Lame Restaurant Reviews.

[Vadouvan]

And I think plenty of people other than sushi neophytes have respect for Morimoto, Nobu and the hundreds of other examples of sushi chefs serving fried maki that you can pull up on Google.

So you've eaten at the restaurant? What did you have? Why was it better than the review said? The reviewer has made her case. Why not make yours?

She made her boyfriends case.....

Besides who goes to Nobu or Morimoto for sushi ?

Next thing you know I will be going to Asia de Cuba for Cuban Food.

[Vadouvan]

I agree with Phillidinning. I myself do not care about the mentioning of whoever is in the article. I just read the article. The food does not sound good. Even without the description. Asian Caesar salad? Chocolate spring rolls? "Ewww." See .. I can say that, cause I am not a critic.

I think what V is saying, FG, is that there is a lot of talking significant others in the conversation, and not enough content. It is alright when Frank Bruni writes about his guests because he has more than ample writing room to continue his critique. This article was not very long, so maybe she should have stuck to the topic better.

I would just not go to the restuarant, not matter how good the tea is

Thanks Matt, I think the point of the thread was to express local frustration on the quality of writers over the last few years. One Achilles heel of E gullet is anyone can chime in withouth understanding the broad topic since they havent spent anytime in the local area of discussion.

Interestingly, at the end of the day, no one changes anyone else's mind. I wonder if I should even bother with these pointless back and forths.

[matthewj]

....Of course you should V. How else are we going to continue the La colombe coffee club 5 states away without the femoral magic of egullet.

Although every opinion is different, warranted or not, respected or just to be flagrant; it is still cool that a group of people feel strongly about food, dinning, or shall I say cheese steaks in one corner of PA, NY, LA, SF, and even ATL.((run on sentence I can do that I am not a critic) So what if some consider us food snobs, elitist or a food zealots. Good, F them. All of us except for a few would not even look at each other on the street if not for the safety of a pixel.

Exchange of information no matter how explosive it may be always get the best out of people.

A little screw turned hear and there will turn heads make people think, dare to comment from ther computer at 8:00 in the morning. Besides it really pisses people off sometimes. (my favorite)

p.s. I got the five state chill out... That is good eating

[Fat Guy]

I'm certainly willing to believe that there are lots of bad critics in Philadelphia. There are lots of bad critics everywhere. But Ms. Lucey's review, the one in question here, is not a bad review. I read hundreds if not thousands of restaurant reviews from around the country every year, including as a judge for the AAN awards, so I have many points of comparison. Ms. Lucey's review wouldn't win any awards, but it's not a bad review.

Vadouvan, I'm still not clear on whether you've dined at Mantra or not. If you have, wouldn't it be better to refute the critic's opinions with examples based on your experience at the restaurant, as opposed to attacking the person as clueless, lame and skewed? Certainly, you haven't made that case based on the example you chose to provide. Your substantive argument -- that she should have focused on the abomination of fried sushi -- doesn't hold up under casual examination. The quotes from her companions aren't about handbags or pop culture, they're about the food -- so any objection to them is purely one of style. It seems to me that if you're going to publish an attack on a critic in a public forum, you should be prepared to support it -- not protest the pointlessness of online discussions just because someone doesn't accept your point of view.

[philadining]

The argument a few of us are making about the review is not concerned with whether it's correct about the food, but that it's poorly written. And I suspect we're not going to have any more luck agreeing on whether it's "good" prose any more on whether Superman is a "good" movie.

[Grub]

Experience is certainly welcome, and not to be dismissed, but it is not required.

←

Wrong! Excuse this extreme evaluation, but it only matches your extreme assertion.

Okay, I'm obviously joking, by stealing your quote -- but c'mon, experience is welcome (golf clap), not to be dismissed (golf clap), but not required (jaw dropped on the floor) -- what the hell kinda professional standard is THAT? Not required?!

You don't need to write a book in order to review one, or manufacture an automobile in order to express an informed, expert opinion on the topic. If you have intelligience, reasonable technical and historical knowledge, you would know that gazpacho is supposed to be served chilled, and not complain about cold soup in a review. So yeah (golf clap) if you know what the soup is supposed to taste like -- but accolades if you know how to cook the damn thing (because you'll be able to write a far better review, that way).

[Vadouvan]

Your substantive argument -- that she should have focused on the abomination of fried sushi -- doesn't hold up under casual examination.

I suppose it's another thing we dont agree on, I am not saying she should have focused her rage on fried sushi, perhaps my words were too strong, the internet doesnt do justice to inflection and other real world human emotions that make an otherwise casual statement seem inflamatory.

I guess I was adding a bit of my own social elitism and the best analogy I can come up with would be like an Automobile writer discussing why the chrome wheels on a cadillac escalade were not polished......as opposed to why anyone wants to be seen in a chrome wheeled escalade.

The quotes from her companions aren't about handbags or pop culture, they're about the food

Food in these types of restaurants is pop culture otherwise, Nobu, Starr,Chodorow wouldnt be spending 6 to 12 million $$$ on restaurants.

you should be prepared to support it -- not protest the pointlessness of online discussions just because someone doesn't accept your point of view.

I am not protesting anything, you are taking this too seriously.

I have mentioned previously that the food wasnt as bad as the names may suggest.

I am not using my psychic powers of taste.

The deduction if I have to spell it out is yes I have been there.

I am not saying it's a great restaurant but the food is better than reported.

Have you been ?

[MarketStEl]

Maybe they need her to write towards her audience.  I used to think Laban did not know much about food, until I started to read his online chat.  He knows a lot about food, and dinning.  Maybe he is just writing for the audience of the printed word. 

I do not  think critics should be chefs, but it would be neat if they had more than a working knowledge of picking up a fork and eating.  They should be educated and have an interest in food.  It does not have to be formal training either.

←

My reaction upon reading LaBan's debut article in the Inquirer and his first few restaurant reviews was, "This guy overwrites horribly."

I no longer hold that opinion, which means that either my definition of what constitutes overwriting has gotten looser, or his prose has gotten tighter, or maybe both. (I think the final turning point for me was his wonderfully acid trashing of Trust, with a closing sentence that I thought perfect.)

As far as "being educated" is concerned: It strikes me that "learning how to eat" in the sense that Alan Richman might use the term is something one picks up by experience. Cooking classes might also help insofar as they can introduce you to various flavors and principles of how they interact. But I don't know of any sort of educational program that deals with food the way wine-tasting classes deal with wine, and it seems to me that it's that level of sophistication that some of the critics in this forum find lacking in the lower-tier restaurant reviewers here.

I guess this is my own bias showing, but I'd place a higher value on the ability to write well. The reviews I've read by Philadelphia Weekly's main reviewer, for instance, are consistently very well written, and I usually learn something useful about the places being reviewed. You may have a point about reviews in which the reviewer is mainly telling us what his or her companions thought about the food--presumably, we are reading the article to find out what the reviewer thought about it--but if they're well written and show some signs of basic intelligence, I wouldn't come down too hard on them. (Not having read the offending review in its entirety, I can't pass judgement on it yet.)

[Fat Guy]

Vadouvan, I'm not sure why you're asking if I've been to the restaurant when you know I haven't. More importantly, nothing anybody has said on this topic has given me the slightest urge to go there the next time I'm in Philadelphia -- which as far as I'm concerned means Ms. Lucey's review has not been challenged in any meaningful way beyond gratuitous literary nitpicking.

I'm also not sure why you're steadfastly refusing to relay any information about the restaurant beyond "the food is better than reported." The thing is, you're asking us to condemn Ms. Lucey's review based on what it says, but what it says is hardly scandalous. So maybe, I was thinking, the problem here is that the review is just wrong. But nobody has made that case either. So I don't see what the problem with Ms. Lucey's review is. Based on what has been said here and what Ms. Lucey's review says, it sounds like there's a lot of whining and a big collective chip on the shoulders of Ms. Lucey's detractors, but nobody has made a particularly compelling case. If you created a work -- such as a piece of writing or a dish in a restaurant -- surely you'd demand greater specificity and a better argument on the part of your critics.

[Vadouvan]

I'm also not sure why you're steadfastly refusing to relay any information about the restaurant beyond "the food is better than reported." The thing is, you're asking us to condemn Ms. Lucey's review based on what it says

I am not asking anyone to do anything or condemn anyone.

I simply posted my thoughts ............ just about everyone else on E gullet does.

Some may disagree, some may agree.

It speaks to a larger "local" issue which clearly a lot of other posters agree with.

I have no interest in acrimonious exchanges.

So lets leave it at that.

[serpentine]

I'm not a fan of the "my boyfriend didn't like it" school of reviewing, particularly as it generally seems to imply (probably unintentionally) that the reviewer didn't bother to taste the dish in question. Or worse, has no opinion. It's a lazy way to: infuse a boring review with some chattiness, cover for a reviewer's inexperience with food, or break up the monotony of pretentious babbling. Let's not paint this as a "Philly thing," though. I read the altnewsweeklies and niche papers for a number of different cities -- it's an ongoing epidemic everywhere. And thanks to Mr. Latte, an amateur's trick has been "legitimized." Sigh.

This is what I want from reviewers in lower-tier publications: 1) What's the food like? 2) Does it work? 3) What's the service and atmosphere like? 4) Is any particular aspect either outstanding or very poor? 5) Would you return? Everything else falls onto this scale: clever, amusing, cute, too cute, dumb, TMI, gross.

MarketStreetEl, I definitely think LaBan has grown into his role at the Inky. His couple of years of writing here were marred by reviews that spent curious amounts of space discussing everything but the food. (I remember reading his reviews with "but what the eff did you EAT?" consistantly running through my head until mid-article.)

(Also, rest assured that those more focused on music, theatre, art, film, architechture, and so forth have similar concerns over the knowledge and writing ability of those writers, including equivalents to "my boyfriend says..." And don't even get me started on the state of travel writing in major newspapers.)

[Vadouvan]

Edited July 13, 2006 by Vadouvan (log)

[MarketStEl]

MarketStreetEl, I definitely think LaBan has grown into his role at the Inky. His couple of years of writing here were marred by reviews that spent curious amounts of space discussing everything but the food. (I remember reading his reviews with "but what the eff did you EAT?" consistantly running through my head until mid-article.)

That makes things all the more interesting.

Especially in light of the fact that, in his debut column, he spent about three column inches talking about an editor in New Orleans (his prior gig before coming here) talking to him--no, make that exhorting him--about how to properly get inside a story to write about it, with the repeated interjection, "You've got to EAT the MEAL!"

Guess it took him a while to actually get around to doing that. But he got there, and he does it well now.

(Also, rest assured that those more focused on music, theatre, art, film, architechture, and so forth have similar concerns over the knowledge and writing ability of those writers, including equivalents to "my boyfriend says..." And don't even get me started on the state of travel writing in major newspapers.)

←

So do you have friends who roll their eyes when Inga Saffron's column appears?

And if so, wanna discuss it on phillyblog?

(Personal aside: I wrote an essay about Edmund Bacon shortly after he died last fall suggesting that all the fawning accolades being heaped upon him ignored some problems with his notions of what cities should look like. It ran in the CityPaper, whose editor then encouraged me to submit more material. I sent them one article--an essay on the aesthetics of SEPTA--that ran in their "Cityspace" department, about the only place other than Saffron's column where architecture is discussed in the Philadelphia media. I then suggested other essays, all of which the editor liked, but sometime around Christmas, my queries about when they wanted copy stopped getting answered. I found this curious in the extreme. Beyond that, I can't say more.)

[serpentine]

That makes things all the more interesting.

Especially in light of the fact that, in his debut column, he spent about three column inches talking about an editor in New Orleans (his prior gig before coming here) talking to him--no, make that exhorting him--about how to properly get inside a story to write about it, with the repeated interjection, "You've got to EAT the MEAL!"

Guess it took him a while to actually get around to doing that. But he got there, and he does it well now.

It's a shame that his early reviews for the Times-Picayune aren't archived online. Because I had a terrific chat with some restaurant folks in NoLa a number of years ago who mockingly referred to his inability to focus on the food -- they were highly amused that he hadn't learned his lesson yet. (This is before he improved. Thank the gods he did.)

So do you have friends who roll their eyes when Inga Saffron's column appears?

Suffice it to say...yes.