Hooters for the food??
Apologies to those of you who don't live in or near Newport Beach/Costa Mesa, CA—other OC hounds, please share my grief.
Any of you who have the misfortune of getting the local "newspaper" (The Daily Pilot) bundled with your daily Los Angeles Times have probably noticed that the paper sucks. And their new "restaurant critic" has, if anything, made the quality of the reviews even worse than it was when random freelancers handled them. Case in point: today's utterly uncreative apologia for Hooters:
http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/20...
What I'd like to know is how one gets to be a restaurant critic. I thought the job required at least respectable writing and research skills, extensive experience with different kinds of food, and the initiative to check out places that are (1) either of local or culinary importance or (2) that should, because of the quality of their offerings, should be brought to the attention of readers who otherwise might not find out about them.
But a featured review of Hooters?? Gaaack!!
This has put me in a quandary: I now don't know what I hate most about the Daily Pilot, its slightly-to-the-right-of Musselini politics or its restaurant reviews. Maybe I take food WAY too seriously, but these "reviews" seem journalistically irresponsible to me.
End of rant. Thanks for listening.
Piglet
Jul 05, 2007 02:18PM
I don't live in your area butI know where your coming from. In Montreal there is an alternative/student/artsy weekly called the Mirror. It's always worth a read. The restaurant section was always interesting, an eclectic mix of ethic restaurants, out of the way places as well as fancier establishments. Wether the reviewer liked the place or not the restaurant was usually trying something. Then they heired a woman who would make Kathy-Lee Gifford seem shy in comparison with the amount of time she spent in each 'review' talking about her daughter. She would eventually get around to the food and that wasn't the worst of it. While she didn't review Hooters she wasn't far behind. She only seemingly would go to place that her daughter seemed to want eat at. She would go to all you can eat buffets or her local diner(where they knew her) proudly proclaiming her discovery of liver. Most of the places she went to were established kid friendly places. Not the typical establishments Mirror readers were interested in. But somehow she claimed to have 'discovered' them and would write in comicly serious tones about he quality of the onions that came with her liver. She was a funny(in a pathetic way) read, but it was also sad that a good restaurant section ceased to be.
I feel your pain.
http://meandmyfork.blogspot.com
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True, but at least Gifford wasn't utterly illiterate, as in Alice and Yanka or whoever those two idiots were. They couldn't write a single proper English - or French - sentence.
Complain to the Mirror about her. I am sure that Maeve Haldane, now on maternity leave, will not fall into such a trap. She is an excellent writer and an excellent food critic.
Going to Hooters for the food is like supporting the Nazis because one likes Volkswagens and Autobahns. Hooters is about exploitation and objectification of women, full stop.
(I'm from Montréal and I like sexy flirtiness as much as the next person here - but there IS a difference...)
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This was about ten years ago. What's to complain about she's gone. I think Spanky Horowitx came in and phased her out.
Not a big fan of Leslie(don't eat chilliean sea bass becasue it's endangered, but I will anyway) Chesterman either.
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I think it is perfectly responsible for a local critic to occasionally review a chain restaurant. And if he/she ends up liking it, who are we to say that it's wrong? I prefer local places and haven't voluntarily eaten in a chain in many years. But the overwhelming population likes them and some even consider them to be GOOD places to eat. A local paper should promote local flavor, but shouldn't ignore a popular place just because it's corporate. Please note that I said occasionally. If all that is being reviewed is mega joints, I'd probably stop reading. If a chain ends up reviewed in the midst of dozens of reviews of local offerings, so what?
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I dunno. If you live in area that has enough non-chains, the opportunity cost of reviewing a chain like Hooters (shudder) means that deserving places don't get the review.
The thing about chains is that people go there because they know precisely what they're getting - they're formatted such that every place in the chain will give the same experience. Reviews aren't really needed. If you've been to one Applebee's, you have pretty much been to them all.
Plus, Hooters? Of all the chains to review....I can maybe see reviewing a higher-end chain like PF Changs, Maggiano's Little Italy, or something. But Hooters? They serve boobs with a side of blue cheese dressing.
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"They serve boobs with a side of blue cheese dressing."--LOL!
I *totally* agree with you. And I should clarify, the area my local paper covers is not some rural hamlet in the backwoods of Appalachia, which might make a local Hooters newsworthy—*it's a freaking suburb of Los Angeles!!* And a completely urbanized and affluent one as well.
AND from my place, it's only a 10 minute drive north to the biggest Vietnamese-American community outside Vietnam (and correspondingly authentic and well-prepared food); 10 minutes east to a humongous Mexican-American enclave (taco truck heaven), and 10 minutes south to a college town/techie enclave filled with expat Persians and Chinese and their (excellent) restaurants.
To waste print space on Hooters in such a rich culinary environment is unthinkably stupid.
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I also don't see what's wrong with it. Our local restuarant critic will cover one or two chains every year and also 'wastes' the 4th of July weekend review every year on an area ice cream shop that may be a franchise as well.
I see the restaurant critic's job as covering restuarants throughtout the year that cater to every sort of cuisine, price point, and taste, not just what's supposed to be 'important' food. Sometimes, all I want to know is where to find a good chicken sandwich close to work, and if that happens to be at a chain restaurant, then so be it.
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Reviewing an ice cream shop is hardly a waste. Ice cream devotees are legion, and there's a ton of difference between good ice cream and bad ice cream. Ice cream is food, and ice cream shops are specialized restaurants, really. They deserve a review, and ice cream lovers need to know where the good ones are.
That said, do you think a critic should bother reviewing Dairy Queen? Every DQ in the country serves the exact same thing - no one's curious if the local one is any different.
Yes, critics should review a large variety of restaurants without regard to style, price, and taste. I think a local taqueria or a strip mall thai place deserves a review just as much as the newest Batali bistro or some other fine dining place. That does not mean that the mega-chains warrant a wasted column. We're talking about a huge leap from what I describe (and what you suggest) and Hooters.
Chains don't need the PR, the awareness, or the attention. They have plenty of built-in name recognition that will draw people there. A local place usually doesn't have the advertising budget - they depend on word of the mouth (which is slow to build) and reviews.
Reviews level the playing field between chains and non-chains. It's not that non-chains are more "important" - they simply are more review-worth. It's just pointless to review Hooters, or Applebee's, TGI Fridays, or places like that. You may as well review McDonald's. It's not about being pretentious, it's about economics and opportunity cost.
I would be writing to the editor and complaining about that review. A LA-based paper reviewing Hooters? There is NO excuse.
I live in a smaller market (Minneapolis) and the only chain-type places that ever get reviews are ones with unique locations. A Fogo de Chao just opened, and that got reviewed. Made sense because it's pretty high-end, and there are only about 8 in the country, and it's certainly the only one in town. I have never seen the mass-chains ever get a review from one of our papers. I think there would be a mass uprising it it happened.
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I have to add that the big chains have huge national advertising budgets. A local smaller operation dose need the publicity. While a critic can can and review what ever they please I happen to think that it's a waste of time and effort for them to do such a review. what is the point of 'reviewing' a place that you can find anywhere else in the country? A good local paper should be focusing on what is unique about the community that it covers.
http://meandmyfork.blogspot.com
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There is absolutely no food/restaurant experiance required to be a critic. Indeed there is no experiance within a field required to review any field, like movies.
And even those that do have some experiance are not required to have any knowledge of the type of cuisine they are reviewing. Two examples:
1) It drives me nuts to read a review of a vegetarian restaurant that that references everything it terms of meat counterparts. "I didn't miss the meat" is one such backhanded compliment -- why not review the food for what it is? Would they review a Chinese restaurant based on Italian cooking?
2) A review of a sushi bar that a) never mentions the rice -- it's like reviewing a steakhouse without mentioning the steak, and b) only talks about the "creative rolls". Sure, I like a good maki, but it's also a way of hiding mediocre fish.
The best thing to use a review for is for facts -- hours, etc. If, after reading the reviewer for a while, you get a sense of whether you have similar tastes/priorities or not you can figure out if you'll need a pinch or a pound of salt.
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Please continue to discuss the review/reviewer here. We've moved a discussion of the wings at Hooters to the Chains board at http://www.chowhound.com/topics/418664.
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I gotta say that I read his description of the chicken parmesan platter and if that is one of the BETTER items, I don't think I'm missing much by not having tried the local Hooters that opened here two years ago.
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And, couldn't muster the courage to try a fried pickle. Not a beating cobra's heart, a fried pickle. Wow.
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I read the review. This guy comes across as a real apologist for the place. I think perhaps he is projecting a little too much into the sophistication to the restaurant and it 'philosophy'. Ironic satire does not bring Hooters to mind. It is so biased that I can't help but wonder if this was a paid review, a favor for a 'friend' or big advertiser. From your description of your area there is really no excuse or need to 'review' hooters.
http://meandmyfork.blogspot.com
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We live in Huntington Beach and are spared the Daily Pilot and after freading that sorry excuse of a review I'm thankful. Even the title is lame, Hooters people like it for the food...really. Kinda like people read Playboy for the articles right? (cough-BS-cough)
The chicken Parm review...can we call that a review? Fried chicken with cheese and red sauce, um yeah dude thanks for clearing that up for us.
You should write the paper, that is just insulting.
Would not, could not try the deep fried pickles? (side note had these in the south and fell madly in love with them) What are they going to review at a Japanese or Vietnamese place rice and the lack of sweet and sour???? Piglet you have me ranting now.
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Thanks for the support, neighbor! I did send them as polite a letter of protest as I could muster (am expecting a burning cross on my lawn any second now...). And yes, we have some excellent Japanese/Vietnamese/Mexican places in our area, but like you, I doubt a guy who can't handle fried pickles could deal with these in a principled manner. I guess it's best that he not even try!
And if you really want to get ranting, check out the utterly brainless reader comments people posted to his review. Yikes!
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Wow, hilarious review.
Yeah, we have Elizabeth Large in the Baltimore area (Baltimore Sun), she’s pretty bad.
She complains about any trace of spiciness, waxes poetic about canned sides, and as a rule orders the most boring/predictable items at the given place.
If you want a review of teriyaki chicken at a sushi bar, then she’s your gal.
I think there is a union or something.
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The amusing thing about this post to me that my sister and I, both at least somewhat of the femininist persuasion, went to the Hooters in Fort Meyers Florida for reasons I no longer recall. We both have returned for a pretty mean grouper sandwich. It sure shocked both of us as neither of us are chain food afficianados.
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My wife loves some of the food at Hooters. Especially the wings and burgers.
I definately go for the food. The girls certainly help but if they served those wings in burkas, I'd still go.
DT
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