Finally, a Restaurant Blog We Can Bear EndorsingFrankly, we’re not always flattered to be part of that great, wide, amateurish group of people known as food bloggers. But some blogs we very much admire — like Augieland, based in our own fair city (though sometimes Augie, as the man called himself when we got in touch, does write from the road, too). It’s easy to say whether you love or hate a restaurant. But on this particular site, there’s always a wealth of physical detail: “The starchy thickness of the tartares made the thin chips useless for scooping them, leaving the three of us to use chopsticks to scoop bits onto the chips,” reads a copiously illustrated review of Japonais. But all that work doesn’t mean no play: Augieland doles out ratings using stars seemingly from another galaxy (A Voce earns 211 lewinskibillion stars) and supplements reviews with random, highly enjoyable rants and wonky features, like this one on the quest to make a perfect baguette.
The Gobbler
The Godzilla RatioIntroducing Adam Platt’s periodic Internet musings, under the pseudonym of the Gobbler.
Restaurant critics are used to operating under assumed names (even if we’re usually recognized), so let me explain the etymology of Gobbler. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (online edition), “to gobble” means “to swallow or eat greedily.” Likewise, a “gobbler” is “a male turkey,” or “one that gobbles.” It’s as fitting a designation as any for someone whose job it is to sit in spangled, overpriced restaurants all night, and sometimes all day, sipping ridiculously festive cocktail drinks, taking not-so-surreptitious notes under the table, smiling wearily as the sixteenth foie gras preparation of the week comes clattering down on the table.
