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Food Bloggers Giving Restaurant Owners Heartburn
crimeandpunishment writes "Call it the invasion of the pasta paparazzi. Food bloggers are so excited about sharing their experiences, especially at trendy, popular restaurants, that they're too busy taking pictures and video to enjoy the food when it's at its best. Many signature dishes come out at the perfect temperature ... take a few minutes to capture what it looks like, and your palate won't be nearly as pleased. Some restaurants have taken the step of banning cameras, or at least have established a 'no flash' rule. Others just want to make sure enthusiastic reviewers are still enthused after eating their food."
People fail to realize that the point of food is to enjoy the taste. It doesn't matter how it looks, as long as it tastes good.
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True. This is a load of gibberish. When you have a table of 4, with 4 different entrees, do you really think the chef/cook/etc got it perfectly right so as to have all 4 entrees (and sides) done at the perfect temperature simultaneously? Really?
No, three of them sat under a heat lamp for a minute, two, or five, while the last entree (and accompaniments) were getting finished.
Writer has never worked in a restaurant kitchen.
Perhaps the real problem is that all the flash lights disturb the other guests in the restaurant.
...a few minutes? What is this, the 1840's?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography
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Even if they did, they are expected to hold their taste long enough for them to be, you know, eaten?
Which, if you do it right, can take some time. Divide into bite-sized portions, not too big, convey to mouth, chew *thoroughly*, then and only then swallow. Then take a sip of your drink, probably engage in conversation for a minute, before repeating.
If taking a minute at the beginning of the meal to take pictures degrades the taste, then the taste will be degraded horribly by the time the diner finishes the plate. And people who take a moment to close their eyes and thank $deity for their food would be ruining it too. It's a bunch of nonsense.
Flash photography can be distracting and annoying, however.
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I don't know about anyone else, but when I have to wait at a restaurant to get seated and then wait for food, the only thing on my mind when that food appears is eating it. Sure I'll talk about how good it tastes and how great it looks, but that's gonna happen while eating it. I'm not going to go "Sweet! That's EXACTLY what I wanted and I'm starving, oh it smells so good I'm just going to whip out my iPhone and start blogging about it." No, I'm hungry gosh darn it, GET IN MY BELLY!
-=JML=-
I always though geeks were into cooking? First impressions matter. The first bite cements a flavor memory, that sticks with you as your food cools. Miss the window of opportunity and a great dish just becomes good or even meh. This is also why good food is generally served in small portions. Its like your first sip of coffee in the morning, if you waited tell it was cold or left it in the pot to burn you might just spit it out. But if you had a few drinks before waiting tell its past its prime you might just finish off that last gulp or two without any problem. Same thing.
People are weird as hell.
No exceptions.
Snobs who eat things like the above mentioned dish and call it "an experience" are assholes and the world would probably be a better place if they didn't have a blog.
Obviously. First, a good restaurant chef will time things so that they get done as close to each other as possible. Second, some of the dishes will come off of the stove or out of the oven a bit hotter than the perfect temperature and need a minute or two to cool down; generally, those are plated first, so that by the time everything else is done, they're Just Right.
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I would be against the flash, that would only annoy those around you. It's possible to take good pictures without flash, and take pictures pretty quickly. I suggest that food bloggers learn how to not use flash, for one, for the annoyance, another, flash distorts the appearance of the surroundings with light that's only there for a fraction of a second, it's not the restaurant's normal lighting. It helps to learn how to be discrete too. Have the camera set up already, when no one is looking, take it out of the bag, snap a few quick shots and put it away before anyone notices.
Look, if you think $12 a plate (e.g. Applebees) is high end, you're not going to the kind of restaurant where timing is critical (although applebees does still make an attempt to come out at the same time...). Not coincidentally, you're also not going to the kind of restaurant where people would consider taking a picture of the food.
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It sounds like some of the photographers in question are avoiding flash by setting up tripods, which somehow also seems pretty tacky to do in a restaurant, at least unless you're an official photographer brought in by the restaurant.
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That could be said of bloggers in general. I'm interested in the opinions of experts and scholars, not the average person. The ease of entry into blogging is what puts it at the forefront of the common man information revolution, or whatever. But I'm not interested in the facile/banal musings of halfwits with the delusion of insight.
Of course, I'm putting my opinion out there right now... but I haven't put it out in my own, ostensibly unique little forum, as though I'm some formidable intellectual force.
Wait, do you seriously blog about how your roommate's cooking is not as good as yours, mostly because of your "level of dedication", being a culinary arts student?
Talk about braggarts and pretentious pricks.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Oh, you're one of those, who equate quantity with quality.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Oh, you're one of those, who equate quantity with quality.
Serving a portion size unable to sate a common appetite misses the point of food and eating. Plating skill and preparation are distinguishing features on top of eating, unless one is attending an explicit 'tasting'. Or else it's an underhanded way to upsell dessert.
$10/oz meals that aren't using very expensive ingredients are for the Stockholm diners.
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