Food Critics

magic_murph

They are all full of self importance, notions, my opinion is better than yours and glorified bloggers.
The end.

El Weirdo

Bad review, yeah?

magic_murph

I wasn't reviewed but just read some drivel in the Indo (I take responsibility for reading the Indo)

Sky King

magic_murph wrote: »

They are all full of self importance, notions, my opinion is better than yours and glorified bloggers.
The end.

That's most critics in fairness.

Music critics are unmitigated cnuts. Have you ever actually read a music review? Good ones, bad ones, they're all total nonsense, full of stupid fking buzzwords like 'soundscape' just fuk off like.

branie2

I never pay heed to them anyway

Arghus

Berties_Horse wrote: »

'Pitchfork' are onanistic in their slavish devotion to antiseptic indie muzak.

Turning to food critics, Michael Winner's column in the Sunday Times was didactic swill. Made Clarkson almost bearable by comparison.

Not any more, they've totally sold out in the last few years and now give top marks to hip-hop and mainstream pop, because that's where the clicks/money are.

jimgoose

Richie Corrigan eats food critics. He's my guy. :cool:

Stevieluvsye

I like Jay Rayner. Honest critic

odyssey06

magic_murph wrote: »

They are all full of self importance, notions, my opinion is better than yours and glorified bloggers. The end.

Mostly true. Probably goes with the territory.
That said, I would be fully prepared to develop self important notions and inflated opinions if it meant I could dine and wine for free

magic_murph

It's all just subjective - your taste in food is not the same as mine, you have to wait 10 minutes to get a drinks order in but on my visit drinks arrive straight away.
They serve some level of usefulness but only just.

jimgoose

odyssey06 wrote: »

Mostly true. Probably goes with the territory.
That said, I would be fully prepared to develop self important notions and inflated opinions if it meant I could dine and wine for free

I often say I'd love Jeremy Clarkson's job during the day, and A.A. Gill's at night, if the poor divil wasn't dead.

Arghus

There is an irony in us all here on an Internet message board criticising the critics for their usefulness.

Aongus Von Bismarck

Food critics provide an invaluable service to those of us who love and admire the culinary arts, and the work of some of its finest artists. I can see how they might annoy people who eat to live, rather than live to eat. The people who believe portion size equates to value, and therefore are found queueing up at all-you-can-eat buffets, the pub carvery, the diner style burger joint. The sort of people who buy microwaveable cheeseburgers from Lidl.

A.A. Gill was one of the finest writers of his generation, and his best known work was in the field of restaurant critique. As an aside, I'd put rather more faith in the opinions of a critic, than of the gibbering opinions of people on sites like Google Reviews and Tripadvisor - there was a review of The Greenhouse recently where the gombeen who wrote it was complaining about a white wine being paired with a lamb neck dish, as if red wine is the only acceptable compliment to a red meat dish.

Of the current crew, Jay Rayner is my favourite restaurant critic writing in English.

jimgoose

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

Food critics provide an invaluable service to those of us who love and admire the culinary arts, and the work of some of its finest artists. I can see how they might annoy people who eat to live, rather than live to eat. The people who believe portion size equates to value...

You do get a lot of people who use only one criterion for all eateries, viz. the quantity served. It irritates me a great deal. :pac:

Stevieluvsye

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

Food critics provide an invaluable service to those of us who love and admire the culinary arts, and the work of some of its finest artists. I can see how they might annoy people who eat to live, rather than live to eat. The people who believe portion size equates to value, and therefore are found queueing up at all-you-can-eat buffets, the pub carvery, the diner style burger joint. The sort of people who buy microwaveable cheeseburgers from Lidl.

A.A. Gill was one of the finest writers of his generation, and his best known work was in the field of restaurant critique. As an aside, I'd put rather more faith in the opinions of a critic, than of the gibbering opinions of people on sites like Google Reviews and Tripadvisor - there was a review of The Greenhouse recently where the gombeen who wrote it was complaining about a white wine being paired with a lamb neck dish, as if red wine is the only acceptable compliment to a red meat dish.

Of the current crew, Jay Rayner is my favourite restaurant critic writing in English.

I like his little beard too

magic_murph

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

Food critics provide an invaluable service to those of us who love and admire the culinary arts, and the work of some of its finest artists. I can see how they might annoy people who eat to live, rather than live to eat. The people who believe portion size equates to value, and therefore are found queueing up at all-you-can-eat buffets, the pub carvery, the diner style burger joint. The sort of people who buy microwaveable cheeseburgers from Lidl.

A.A. Gill was one of the finest writers of his generation, and his best known work was in the field of restaurant critique. As an aside, I'd put rather more faith in the opinions of a critic, than of the gibbering opinions of people on sites like Google Reviews and Tripadvisor - there was a review of The Greenhouse recently where the gombeen who wrote it was complaining about a white wine being paired with a lamb neck dish, as if red wine is the only acceptable compliment to a red meat dish.

Of the current crew, Jay Rayner is my favourite restaurant critic writing in English.

Just because a critic raves / slates a restaurant doesn't mean your experience will be the same the value attributed to their review is somewhat open to debate.
Personally I would trust somebody I actually know to recommend somewhere to eat or drink.

jimgoose

magic_murph wrote: »

Just because a critic raves / slates a restaurant doesn't mean your experience will be the same the value attributed to their review is somewhat open to debate.
Personally I would trust somebody I actually know to recommend somewhere to eat or drink.

Be careful there. Two of the three most piss-poor dining experiences I've had in years were recommended by a close friend - in fairness, the same chap does tend to prefer places where they give him a forklift instead of cutlery. The third was a local four-star hotel. Of course a lot of these hotel people these days seem to think "four star" means square wash-basins and a swimming pool, and some Boris in an ill-fitting suit explaining to you in fractured English why the restaurant is closed despite the fact that you have a reservation. Go figure... :pac:

CrankyHaus

Food Critics are probably the least "sold-out" of critics.
With honourable exceptions Music and Film criticism is increasingly very obviously bought and paid for, with much of the remainder pretending not to hate utter rubbish for fear of losing relevance in the face of changing tastes; hence so much Marvel dross being hailed as good-excellent movies.
Restaurant critics in contrast generally seem to give fairly honest opinions, while I'd still never trust them entirely.
Opinions of people you know and trust are still by far the best way to find good places.