'Top Chef Masters' Host Kelly Choi: 'Food Bloggers Are Mean'
"The whole idea of blogging about let’s say a new restaurant opening and really cutting down on them—if there’s anything really negative, the form of being anonymous and doing it rampantly is cowardly. There’s definitely a place for constructive critique, but every now and then you come across a review for a restaurant, meal or service that’s just biting, and that’s really uncool. I don’t see it too often, but if you have a real complaint and if you feel that strongly, I hope that person expressed that in the restaurant. You can say anything if you do it nicely." [True/Slant]
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25 Comments:
First of all...how often does that happen? I read all kinds of food blogs and the amount of time spent "cutting down" restaurants is probably in the "under 1%" region. So when she spends an entire answer on food blogs throwing the baby out with the bath water, that's a wasted opportunity on her part to spotlight something worth reading.
Secondly, if it's *justified*, there's nothing wrong with critiquing a restaurant. I think making a customer pay for more than what he or she is getting is "cowardly."
lawofmurphy at 12:13PM on 06/09/09
Yeah, I think she's knocking down a straw man here, as she talks about "anonymous" bloggers. Most bloggers I read use real names, etc., and do make constructive criticism.
Adam Kuban at 12:26PM on 06/09/09
Kelly Choi is really cute. Who cares what she says.
NYBITECLUB at 12:31PM on 06/09/09
I think the commenters above are seeing through some serious rose colored glasses. The world of food blogging is in fact anonymous and extremely critical!! It is in people's nature to go out to eat and get ready to pick apart the food and experience from every angle possible. This disposition plays out quite a bit with food blogging, am I the only one who feels this way?? I am an avid food blogger, but it is overtly negative which is also something I enjoy.
Timothyrows at 12:34PM on 06/09/09
Ruth Reichl worked somewhat anonymously for the NY Times for years. When she didn't like a restaurant and printed it, was she mean too?
The difference here is that food bloggers aren't given the same credibility as print journalists. And she should be careful, because I already doubt her credibility as a host of this new show. People are going to be comparing her to Padma every step of the way. If she thinks food bloggers are mean now, she hasn't seen anything yet.
philn at 12:35PM on 06/09/09
I had some serious snark and venom ready. I even typed it out. But then I thought better of myself and went to the source to read the full quote. And my snark and venom went away.
That was the first part. That was the part that will get any number of SeriousEats.com folks in a tizzy. And that's the part that got me pretty damn pissed at Choi.
Then I read this, which IMMEDIATELY followed the above statement. Response to the same quesiton. In the same answer. In the same paragraph:
I agree with that. She was imprecise in her initial reaction, and then qualified and expanded on it. She's not anti-food blogger. She's anti-food bloggers who "every now and then you come across a review for a restaurant, meal or service that’s just biting, and that’s really uncool."
Too true. "Every now and then" you do. She's not saying every food blog is crap, or that every restaurant review is negative, biting, or cowardly.
There are food blogs that feel it is important to be negative, that believe trashing a joint is good blogging and who will defend negativity in the name of 'letting the people know' and 'expressing my personal opinion.'
Both true statements, but also not why I got into blogging about food, so I'm less inclined to be sympathetic. I do this because I love cooking and food. I want to share the exceptional things I've eaten, to give someone a chance to find a new place that's good, to tell stories about people cooking food that make my readers want to eat there, to create something in MY kitchen that makes the people who eat it and who read about more excited about food.
And because there are bloggers who think it's there job to tell the world about the 37 seconds too long they had to wait for their overpriced combo meal or the maitre d' who clearly sat the out-of-towners in their favorite seat to spite them for being 10 minutes late for a Friday night reservation; Choi's quote gets clipped in a manner that gets food bloggers all riled up.
Fah!
I think that communities of interest have some responsibility to self-police and I think that in general the Darwinism of the public food blogger world will also answer some of Choi's gripe. If there are comment trolls, we let them know. If there are crap food blogs, we probably don't read them. But to stand in 'blogger solidarity' because someone in the food world but not the blogger world expresses an opinion about some of the negativity out there in the 'sphere is an unproductive use of bandwidth.
Go find a restaurant you really like instead. And blog about it.
kitchengeeking at 12:48PM on 06/09/09
Try posting a video on YouTube and see how hateful 13 year old girls are. You'll think Food Bloggers are the nicest bunch of people online.
averagebetty at 12:48PM on 06/09/09
Thanks for posting the rest of the comment kitchengeeking. I think it was a bit of a wind up to post only the first bit here on SE. It's not the kind of tactic they normally seem to take, it's too bad.
mgnnn at 1:11PM on 06/09/09
@kitchengeeking, @mgnnn: Yeah. You're right. I just posted the rest of the quote. I was guilty of only putting the most provocative part up. The quote now is in its entirety.
Adam Kuban at 1:14PM on 06/09/09
@kitchengeeking - I really think she exaggerates the issue. But I can only go by what I read. Are there a ton of angry blogs I've overlooked? All of the food blogs I read devote MOST of their time to actually cooking.
And all the same, I stand by the point that she wasted her answer. Had she just pointed us to some food blogs that she thinks have quality, she'd be doing herself a better service. To me, she's just tilting at windmills...
lawofmurphy at 1:34PM on 06/09/09
I think she is confusing bloggers with yelpers.
Burritowings at 1:55PM on 06/09/09
I don't think I've ever really read an overly negative restaurant review on a food blog?! I guess because I mostly read ones focused on cooking/baking rather that reviews, but still...I think this is a little overreaction...
cupcakemuffin at 2:09PM on 06/09/09
can't help it. i was born as a mean ass motherfucker. oh wellz.
foodinmouth at 2:17PM on 06/09/09
I am a food blogger and I think my reviews are largely positive. If I have a bad meal, it has to be truly bad before I say anything to the effect. And when I do, it's to alert other diners of potential issues, not merely to badmouth.
Kelly shouldn't give us a bad name. After all, I blog on AllTopChef (http://alltopchef.blogspot.com) and will be doing my best to promote her new show. Maybe not her so much now....
theminx at 2:34PM on 06/09/09
@Adam Kuban - Thanks. I think the provocative part of the quote is still something worth talking about, and agree with @lawofmurphy that most food blogs are about cooking AND that Choi is mostly "tilting at widmills."
The vast majority of food blogs I have seen are simply a blogger's personal relationship with food and cooking. To let any media, be it traditional, new media attached to traditional, or other bloggers, try and paint food bloggers with her broad brush in the initial portion of the quote does a disservice to all of us who simply love food and want to share our perspective with the world.
And/But while that vast majority of blogs are positive, informational and/or instructional; there are those who believe the ability to post opinions about restaurants or food on the internet justifies that opinion as well-formed. Oftentimes the coexistent beliefs that having no editor means your blog requires no technical proficiency in writing AND that your audience will be better off for having read your hatchet-job review find their way into the mix as well.
So I suppose 1)Choi's quote is misleading in-and-of itself and paints with too broad a brush; but 2) there are enough examples of her kernal of complaint to warrant use of the quote as a jumping off point to have that meta-chat about what makes good food blogs and why people might think food bloggers have some monolithic uber-foodie chip on their shoulders.
Wow, and that is WAY too much typing in my 'professional' voice and WAY too long since I wrote snark-ily.
kitchengeeking at 2:37PM on 06/09/09
She's just pissed because all food bloggers know she's a complete hack who knows nothing about food (evident by her horrendous hosting of Eat Out NY) and has no right attempting a national food show.
DanielJ at 2:54PM on 06/09/09
i'm still trying to figure out how she went from public access to national tv.
her comment is the same straw man crap that i see in the news media all the time talking about political blogs. sure, there are assholes who don't know what they are talking about, but it's not like they are widely read or respected (for that reason). it's just a way for her to make clear to everyone that she is an officially sanctioned opinion maker and that people who write "blogs" aren't (she is very serious people and those dirty fucking hippies are not).
on the other hand, she has a good point about giving restaurants a chance to resolve any problems you have before you leave.
sloppy at 4:05PM on 06/09/09
i just don't find it offensive. it seems like you may be overlooking the "I don’t see it too often" part. it sounds like she's speaking of a small number food bloggers and some of you seem to agree that there are a few out there that offer biting critiques. and she also says that this is something she sees every now and then, which i interpret as her seeing it infrequently.
_greenbean at 4:12PM on 06/09/09
She OBVOUSLY meant commenters and not bloggers.
Deb07 at 6:03PM on 06/09/09
she's just pissed off because i outed "her landing strip" on the-feedbag.
kkmdevelopers at 7:02PM on 06/09/09
I value the opinion of 99.9% of food bloggers more than Kelly Choi. Most of them eat, and quite a few of them can string sentences together in an impromptu fashion without the use of a teleprompter. Yes, perhaps most of them don't have a size 0 behind attached to a 5'11 body. But you can tell by reading if someone knows food and you should respect their opinion, more often than not--versus someone who becomes a 'food personality' based upon their appearance alone.
But if I was a supermodel who looked like Kelly Choi, I wouldn't bother learning too much about food, so I can't blame her too much :P
HeartofGlass at 8:13PM on 06/09/09
There's a food site I know of where the comments range from fanboy fawning to total condemnation. In the end, the restaurant got their money...they got food and the thrill of posting about it so they can pretend to be food critics. Then they sign up for "Rock 'n Roll Camp".
chanterelle at 11:10PM on 06/09/09
With the exception of 1 blog in my blog roll, the food blogs that I read do not do reviews of restaurants. They cook their own food, comment on it, share ideas, etc.
As far as the "anonymous" complaint, she should be more worried about the customer that anonymously leaves the restaurant unsatisfied, than one blogger. The negative comments I usually hear are after lunch at work (I ate at _______ and it was awful) or on Monday's (we went to so and so over the weekend and were Sooooo disappointed).
swibirun at 11:11PM on 06/09/09
Her points seem very straight forward and valid. Anonymous criticism that is either malicious or personal (i.e.: not constructive) is cowardly whether it occurs in a owners blog, through comments, or in reviews such as Menupages, Yelp, etc.
I wonder what the participation of comments would be on Serious Eats if they could not be anonymous...
Chris De Noia at 12:49AM on 06/10/09
@burritowings--I think that's so true!
candk at 7:03PM on 06/10/09