The San Francisco Chronicle ran a “slow news day, huh?” story on its front page Sunday marveling over the fact that amateurs posting online restaurant reviews and gossip are stealing thunder from official food critics. According to the article “Food bloggers dish up plates of spicy criticism,” the criticism meted out by newpapers, TV, and magazines is nothing compared to online drubbings:
Online message boards, gossip columns, city restaurant guides and food blogs are proliferating and having a profound influence on where consumers spend their eating dollars. The once-genteel discipline of restaurant reviewing has turned into a free-for-all, celebrated by some as a new-world democracy but seen by others as populist tyranny.
OK, though the tone is a little gee-whiz for 2007 (whoa! you mean they have the Interwebs on computers now??), the Chron, a beneficiary of the old we-write-the-copy-you-buy-the-newspaper system, is understandably a little alarmed by the fact that readers are streaming away by the thousands to get their restaurant debriefings from guys named BvrHunt2312 on Yelp.com. Still, the piece is pretty fair, quoting bloggers who reasonably question the notion that food reportage requires anything beyond a sensitive palate, as well as relating the angst of a restaurateur deeply wounded by the criticism his restaurant received:
Just days after opening Senses, his San Francisco bistro, Teo Kridech clicked onto the World Wide Web only to find that his dream business was considered an overnight flop.
‘Senses is like a botched face lift covered with layers of poorly applied cheap make-up on a hot humid day in Biloxi, Miss.,’ one poster wrote on the Web site Yelp.
‘The food is crap,’ yelped another.
They mocked the ‘cheap porcelain plates,’ they ripped the ‘little butter dish from Ikea,’ and they derided the decor and staff.
The posts ‘nearly killed my business,’ said Kridech, a native of France who has worked in the food industry for 25 years and spent $150,000 revamping the Senses space. ‘Everyone has become a food critic. They think they’re real big shots. They probably can’t even make scrambled eggs.’
I think we can all agree on one thing: Scrambled eggs are darned hard to make properly.
Pffft! I like Sam of Becks & Posh’s response to that scrambled comment:
“To him I would counter back that the rather arrogant view of his customers, would be better kept to himself if he hopes to attract good will and clientele since some of us ‘amateur critics’ certainly go beyond simply making scrambled eggs and actually go so far as to experiment to see if we can make them even better.”
http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/
Seriously, such school-yard “nyah! nyah!” insults to culinary intelligence of your fairly food educated customers in this food mecca by the Bay isn’t going to win you any favor. It’s just going to make you look like a thin-skinned, petulant ass.
You know what? I make fabulous scrambled eggs but after Kriedech’s response, I don’t really have any desire to try Senses.
I think there is a world of difference between a review on a site like Becks & Posh and the reviews on Yelp
Yelp’s food details are often sketchy and the posters are much more interested in being “witty” and showing “attitude” that its just not reliable or trustworthy. I could easily believe the majority of people are no “amateur critics” but a bunch of Monday Morning Quarterbacks who love imagining they would do it flawlessly. I mean, honestly “the food is crap” is not just helpful.
Whereas, I’m sure Sam is a great cook, she’s certainly a very good writer and clearly demonstrates her knowledge of food and cooking.
As my wife often puts it, “are we going to this place because Jonathan Gold said it was good, or some idiot on Chowhound?”
Still room for judgement in this busy world.
Although the friggin’ Exonicle really has no room to talk about anything.
I think people get a little heavy-handed with criticism on Chowhound…but I do still use it for reference. I try to just listen to myself and try the things that look interesting to me.
And if I like something no one else does…to hell with everyone else!
I think its easy to get a little touchy to find that our favorite writers are being outdone by some untrained nobody on heewoo.com, but I really do think blogs and yelp are very helpful to some. My boyfriend is a cook and from what he has observed, his chef spends a whole lot of time reading blogs and postings on yelp.
No industry is without politics. Maybe readers are getting weary about which reviews are genuine, and which are bought. This is just my two, of course.
I think we all know there are politics involved in restaurant reviews published by magazines and newspapers…For those of you who don’t – Surprise!
I agree with Stephanie365. So much of Yelp is about attitude and being clever — more like “see and be seen” posting. I read occasionally to get a sense of the vibe of the place but generally don’t pay any attention to the people’s written opinion of the food. As for critics in newspapers, I read them regularly and know which ones whose taste I agree with and those with whom I don’t. It’s a bit like movie reviewers. I expect them to be more expressive and able to explain a review other than “the movie was crap.”
Hao Chr, I use both Yelp and CH and find that the boards are both “about attitude and being clever”. I think people in CH are even more vehement, in fact.
watch this
She was a housewife seeking kicks in
a world of sex, sin, and swingers…
‘VIVA’
opens at Los Angeles’ Laemmle Sunset 5, June 20th, 2008
A candy-colored tribute to classic sexploitation films of the Sixties and Seventies, VIVA opens on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 at . Artist, filmmaker and performer 8000 Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. Anna Biller’s take on the sexual revolution is a lurid, retro romp set in the 1970s, featuring amazing period sets, costumes, and musical numbers that will delight vintage vixens and time-traveling tramps alike.
Barbi (Biller) is living the perfect suburban life as a pampered housewife, when she finds herself abandoned by her perfect Ken-doll husband Rick (Chad England). Soon Barbi and her girlfriend Sheila (Bridget Brno), a buxom blonde with a taste for adventure, decide to get out there and see what they’re missing, and find themselves drawn into the baroque fantasyland that was the sexual revolution, including nudist camps, the hippie scene, wild orgies, bisexuality, sadism, drugs, and bohemia.
Shot in 35mm and saturated to the hilt with vibrant color, and exquisitely detailed in its depiction of the period, VIVA looks like a lost film from the late ’60’s, right down to the campy and self-assured performances, the big lighting, the plethora of negligées, and the delirious assortment of Salvation Army ashtrays, lamps, fabrics, and bric-a-brac. Whether you’re looking for nude dancing, alcoholic swingers, stylish sex scenes, a sea of polyester, Hammond organ jams, glitzy show numbers, white horses, blondes in the bathtub, gay hairdressers, or psychedelic animation, VIVA has it all!
Anna Biller and various cast and crew will be in attendance at select opening weekend screenings.
” A meticulously designed re-imagining of “classy”-minded ’70’s-era soft porn…
.pops with parodic joy” –Robert Abele, L.A. TIMES
‘VIVA’
2008 | 120 minutes | 35 mm |
http://www.lifeofastar.com
Ryan Bruce Levey
Vagrant Films Releasing
P- 416-546-7841
C- 416-262-0663
E- v_f_c_rb@yahoo.ca
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