la.foodblogging

So the LA Times might not know how to hook up with the local food blogging community but they sure know how to throw out some blog-bait with today’s article Restaurant critics are blowing their own covers.

Where to start? First, I answered one of my questions from the last post. I had asked why Gastropoda was on the LA Times Daily Dish blogroll. Turns out that this LA Times article and Gastropoda are written by the same person. In New York. I’m not so naive to think that all articles in the LA Times have to be penned locally, but this is clearly a New York piece with a few Los Angeles tidbits jammed in.

Case in point, our own brief mention in the article. After a quick notice of The Delicious Life and Eating LA, this is clumsily tossed on the end of the paragraph:

(la.foodblogging.com has a good blog roll of other local voices.)

Yes, parentheses and all. A result of my tirade on Monday? A last minute edit? Who knows. Why not just add some more local blogs to the mix, or list them at the end?

On to the content of the article. The gist is that times are changing, everyone can be a critic, the rules are different, who can you trust?

When newspapers had a monopoly, the rules were clear, as they still are at many of the major dailies. The Los Angeles Times requires the restaurant critic to work anonymously, arrive unannounced, make at least three visits and of course always pay for meals.

I think that the policy described demonstrates how utterly counterfeit a newspaper critic’s dining experience is. Start with anonymity. Odds are, as stated in the article, major restaurants do know who the reviewers are and the cat and mouse charade seems to just be for sport. Even the thought of sneaking in and out of a restaurant taints the dining experience. How can you ever be truly sure that you haven’t been “made”. And if it doesn’t matter, then why bother being anonymous?

I never announce myself as being from la.foodblogging, and yes, it is a bit egotistical to assume anyone would care. The places I write about, I go into assuming that they don’t know I am going to review the place. When I do take pictures, it is usually after the food has arrived, too late to make changes by then.

The policy also says that a reviewer must visit at least three times. Again, completely artificial compared with a “real” person’s dining habits. Plenty of newly opened restaurants show up in the food section of the times. That means three visits in a short amount of time. To me, that may make the good stuff look better and the bad stuff look worse, or vice versa. Ca’ Brea reopens late July, reviewed in September. With editing and deadlines, how much time does that give to cram in three visits (to a newly redone kitchen)?

I think there is value in multiple visits, but it’s not necessarily any more authentic than a single visit. Personally, I don’t trash a place based on one visit. I would, however, point out the positives based on one visit.

Finally, and my biggest peeve about “professional” critics vs. the bloggers, “of course always pay for meals”. Who pays? Pay for meals? Not the reviewer. The reviewer has an expense report. Price doesn’t have to come into their decisions of what to order. Someone else is paying. A “real” dining experience means that you consider what is coming out of your own pocket (and bank account) when selecting a menu item. Don’t believe me that reviewers don’t care about cost? Try this one from S. Irene Virbila about Bridge:

A word of caution: When a special is proposed, you’d better ask the price before committing to it. One night our otherwise wonderful waiter neglects to mention that the special tagliatelle with summer truffles that night costs $58, until one of us asks. He seems so embarrassed that I have to think it’s the policy not to volunteer the price.

I order it anyway because the cost seems so preposterous for summer truffles.

Really? Really? Does anyone think it is authentic to find out that a dish is insanely overpriced and then order it because the “cost seems so preposterous”? For the record, I do not. I don’t think there is any credibility built with the readers when you step outside what a reasonable person would do in the same situation. Perhaps that’s not what the idea of LA Times’ reviews are. Maybe it is a glimpse into a world where none of us live.

That’s where blogs shine. The majority of us pay for our own meals (it’s policy here at lafb). By “pay for our own meals” means that when we go out to eat, the money physically comes from our own bank account, and it’s not repaid.

As far as I am concerned, the debate is over on which is more authentic. Professional critics describe a place where no one lives, bloggers provide an authentic voice, good/bad/typos and all.

My focus in creating this website, and what I look for in reading other food blogs, is an honest dialog about great places to eat in and around Los Angeles. I look at these posts in the same way I look at my conversations with friends. We share things we like. We tell each other about new restaurants we stumbled into and what we ordered. We take these recommendations and try them out for ourselves. I don’t tell my friends that they should eat somewhere because I got a free meal (I don’t write reviews in exchange for meals) or that I ordered a dish becuase it was preposterously over priced. Furthermore, when you read a review here, you hear the author’s voice. We don’t edit or influence what is written about. We don’t require a minimum or maximum word count. It’s a real message about real meals eaten and real experiences shared.

Another article from the LA Times which glosses over local content while concentrating heavily on the East Coast. I don’t get it. This wasn’t an AP article was it? It was written expressly for the LA Times, right?

Your thoughts?

[update] Eater LA has this perfect observation:

It’s admirable for food critics like Michael Bauer and S. Irene Virbila to say they’re anonymous (and somehow keep their photos off of Google), but it would be much more admirable to admit that they aren’t anonymous at all. Whether they like it or not, both are made at the majority of restaurants they walk into. Does it sway their criticism? Obviously not; both still take a restaurant to task for its foibles. But until wigs are donned, no one’s really anonymous anymore. And speaking of Miss Irene, why didn’t she weigh in at all on this topic? It’s her paper. Her home. Is she above the question?

If that doesn’t sum up the relevance of this article, and frankly, the LA Times editorial policy, I don’t know what does. There was a perfect opportunity to survey one of its own, and The Times dropped the ball.

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.