Restaurant critic peeves

[email hidden] said...

Quoted message said:

It seems to have become a cliche for restaurant reviewers to use the
phrase "a well-aged steak" when the steak hasn't been aged at all.
I know the difference between a dry-aged steak and an un-aged steak,
and sometimes the chef himself doesn't seem to know.

Another time, a reviewer described an undercooked potato as being
overcooked. I've gone to these places and found the opposite of the
food critic's opinion to be true.

Do these people know what they're talking about?

Do you have any other glaring errors in food writing?
Thanks for letting me vent.

Proof positive that anyone can be a critic! 😉

Andy

Quoted message said:

Another time, a reviewer described an undercooked potato as being
overcooked. I've gone to these places and found the opposite of the
food critic's opinion to be true.

Couldn't it have been one way when they went and another way when you went?
I don't understand.

Zippy P said:

Quoted message said:

Another time, a reviewer described an undercooked potato as being
overcooked. I've gone to these places and found the opposite of the
food critic's opinion to be true.

Couldn't it have been one way when they went and another way when you went?
I don't understand.

No, because the restaurants/steak houses didn't advertise aged beef,
which would have been a good selling point.
The critics just made it up.

I'm aware of day to day differences in food quality, staff, and
management. I'm writing about food critics who can't tell the
difference between frozen french fries and fresh and who think that
fish has no flavor until it's at least a day old. (I've read that,
too. My 85 year-old mother can smell the difference 10 feet away, why
can't they)?

If they have no taste buds, they have no business becoming food
writers.

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:44:03 -0000, [email hidden]

Quoted message said:

It seems to have become a cliche for restaurant reviewers to use the
phrase "a well-aged steak" when the steak hasn't been aged at all.
I know the difference between a dry-aged steak and an un-aged steak,
and sometimes the chef himself doesn't seem to know.

Unfortunately, most times when somebody claims a steak has been
aged, or that it is "aged beef", it has only been "wet-aged".
Which just means it's been Cryovaced for at least 14 days (used
to be 21 days).

Dry-aging must be at least 10 days (USDA guidelines used to
enforce a 35 day dry-age rule, but they of course caved in to
meat packer demands, again).

-sw

email hidden said:

It seems to have become a cliche for restaurant reviewers to use the
phrase "a well-aged steak" when the steak hasn't been aged at all.
I know the difference between a dry-aged steak and an un-aged steak,
and sometimes the chef himself doesn't seem to know.

Another time, a reviewer described an undercooked potato as being
overcooked. I've gone to these places and found the opposite of the
food critic's opinion to be true.

Do these people know what they're talking about?

Do you have any other glaring errors in food writing?
Thanks for letting me vent.

I don't know where you are, but here in the DFW region of Texas we
have a decent new restaurant critic who has, beyond his writing and
critical experience, a healthy dose of line cooking and restaurant
work on his resume. I'm fairly confident he knows what he's talking
about.

(Full disclosure: I'm a critic, too. Art critic, not food critic, but
it may have swayed my judgment.)
--

modom

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:44:45 -0000, "[email hidden]"
<[email hidden]> magnanimously proffered:

Quoted message said:

Zippy P said:

Quoted message said:

Another time, a reviewer described an undercooked potato as being
overcooked. I've gone to these places and found the opposite of the
food critic's opinion to be true.

Couldn't it have been one way when they went and another way when you went?
I don't understand.

No, because the restaurants/steak houses didn't advertise aged beef,
which would have been a good selling point.
The critics just made it up.

I'm aware of day to day differences in food quality, staff, and
management. I'm writing about food critics who can't tell the
difference between frozen french fries and fresh and who think that
fish has no flavor until it's at least a day old. (I've read that,
too. My 85 year-old mother can smell the difference 10 feet away, why
can't they)?

When I first came to Auckland I worked several part time jobs the
first couple of years. One of them was in an upmarket retail fish shop
called Jaybell's Seafood Bazaar. It was down on Auckland's waterfront
and was the retail end of a huge fishing business - a joint venture
between New Zealand and Japanese interests.

In theory, the fish couldn't be fresher unless you caught them
yourself. Jaybell's fishing fleet would pull up to the processing
factory behind the retail store, unload (by that time the fish would
already have been graded), and either processed for export (mostly to
Japan to be flown out later that day) or for domestic consumption (our
shop, other shops, restaurants, supermarkets, etc). Of course the
weather sometimes made it impossible for the fleet to go out and
frozen fish would be thawed out during the day. But it was always
marked as having been frozen and customers informed of this.

I worked the busy days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) and, because
I'd been made "assistant manager" and "weekend manager" I got to divvy
up all fish that hadn't sold by the time we closed on Saturday to the
other staff members at the shop. Even our cats got to dine on scallops
from time to time - but that's another story.

Anyway, there was this tiny woman in her seventies who used to come in
several times a week to buy fish and when I was there she'd insist on
me serving her. It was always the same routine and, if it was
available, she'd invariably buy skinned & boned gurnard.

First, she'd ask me if the fish had been frozen and if it was fresh.
Then she'd ask if it had come in today. Since the answer was usually
yes to all the questions, she'd then choose a couple of fillets. Then
she'd ask for me to put them on the paper we used before we wrapped
them and hold it up so she could smell each fillet. It was amazing.
This woman could tell the difference between fish that had come in
that morning or just a few hours later.

As I got to know her and her ways, she stopped verbally asking me to
smell the fish and would simply smile, wrinkle up her nose and I'd
know what she meant. She really had me trained.

One day I asked her if she'd like to try any of the other varieties of
fish on offer and she answered, "Oh no ... kitty likes gurnard the
best."

So all this time she'd been buying the fish for her cat! She didn't
even eat fish herself. "Can't stand it," she explained. "Never could."

--

una cerveza mas por favor ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:44:45 -0000, [email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Zippy P said:

Quoted message said:

Another time, a reviewer described an undercooked potato as being
overcooked. I've gone to these places and found the opposite of the
food critic's opinion to be true.

Couldn't it have been one way when they went and another way when you went?
I don't understand.

No, because the restaurants/steak houses didn't advertise aged beef,
which would have been a good selling point.
The critics just made it up.

Almost all steaks are aged - especially at steak houses.
They're wet-aged though. The wet-aging allows the enzymes to
break down the meat and make it more tender. Wet aging whole
primal cuts is very simple to do in the supply chain and there's
no good reason to circumvent that process unless the restaurant
is raising cows in the pasture out back.

Even the steaks in most supermarkets are wet-aged, at least to a
certain degree - at least 7-10 days. So they choose to not
advertise them as wet aged since sometimes they may not meet the
minimum 14-day legal requirement.

-sw

Quoted message said:

Do these people know what they're talking about?

Only in interviews with editors.

Quoted message said:

Do you have any other glaring errors in food writing?
Thanks for letting me vent.

I have rec.food.cooking. It's a goldmine of such things.

--Blair

"Blair P. Houghton" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do these people know what they're talking about?

Only in interviews with editors.

Quoted message said:

Do you have any other glaring errors in food writing?
Thanks for letting me vent.

I have rec.food.cooking. It's a goldmine of such things.

--Blair

Good one!

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

It seems to have become a cliche for restaurant reviewers to use the
phrase "a well-aged steak" when the steak hasn't been aged at all.
I know the difference between a dry-aged steak and an un-aged steak,
and sometimes the chef himself doesn't seem to know.

A "well aged steak" may just mean it's been in the cooler too long and
they want to sell it before it walks away on its own.

I think you're right. A lot of food critics just don't have the
knowledge or experience for the job.

--
Peter Aitken

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 14:41:01 +1200, bob <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

When I first came to Auckland I worked several part time jobs the
first couple of years. One of them was in an upmarket retail fish shop
called Jaybell's Seafood Bazaar. It was down on Auckland's waterfront
and was the retail end of a huge fishing business - a joint venture
between New Zealand and Japanese interests.

<rest of story nipped>

this is too funny. i think the cat had her trained better than she
had you.

your pal,
blake