Restaurant Criticism: Is Anonymity Possible, Post-Google?
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 09.12.07 | 3:47 PM ET
Many restaurant critics treasure their anonymity, slipping into restaurants and sampling dishes without fearing they’re getting special treatment. But as Regina Schrambling writes in today’s Los Angeles Times, that’s becoming increasingly difficult to do in a post-Google environment. “After Google, the rules are being rewritten by the hour,” she writes. “When any human being is searchable online not just verbally but visually, how can a critic possibly hope to retain anonymity long enough to give a restaurant a fair evaluation? Throw blogs into the mix and it’s a mashup of Facebook and a masquerade ball. In the last month, a youngish but old-style critic adamant about his anonymity has been involuntarily outed for all of cyberspace and thousands of magazine readers to see, while a blogger-turned-critic happy to bask in the limelight has been hired by a newspaper that puts her pulchritude on prominent display with every review.”
All of that prompts the question, is anonymity critical in fairly assessing a restaurant?
Opinions vary, but Los Angeles critic Jonathan Gold, whose mug was splashed across newspapers after he won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, told the Times he “noticed absolutely no difference in being recognized in restaurants. None. Zero.”
That said, Gold ventures into the kinds of hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurants we love, where the owners and chefs probably aren’t expecting big-name critics to walk through the door often.
Related on World Hum:
* Restaurants ‘Nudge Diners’ in Campaign for Zagat Votes
* And the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Travel Writings Goes to?
Related on TravelChannel.com:
Anthony Bourdain: Good Places to Eat (Video)
Photo by pixeljones via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Tom 09.13.07 | 1:54 PM ET
If you like Dessert salads after your meal I’d say that MESQUITE HEAT 5030 S. Rangeline RD Joplin MO is your place.
Actually the Salads were SUPPOSED to be the start of the meal, But they brought them after bringing out the main course.
This wasn’t a one time thing either.
It happen both times we visited MESQUITE HEAT, and the visits were months apart.
Also it doesn’t matter how you order your steak, it’ll be however they feel like bringing to you.
Certainly don’t expect the managment/owners to do anything about the uncooked steak that you,ve sent back twice.
I would give them a 2 on a 1-10 scale just because they have nice decor.