Serious Eats
Critic-Turned-Cook Finds Critical Eating Habit Hard to Break
[Photograph: Robyn Lee]
Since my dining budget has gone from $30,000-plus a year to zero, I don't go out often. That's why it really grinds my corn when meals go terribly wrong.
As much fun as I'm having in the kitchen at Alpha Sigma Phi at the University of Washington, I occasionally wish I still had my print platform to write about restaurants that are like that emperor who had no clothes. I may not be a restaurant critic anymore, but that doesn't mean I stopped being a critical eater. The time spent in the kitchen on my quest to try and become a cook have given me new insight about the millions of little details that go into turning raw ingredients into something critics rave about. And it also means I can more easily spot when cooks are being careless or cutting corners.
I recently went to a new place that was getting good word of mouth with a couple of friends in the restaurant industry. Unfortunately, it was an absolute bomb. While the room was beautiful, the mussels were off and the chicken liver pate tasted old and rank. My French 75 was drowning in lemon juice. Frites were lukewarm. It wasn't just my opinion—my friends couldn't believe what they tasted. We decided not to venture beyond those appetizers.
But here's what was so disappointing: Our server took the nearly full plates away without asking why we barely touched the food. That's unforgivable.
I'm not trying to be coy, but I'm not going to name the restaurant. It wouldn't be fair. As a critic, I would visit a restaurant at least three times before writing a review. Maybe it was an off night. The place seems to be a crowd pleaser.
Still, don't most diners give a place just one shot? If you have a bad meal, do you go back for seconds or do you tell everybody you know that it was suck-y and then trash the chef on Yelp?
Fortunately, that experience was not the norm. For every bad meal I suffered through, there are hundreds of memorable bites. Pretty good odds, right?
About the author: Former Seattle Post-Intelligencer restaurant critic Leslie Kelly has been working in professional kitchens since the newspaper folded in March and chronicling her culinary journey from pen to pan for Serious Eats. She also blogs at LeslieKellyWhiningandDining.blogspot.com and recently launched a story-telling project for Northstar Winery following one wine from the vine to the table.