Comments on: Restaurant critic vs Food blogger: Who do you trust? Part two

By: vivi

vivi — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:53:35 +0000

this is absolutely off topic.
but i think giles coren looked pretty damn hot in the BBC programmes on what they use to eat back then……i think it was victorian era where he had a moustache. I thought he was pretty hot/funny there lol.

Although i trust bloggers if they are blogging about thier own culture of food. =) thats a big big point for me. I would trust a chinese blogger over a caucasaian blogger for chinese restaurants just because its their cuisine.

By: Mien Tay, Dalston « An American in London

Mien Tay, Dalston « An American in London — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:09:27 +0000

[...] London Eater, by the way, has been writing thoughtful posts on why we trust food bloggers even though some of us aren’t exactly inconspicuous at restaurants (so query the consumer advocacy of someone who’s drawing special treatment perhaps as much as a professional reviewer would), and most of us visit a restaurant only once before sharing our opinions. Exhibit A: soft-shell crab at Mien Tay in late June 2008 [...]

By: Foong

Foong — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:14:03 +0000

Hmmm….I’d say any reviews from a food blogger or a food critic is purely subjective. This is because everyone’s taste buds are different, thus the saying ‘one man’s meat, another man’s poison’.
A case in point would be the wonderful ‘king of fruit’ – durian. If you ask 10 Malaysians, not everyone will agree that the fruit tastes good and probably each and everyone will say different things about that single one fruit.
And then there’s the aroma.
Some likened it to dirty wet socks and clogged drains while others likened it to rotten fruits or leaked gas.
So, in my opinion, all reviews are true – in the perspective of the reviewer. It is quite another thing for the reader cause the reader may not have the exact same taste as the reviewer.
Remember Zimmern eating the beating heart of a frog? He thinks it tasted good but I doubt most of us will think that!
That’s why, though I love reading food reviews, in blogs or anywhere else, I always do it with an open mind.
Just my two cents.

By: Kang L.

Kang L. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:43:41 +0000

Charmaine, Vivi, foodsnob, genuiness, doug and annie:
Thanks for the extensive comments! You guys just sparked off some pretty interesting points and got my debating juices flowing.

i’m going to consolidate my reply as a part 3 follow-up post to this discussion

By: vivi

vivi — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:38:03 +0000

okie, im upset now. my essay got accidently twice =_=. so heres my shorter shorter version of what i wanted to say:
i trust some bloggers over critis, since bloggers are more like us
use a range of sources, both bloggers and critics
everyone experiences different situations at the same restaurant, (for exmaple me at leongs legends was bad, but some other blogger experienced good)
take a risk and try it for yourself

By: genuiness

genuiness — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:21:51 +0000

Kang, I personally would place more emphasis on the opinion of food bloggers and word of mouth of my friends than restaurant critics. I have absolute disdain for critics who are so up their arses. e.g. Giles Coren who spends 95% of his review talking about everything but the food. People like AA Gill who will give a bad review simply because a restaurant doesn’t give them preferential treatment. And as you rightly pointed out, many restaurants do give critics preferential treatment – looks of ‘on the house’ treats and free meals.

The other problem with food critics is that some of them (though not all) base their review on the cheaper lunch menu which may not be a true reflection of the cooking at the restaurant. For example, the Good Food Guide describes Le Gavroche’s set lunch as ‘much cheaper, perhaps using a few less fanciful ingredients’ is perhaps missing the point. Nor is judging a restaurant like Hibiscus solely on their (experimental, chemistry class 101) lunch menu truly representative of the level of the cooking at the restaurant.

As with everyone, each person has their own preferences and area of expertise. Hence, I might agree with a guide book with regards to say French cooking, I find their opinion on say Malaysian cooking (where I come from) to be wildly off the mark. Is it to say the guide/critic is wrong? Maybe.. maybe not. Of course, Malaysian food has to adapt to the taste and preferences of people here – so while it may not be authentic, it is a good intepretation of it.

As such, I place more weight on food bloggers that share similar preferences and taste with me. Foodsnob is a good example – I have found that we generally share the same opinion when it comes to different restaurants so it is easier for me to make a decision when I am uncertain about a restaurant. Case in point – I was pretty undecided about going to Ambassade de l’Ile having heard mixed reviews of it (including of course the infamous Giles Coren review where he kept harping on about the decor because he didn’t like the colour purple was shameful) but decided to book it for my girlfriend’s birthday based on foodsnob’s recommendation and was definitely not disappointed.

p/s Charmaine… you could always do what Gordon Ramsay did in one episode of Kitchen Nightmares ie have some unassuming person come in for the booking and order for you and do a switcheroo halfway through

By: Douglas

Douglas — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:22:44 +0000

‘Trust No One’ (?)

By: Loving Annie

Loving Annie — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:49:09 +0000

Good Saturday morning to you Kang,

This opened some great discussions !
I would agree with you on the great bowl of noodles vs. michelin restaurant paragraph totally. Good point made there – food is at the heart of what makes greatness for some things.

Charmaine brought up some thoughtful points as well.

So glad I found your blog – you are stimulating my brain as well as my appetite

Loving Annie

By: Charmaine

Charmaine — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:49:57 +0000

Another interesting point (playing devil’s advocate here) – what happens when a food blogger becomes recognised? (I wonder at times if the guys from Dos Hermanos are becoming celebrities in their own right.) And for those of you who openly take notes/take pictures/ask specific foodie questions in restaurants, I wonder if that sends signals to the restaurant. I never take notes, and pictures are usually taken very discreetly or when I’m not on review. Basically, I try to act as much as a normal customer as possible – and ask any questions about dishes later on the phone.

In that sense, how do we know when a blogger isn’t being given similar special treatment, if restaurants are being extra cautious in a world where bloggers are taking over critics in terms of importance?

By: Charmaine

Charmaine — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:40:41 +0000

I feel like I have a very unusual perspective on this debate, having started out as a humble food blogger and making my way into ‘professional’ restaurant reviewing.

I still feel that we at Time Out are very different from our broadsheet counterparts – most, if not all national restaurant critics are easily recognisable – we all know what AA Gill, Giles Coren, Jay Rayner, Michael Winner, Fay Maschler, Terry Durack et al look like. And you’d be kidding yourself if restaurateurs and chefs don’t go out of their way to find out what the critics look like. One exception is, of course, Marina from the Metro – I relate to her much more than these other glitzy media-friendly critics, as it’s still not known what she looks like (though there was an amusing piece a while back speculating on her appearance… a Gwen Stefani lookalike appeared to be the popular opinion).

My biggest problem with famous critics is that while I do give them kudos for their infinite knowledge of food (or in the case of Jay, not so much sometimes, re: him thinking Gourmet San is a Sichuan restaurant when it fact it serves northern Chinese cuisine), I have always remained sceptical about how much of a true reflection they can give to us readers of the restaurant experience. Any recognised critic that believes they won’t be getting that little special extra attention is kidding themselves. Cue Guy Dimond, the opposite, who gets stuck with the ’sucker table’ at popular, big name restaurants and practically has to chase a waiter down for service.

I do feel that I am limited in what I can write when I do ‘proper’ reviews – I tend to overwrite in real life anyway (check out my long blabbering blogs) and I hate being restricted to 300 words for a minor review and 500 for a main review. Oh those Guardian/Times/Independent critics have so much space to whitter on….

I can’t speak for other critics but at least for us (Time Out), I think we get as close as we can to the ‘real’ diner experience. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had to refuse glitzy press launches and free meals for sake of anonymity. Nowadays I even have to think twice about whether or not I should be attending blogger events. It sucks, in that sense, because I feel neither here nor there. Sometimes I miss the freedom of being a simple food blogger – of booking in my own name, not having to worry about overzealous reservations officers tracing my number to find out if ‘Flora’ is really ‘Charmaine Mok’, of hushedly telling my friends to stop saying my name out loud when I’m out on a review…!

I like reading reviews but ultimately even I myself trust blogger opinions. I guess I’m in a weird position in that sense! Though, I do find myself very partial to Terry Durack’s reviews. Great man and very well written, honest reviews.