Not sure how many of you agree with me, but can I just point out that the food reviews in this paper are lackluster? Every paragraph is laid out in the same or similar pattern, like the author follows a CV template: Loosely describe venue, note how many people are in the restaurant, use poor imagery to describe components of the dish, end all paragraphs with a short sentence to make it stand out. Honestly, your review of I Love Pho made me cringe. Wiggly noodles? Smushy noodles? I don’t know what you look for when you go for pho, but as someone who grew up eating pho at dingy holes-in-the-wall of a sprawling multicultural triad of cities, that is definitely not how I want my pho or most noodles for that matter. Also, for the Forbidden City article, how many times in a three-sentence paragraph can you describe the same dish with the word “spicy”? Oh, and you know what else is smushy? Shit. —tonguingwithfoodforever
This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2016.
This rag is nothing more than a jumped-up campus newspaper staffed by writers who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are actually working for a living.
“OMFG – we can actually use profanity in our articles. That is SOOO cutting edge!”
When everything is always great at every place, something is wrong. I never read them, let alone reply on them.
Dan Savage is the only column worth reading in the Coast. The rest of this bum-fluff publication is simply ultra liberal South End fodder for the politically naive.
Hm. And yet, even though you believe that Dan Savage’s is the only column worth reading, here you are!
Yep, that’s pretty much it, Bobbi. Big woof.
That’s sad. They could actually save a ton of money just re-using Yelp and Trip Advisor reviews instead of having a 5 year old describe a meal.
A nurse told me my shit should be the consistency of peanut butter.
So I had to ask: “Smooth or crunchy?”
I had to ask…
You absolutely do not have to like my writing or approach, but I have 650 words to include information about food, atmosphere, and space—which, yes, I usually do before the description of the food, because that is the order that people generally experience a restaurant—and if I didn’t include anything about the physical spaces, people would be bitching about that. Seriously: don’t read stuff by writers you don’t like. Your life will be better for it! So will the writer’s!
I will say, though, that “everything is always great” is not how I would describe my reviews. It is very rare that everything is great. And, for the record, pho noodles ~are~ squishy. All noodles are. They are soft. They are pliable. Squishy doesn’t have to mean the absolute absence of firmness. The fact that pho has an assortment of texture—the squishiness of noodles, the firmness of meat, the crunch of sprouts—is part of what makes the dish such a great one. It’s only a problem if things get too squishy. Or “smushy.” (Which is a word I did not write.) As for writing “spicy” too many times in a single paragraph, yeah that sucked! ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Oh my, they’re written by the same folks that comment on LTWWB. Enough said?
Well, if The Coast disappeared, there would be exactly zero worthwhile reporting on City Hall, except for some of the stuff in the Halifax Examiner. That alone earns this thing its keep.
Actually, properly cooked noddles are described as “el dente”. A restaurant reviewer should at least know that term.
I don’t know that term, but I do know ‘al dente.’
I’ve never had a problem with her reviews. She does what a food reviewer should do. Admittedly, I haven’t read a food review in the coast for awhile, but when I did they never seemed too nice. Things could of changed. Give her a break on how she writes, fuck, it’s just food reviews. You guys expect gonzo food reviews?
C’man, no restaurant in Nova Scotia is going to cook their noodles to al dente consistency. Maybe, just maybe, da maurizio or bicycle thief, maybe.
My budgie’s favorite paper to shit on is The Coast.
Please keep the paper edition…
Melissa as “food critic”, you should have used the proper term. As for my typo el, unfortunately the Coast doesn’t allow for editing (except for five minutes and not even a full five minutes if you leave the thread), unlike you get, plus you also supposedly go through an editor.
Who are you to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do? Or to tell any writer how they should write their own words? You are talking about one specific term that has synonyms, a consistency that can be described in dozens of ways. I can use whatever words, terms, and descriptions that I want when I write. If you need to see words that ~you~ want to use to describe something, go ahead and write your own review. (And link, pls!) And if you don’t like how I write, don’t read what I write.
I’ve never read your reviews, Scary Spice, just not that interested in food reviews per se — but I do agree with what you’re saying. It’s easy to criticize someone’s writing; picking apart words like that is pretty lame. Writing styles are as subjective as taste in music can be. I’m sure there are many people who dig your vibes. Bro Tim is kind of a wiener sometimes, don’t let him bother you.
Get it…”wiener”…and we’re talking about FOOD reviews? Classic.
The only food critic worth his salt is Yelp’s #1 food critic, Eric Cartman.
‘…BroTim is not awful. He just thinks he’s smarter than most. Because of that, he’s very condescending. Don’t blame him, his mommy probably told him he was smart too much…’
Holy fuck, I just time-travelled back to middle school. Hahahahahaha!!!!
^^ You must be new here then 🙂