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My favorite restaurant “critic” is the Zagat guide. While the consumer-based surveys are not sophisticated, they give me a sense of the restaurant’s food, service and atmosphere. I’ve consistently found their reviews to be on target and I like being able browse by ratings, top lists and location. Whenever I travel, I use the Zagat guides to orient me to the restaurant scene and give me ideas of places to try and places to avoid. Everything I want is accessible, easily read, easy to interpret, relatively trust worthy, and is contained in one very portable little red book.

I’d like to mention a food writer who has set higher standards for fearless honesty in the medium I work in, the internet. In Regina Schrambling I trust. She knows how to cook and it shows. She’s not afraid to call out a naked emperor when PR flacks are trying to sell us new clothes. She answers the simple question those of us who don’t have bottomless expense accounts ask: Will I go back? No florid sycophantism, no tenuous metaphors, just a sense of place, service, and taste in a pithy package.

Calvin Trillin’s writing on food, travel, culture and life make me feel a personal connection to him and his subject matter. His infectious enthusiasm is endearing, and his command of the language gives his writing authority and clarity.

Although Trillin’s accomplishments are enviable, he never condescends. He projects a warmth and trustworthiness that make him convincing and thought-provoking. And besides feeling that it would be a privilege to know him (his dedication to his late wife, Alice, and his three daughters is inspiring), the idea of going to a restaurant that he particularly liked is just plain exciting.

Hands down, my choice is Peter Meehan. He writes about restaurants I can afford in neighborhoods I’m not tired of going to. The big time NY critics pick greatly anticipated new arrivals and well established old timers, rarely venturing outside of Manhattan. Peter takes us to Red Hook, Bushwick, and Astoria, to hofs, taquerias, areperias, and kimchi stands. I would know nothing about the subtleties of Korean twice-fried chicken or Russian dumplings without Meehan’s articles. Additionally, Meehan is my favorite critic because he seems like he’s having fun, always mentioning the music playing in the background while he eats.

Self-described “alpha hound” Jim Leff, cofounder of chowhound.com, uncovers secret deliciousness around New York and around the world. Jim leads an on-line community of adventure eaters and has written for publications such as Newsday, Slate, Wine & Spirits, The New York Times, Time Out New York. He is also a regular contributor to The Next Big Thing on NPR. Right now Jim is crisscrossing North America on a two-month delirious road trip in search of hyperdeliciousness. This eclectic and off-beat food writer will go to culinary extremes to find edible treasures that are cooked with heart and soul.

pam@erogers.net

I have relished the simplicities at Sushi of Gari , been transported to the briny coast of Amalfi by Le Bernardin, dreamed of lazy days and earthy cigars at Cafe Habana, felt improper at the propriety of Honmura An, tasted the bravura of real lox at Barney Greengrass, suffered disappointment at the hands of David Chang, endured the post-coital regrets of Koreatown, cried at the loss of 2nd Ave deli, laughed at overindulgence of per se, applauded the performance at Double Eight Palace, relished the company of MY diner, sipped my dreams at Milk and Honey, and hoped for acceptance at Il Mulino. But I have not yet dined with Frank Bruni.

I didn't grow up in a home with gormet cooking, nor did I grow up in a metropolis with an abundance of delicious resaurants to choose from. Alas, I grew up in the western Sierra Nevada, in a small mountain town, with my Mom who was a single mother, and worked two jobs. Her busy schedule kept her from long stints in the kitchen and lead her straight to the quick and easy meals. Perhaps that is what sent me nose first into a pluthera of cook books. I will never forget my first encounter with "The Silver Palate," it was not only a spiritual awakening but it was when I first found out that not everything is cooked in a crock pot. After that I have been on what some would call a pilgrimage to learn, see, experience, and taste everything that involves food. This is where I have come across Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Riechel, and Jeffery Steingarten, and I have to say, that I have been truely inspired by Mr. Steingarten. I promise I am not sucking up, I don't even want to win, I just wanted to put in my two cents. His honesty and sincereity are inspiring, and who knows more about single ingredients than he? His writings have sent me into numerous amounts hunger fits. My newest food fantasy involves a long Steingarten tour of Eurpoe, stopping at all the restaurants and B&B's he speaks so highly of, and then to come home with a waist wider than my smile. His hours spent perfecting recipies in the kitchen shows exactly how dedicated he is to his job. He always leaves me wanting more, and that is, after all, the job of any food critic, restaurant, and/or chef.

This is my favorite foodie blogger: http://augieland.blogs.com/augie_land/

Jane and Michael Stern changed the way I eat.

My Roadfood is dog-eared and irreplaceable because the Sterns transform looking for dinner into an uncompromising search for taste in all its myriad forms. From roasted lobster on tree stumps at The Place in Guilford, CT to the peppery heat of Craig’s Bar-B-Q in DeValls Bluff, AR, Roadfood has given me places to eat. But it’s also turned me into a food explorer, and – as any eater worth his salt should know – there is no clear destination, but rather the journey is itself the goal, one bite at a time.

Blinded in the Blitz, Roy Andries de Groot could not eat with his eyes. When he described a meal his words were purely about the food.

He's the author of the only restaurant review I know of that appeared in book form, Recipes From The Auberge Of The Flowering Hearth. A wide-ranging, delightful paean to all things gustatory, it's a book that helped change the way we eat in America.

Mr. de Groot went to France seeking Les Peres Charteaux and ended up falling in love with a small inn nestled in the valley below the monastery. His depiction of the female innkeepers cooking seasonally and locally continues to influence our ideas on food to this day.

He also wrote both on food and restaurants for many magazines and eminent papers, but it is this book for which he is best remembered.

THE BEST FOOD CRITIC

Clearly, one of the judges will have to recuse himself for this one....My hands down choice is Mr Steingarten. Why ???? He has passion. Any man that can blow through as many apppliances as he has in pursuit of an ideal wins the passion contest. He writes with both style and passion which makes me care about things that previously had no interest for me. His authority derives from that same passion because he can say "been there, done that" unlike many others. Setting aside the larger issues of perceptiveness...the true essence of his approach to food is that so often, his inquiries and quests are for the things that so many of us wonder about...pizza ovens!

I don’t believe that the greatest restaurant critic lives in Chicago, but I do think that in order to critique a critic, you must at the very least, eat what they eat. So with that in mind, my vote is for Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader

Who?!

Sula’s an obsessed foodie, who pays no attention to the celebrity of chefs. He eats and writes with a fearless wit and has a distinctive point of view that includes a sense of value, both monetary and aesthetic. He refuses to drag his readers through the mundane and loves to highlight the weird.