:  Citarella and Bayard's.

Are there others?