Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Cracking the Codes - Further Thoughts
Word out of Chicago is that Esquire restaurant writer John Mariani is making the rounds. Indeed, somehow it's common knowledge (to MenuPages Chicago, at least) where he's dining before he even arrives. MP Chicago gives a link that may help explain its Nostradamus-like ability to foretell the future, a story from a few years ago indicating that Mariani had sent a four-page list of requests to a restaurant he was about to visit, including requests to be comped for "everything from cab fare to his hotel bill." A later story in the L.A. Times took Mariani to task for non-disclosure of non-anonymous, comped meals.
Mariani still is apparently far from inconspicious. Here's something of a play-by-play of his current Chicago visit:
Not exactly the best example of following the American Food Journalists' Critics' Guidelines. But my point here is not to single out John Mariani. Though this may be a somewhat extreme example, it seems that often these rules can be honored more in the breach than in the observance even by "professional" journalists. Read this Wall Street Journal story on the Miami satellite restaurants of Scott Conant's Scarpetta and Alfred Portale's Gotham Steak in the Fontainebleau Resort and tell me if you think there's any chance the author paid more than one visit to either restaurant. Admittedly it's a bit of a fluff piece, and the writer did have the good sense to venture beyond the NY outposts and pay a visit to local product Michy's, so I'm not all that troubled (though it is curious that the local consensus seems to be that Scarpetta's getting it right and Gotham's got issues, and the writer had it contrariwise). This local review of a newly opened Italian restaurant, I Corsini, although it makes parenthetical mention of a second visit (in which the only dish described is referred to as "perfectly cooked" and "savory"), takes so much joy in describing the service and kitchen snafus from the first visit that it's completely lost in the shuffle. Was the service equally abysmal on the second visit? Is it fair to judge a restaurant based on "one appetizer, one pasta, two entrees, and one dessert"? Maybe so. Additional comments on the place seem to indicate the review was pretty much on target.
Particularly with newspapers cutting back on budgets and facing increasing competition from online media, it may be unrealistic to expect all of these rules to be honored by the traditional media outlets as well. Which really matter, and which can be compromised? The funny thing is, if I read enough of their work, it's always been pretty easy for me to figure out the reviewers I trust.
Cracking the Codes
Caught somewhat asleep at the switch, eGullet chimed in several days later with the assertion that they'd actually been hard at work on this for years, linking back to a thread from late 2007 which started with the prospect of a "list of guidelines" for posters, and quickly degenerated into a classic example of the meta-discussion to which the intertubes are prone, fading off into oblivion (with no guidelines) more than a year ago. The proposed eGullet code which emerged a week ago is not too dissimilar, though with more of a focus on site maintenance issues and less on aping the AFJ's guidelines. Meanwhile, the eGullet proposal prompted this rather pointed and ad hominem response from another website.
After much deliberation, I'm staying out of the fray. I operate by some simple rules:
- Be honest.
- Don't be a douche.
If that's a "code," then so be it.
[1]This would appear to be a fairly loose rule, given this exception: "Even if we choose to write anonymously for our own personal or professional safety, we will not post anything that we wouldn’t feel comfortable putting our name on and owning up to." I'm good with that.
[2]Again, this one seems to have been softened from the initial draft, now acknowledging "We realize that this is an ideal. Some people are writing about restaurants that they go to in their travels, and most of us don’t have the money to go to places more than once (and find it especially hard to cough up the extra dough if a place stinks the first time we go). If you only go to a restaurant once, just say so."
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Well, thanks for visiting anyway. Not exactly the kind of stuff that disabuses me of my perception on the influx of out-of-town chefs to Miami.I don’t really like Miami that much. It’s OK to visit for SOBE but I want to get back to New York.