Food; Home @ 25 Jan 2007 08:39 pm by Christina Waters
Restaurant reviewers over the ages have figured out a few tricks to make their jobs go smoother. Sometimes it happens during the actual review dinners – things like asking for copies of the menu, wearing wigs so that we won’t be recognized, making reservations under an assumed name – that kind of thing. But often the spin happens after the fact. In the writing itself.
There are a few clues that you, the consumer, can detect to help you read between the lines, so to speak.
1) The use of the word “interesting,” as in, “The sweetbreads seviche with red bell pepper puree had an interesting flavor.” What you are really being told is that the dish tasted like poodle poop. It was disgusting.
2) The word “spare” is always a sign of trouble. If the restaurant decor is described as “spare,” what the reviewer is saying is that the room looked empty, cold, uninviting — sort of like a cross between a tasteful funeral parlor and lockdown at Soledad.
3) Here’s another red flag: if the critic goes on and on about the decor, you can be sure that they are vamping for time. They are struggling to write something positive. In other words, the food stinks. So they’re concentrating on other, safe things rather than the culinary agenda.
4) Relentlessly chirpy, upbeat commentary — especially if there’s a long passage reciting the background, history and close family connections of the owners — is a sure sign that this isn’t a real, anonymous review but a feel-good package of promotional writing, designed to flatter the owners (read: advertisers) and above all, to avoid saying anything negative about the food, the service, the value for the money.
(to be continued. . . )
No. 4 Relentlessly chirpy, upbeat commentary
Relentlessly chirpy - I hope not!
Upbeat commentary - I try!
I do write a once-a-month dining column geared to advertisers. Luckily, in almost two years, I’ve been able to write about some of our best restaurants; we have many in our town, and have not had an occasion to cover up anything negative.
Well, maybe just once.
However, I can see how doing a column every week might necessitate different tactics.
June - upbeat commentary is entirely appropriate for columns geared toward advertisers. That’s what you’re being hired to do.
But I was narrowing the focus here and speaking strictly about restaurant reviews - about critiques designed to give feedback to consumers as well as to restaurateurs, about the pros and cons of food, service, ambience, anything that the public is being asked to pay good money for.
Again, a “review” is not a promotional piece. It can certainly promote, but that’s not its “prime directive,” to quote Jean-Luc Picard.
Salut!