14 ms·
After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table
- jprd 2y agohttps://archive.md/5IQiB https://archive.md/5IQiB
- shalmanese 2y agoRight when FiveThirtyEight launched, they did a brilliant piece of content strategy in that one of their very first pieces was a quest to find the best burrito in America [1]. Anna Maria Barry-Jester self reportedly "traveled more than 20,000 miles around the United States and eaten 84 burritos in two rounds (to say nothing of the dozens of extracurricular burritos I polished off)." I was glued to the series as it plodded on week by week and it still sticks in my mind today as simultaneously the best and worst job in the world I could imagine. Part of what made it so enthralling to read was this grand act of human perversity that a single woman would endure such a gruelling quest for such a trivial question and she made you feel that perversity along every step of the journey. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americas-best-burrito/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americas-best-burrito/
- Modified3019 2y agoThat’s amazing. I bet she was feeling like this toward the end even if only in spirit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCwfil6r1cg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCwfil6r1cg
- tomjakubowski 2y agoBarry-Jester kept her cool on her burrito quest, where Jim Haggerty drove his RV into the depths of madness searching for our greatest barbecue, in Porkin' Across America.
- BariumBlue 2y ago> Part of what made it so enthralling to read was this grand act of human perversity that a single woman would endure This is part of why I enjoy watching a couple of RuneScape YouTubers. The sheer time commitments they put in for seemingly minor gains is like gore but for amputating off their own time effort & energy and throwing it into a bottomless maw.
- quirino 2y agoCan you suggest a couple of channels? I've never played RuneScape but those videos sound right up my alley.
- a5huynh 2y agoNot op but one my favorites is: https://www.youtube.com/@Settledrs https://www.youtube.com/@Settledrs Very entertaining to watch and explains things so even non players can understand the sheer absurdity of some of the attempts.
- hoten 2y agoStart with Settled's swampletics. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWiMc19-qaA3u1ZawZQIKAh0BknPvoK8a&si=R9pVaBRa1XEWXfgj https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWiMc19-qaA3u1ZawZQIKAh0B... The other good one from the same channel is Tileman, where he is limited to only using tiles that have been "unlocked" His current feature is Lowlife, where if he takes a single point of damage his account gets deleted.
- jaggederest 2y agoNot Runescape but a similar grindfest - playing the largest Factorio mod, Space Exploration. 300 hours plus in ~5 hours of video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hRJ-CcwvrI&list=PLtyo3aqsNv_MWCN0PHLPctrNCvfrBuRl6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hRJ-CcwvrI&list=PLtyo3aqsNv...
- rcxdude 2y agoThere are definitely factorio mod(pack)s which are more of a timesink: seablock and pyanodon's spring to mind.
- swarnie 2y agoTwo "extreme one chunk" style accounts in which the creators are or should be heavily medicated. Verf - https://www.youtube.com/@VerfRS https://www.youtube.com/@VerfRS Limpwurt - https://www.youtube.com/@Limpwurt https://www.youtube.com/@Limpwurt
- dyauspitr 2y agoI can’t imagine how it could in any way be the worst job.
- mythrwy 2y agoNot sure I agree that this is a trivial question. Very few things in life are as important as burritos in my view.
- ggm 2y agoMonads. Monads are as important as Burritos.
- EGreg 2y agoI used to joke that if you go to the movies or restaurants etc. you could open pass-through tax LLCs (which are “disregarded entities” at the IRS) and write those off as a business expense, as long as you had a website as a food or movie critic / reviewer, and even had a way to subscribe for some paid memberships (eg Patreon) and also advertising with affiliate sales (eg Amazon) for recipes, movie rentals etc. You know, running a business kind of like that guy who writes about inside Apple news very rarely but effectively (what’s his name, Gruber? Daring Fireball?) The business doesn’t actually have to make money in the first few years, as long as you are making bona-fide attempts to grow it. No one requires you to watch every movie or eat every burrito. But who is the government to say you’re not trying to run a business as a food or movie critic? Much of your personal lifestyle could then be deducted as a business expense on your schedule C, being “necessary and ordinary” for your various LLCs. Perhaps even your travel expenses if you are a travel blogger staying at hotels etc. But maybe it’s not a joke. Any lawyers or accountants on HN see any problems with this? Again, I’m talking about doing the minimum to make this an actual business — it may become profitable through the monetization but even if it isn’t, that’s 30% additional you’re saving on what would otherwise be your personal entertainment expenses! The main issue I see is that if your LLC has debts that it defaults on, a court might see you as “commingling” personal funds with the business, even if you keep the accounts separate, and pierce the corporate veil. But, this is a separate issue of limiting liability for debts, which your LLC doesn’t have to even take on. Even if that were the case, from a tax point of view the question is only whether the expenses are necessary for the business, and ordinary, both of which they are.
- paxys 2y ago> Much of your personal lifestyle could then be deducted as a business expense on your schedule C, being “necessary and ordinary” for your various LLCs That's not how it works. You can maybe deduct the price of your movie ticket and mileage to drive to the theater. Anything beyond that and the IRS will be up your ass in an instant.
- EGreg 2y agoWell that’s what I’m talking about. The price of all your movie tickets and mileage to drive to the theater, perhaps even your netflix subscription etc. Or if you’re a travel blogger, the plane rides and hotel stays become a business expense if you’re doing it for profit as part of an LLC. You have to have an actual business plan with memberships, advertisements, etc. You could be making money with it. But even if you aren’t yet, as long as you’re trying, the business expenses made by an LLC that you are investing into, are deductible on your personal Schedule C! Are they not?
- fooker 2y agoWow I’d be so happy to do this as a full time job!
- greggsy 2y ago“… evaluated 67,391 burrito-selling establishments…” How does this even work? If a local or federal government attempted to do this type of survey, they would end up having to pay McKinsey seven figures just to plan the whole operation..
- jononor 2y agoHmm. If one spends just 60 seconds on each, it would be a 6 month full time gig. Barely enough time to look at info/photos on Google maps and make a few quick judgement calls. Of course one could maybe reduce this of them by setting a threshold on their rating, maybe also number of reviews added last 12 months, etc. But yeah - lots of labor to actually evaluate thousands of anything. Months possibly.
- jjmarr 2y agoYou'd love the brilliant parody from The Onion "Porkin' Across America" on his journey to taste pork across the country and destroy his life on camera. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4NL9i-Fu15jdlr2KQf_lyhXl5f0PFnzF&si=pAyhpscC30hP-uFv https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4NL9i-Fu15jdlr2KQf_lyhXl...
- jazzyjackson 2y ago> Part of what made it so enthralling to read was this grand act of human perversity I felt the same way about Eddy Burback's "I ate at every Rainforest Cafe in the Country" [and Canada] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA-bjpKvIw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA-bjpKvIw8
- UIUC_06 2y agoGreat article. If you ask a real chef, "What do home chefs do wrong the most?" They will often say, "Not enough butter, not enough salt."
- paulpauper 2y agoThis is why eating out is so bad if you're on a diet. Too much oil and fat, sugar, salt, fat, and other stuff
- foobarian 2y agoI feel like restaurants really have an unfair advantage there as far as flavor goes. Whenever I try to make something following a recipe, I balk at the amount of butter/sugar/oils/salt and cut way down or leave them out entirely, with predictable results. With a restaurant this is completely abstracted away so it's easier to get past.
- matwood 2y agoI disagree. If we're talking about restaurants and not fast food, it's portion size that's typically the issue in the US. Oddly enough, the higher end restaurants start to move in the other direction and shrink portion sizes.
- fuzztester 2y ago>I disagree. If we're talking about restaurants and not fast food, it's portion size that's typically the issue in the US. i think you are right. i have always seen big portion sizes in restaurants when i have gone to the US. also, very recently, i saw a youtube video in which a french person says the same thing. they said that even though the French eat a lot of fat, their overall portion sizes are smaller than those of the US. so overall, they end up eating less calories than US people. also the French tend to walk a lot, while the US people tend to drive a lot. it's a generalization, i know.
- UIUC_06 2y ago
- crispyambulance 2y agoYeah, I think anyone who travels a lot for work very quickly realizes that restaurant food eaten everyday, if you're not careful, will very rapidly put pounds on you. Now with Wells' article we know how much worse it becomes if that's your job too. As Anthony Bourdain wrote... "In a good restaurant, what this all adds up to is that you could be putting away almost a stick of butter with every meal." He's not exaggerating!
- paulpauper 2y agofat tastes good...who knew
- ghaff 2y agoWhen eating out a lot is your job (including eating out at places you wouldn't naturally have gravitated towards), like many things it becomes work. I eat out when on vacation and business trips and really don't want to cook even if the hotel has a kitchenette. I also rarely go out at home to eat unless it's to attend an event or to socialize. When I was an analyst I definitely gained weight until I developed the discipline to not eat the three meals a day (plus also snack breaks) just because they were there and often good.
- AstroJetson 2y agoI miss Caity and Rich at Gawker, they indeed had the best reviews. https://www.gawkerarchives.com/the-best-restaurant-in-new-york-is-ralph-laurens-polo-1687795615 https://www.gawkerarchives.com/the-best-restaurant-in-new-yo... Here in the Philly area we have a guy doing cheesesteaks. https://www.philadelphiacheesesteakadventure.com/ https://www.philadelphiacheesesteakadventure.com/
- rwmj 2y agoGiles Coren (The Times of London restaurant reviewer) said that he reckoned he gained 1 ounce for every meal he reviewed.
- cm2012 2y agoJust start on semaglutides, and eat in smaller portions like the women critics he describes in the article do. I think quitting a good critic job for your health is pretty silly when there are modern workarounds that mostly solve the issue.
- paulpauper 2y agohow would that work? the job is to eat the food
- cm2012 2y agoThe author literally described how women food writers keep their health while writing food columns - they taste the dishes but don't eat the whole plate. He doesn't say this makes women worse food writers at all. He could just copy this strategy. If he doesn't have the will for it, semaglutides would make it really easy. You still enjoy and taste food the same on it, you just get full quicker. So there is an easy solution to his problem.
- pbj1968 2y agoSemaglutide is not a drug taken casually. Speak from experience on this one. :-/
- rgovostes 2y agoMy favorite is his 2015 review of Señor Frogs in Times Square: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/dining/senor-frogs-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7k0.FAYg.htDxr8K33k3J&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/dining/senor-frogs-review... The following year The New Yorker wrote a profile of him which features some of the backstory. "Is it possible to say with a straight face that Señor Frog’s is a better restaurant than Per Se? Can you get those words out without collapsing under your own idiocy?" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/12/pete-wells-the-new-york-times-restaurant-critic https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/12/pete-wells-the...
- nullhole 2y agoSo that's what "Señor Tadpoles" was a reference to.
- paulpauper 2y agoI am up to the challenge of trying to be a food critic, but without gaining weight. I would review food once every 3 days and do a lot of cardio and eat les on the off days.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoCouldn’t the negative effects of 4 rich meals a week be countered by eating healthier the rest of the time and having a consistent exercise routine?
- stvltvs 2y agoOne big cheat meal per week can undo a lot of work. It's easy to blow through a entire day's worth of calories and macros at one sitting let alone four!
- omoikane 2y agoAlternatively, maybe New York Times should spread the job among 4 people so that each individual only needs to eat one rich meal per week.
- pixl97 2y agoExercise burns far less calories than most people think, add a travel lifestyle to it and you'll never burn those calories.
- mrbombastic 2y ago"You can't outrun your fork" - I think a good thing for people to do when trying to get healthy is eat a donut and then run on the treadmill for the equivalent amount of calories you just ingested. Hammers home it is a lot easier to just not eat the donut.
- S_Bear 2y agoThat would be a rough ride for your health. I remember back when Adam Richman was doing the original run of Man vs Food and he was looking like death towards the end.
- moate 2y agoI mean, that wasn't a show about "food" or "restaurants" it was about gluttonous, over-the top food "challenges". Unless you were doing an equally extreme amount of work to counteract those meals, a season would absolutely destroy someone. I see all the pearl clutching comments about how bad eating at restaurants is (former restaurant chef, I'm extremely biased and refused to be moved), but an over the top entree coming in at 1500 calories isn't even close to a 7 pound burrito IMO.
- laweijfmvo 2y agoThis is the guy that trashed Guy Fieri's restaurant, right? Guy Fieri (and his restaurants') style might not be for everyone, but he's such a sweetheart and does so much for small businesses, not to mention firefighters etc., that you have to be pretty cold to do that. Still makes me mad.
- otterley 2y agoIt is possible both to be a saint and serve terrible food. A food critic isn’t supposed to give you a handicap for being a nice guy.
- laweijfmvo 2y agothe food isn’t terrible, it’s just gimmicky. and 90% of the people going to Guy Fieri’s _want_ a trash can full of nachos.
- bigstrat2003 2y agoEh, I think it's like media reviews. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and a lot of times what professional critics think has nothing in common with what the average person actually wants. The high end restaurant world is much like the professional art world in that it gets really pretentious and out of touch. It just is what it is.
- ghaff 2y agoI mostly don't go out of my way to eat at top restaurants (as opposed to good ones that are more midrange). Don't get me wrong; I've had some really good meals. But I think I'd find it all a bit exhausting as a regular routine.
- elliottcarlson 2y agoLast spring, I was at my friends new at the time restaurant, when he let me know that Pete Wells was at the table behind us (and how important this night was for my friend) -- I noticed the sheer amount of food - pretty much the entire menu - that was coming and going from that table. I didn't even put it in to perspective how demanding that was on the body, since all I could think of was how I wish I had his job tasting amazing food all the time. The review came out a few weeks later, and it was a pretty nice review - took quite some time before reservations were obtainable again.
- spyspy 2y agoWells has said he often dines with multiple people in order to be able to try multiple things on the menu. of course The Times is picking up the tab. I guess being a restaurant reviewer is like owning a boat - it’s tough on you but your friends love it.
- ghaff 2y agoI'd also comment that, in general, even though I've had jobs with tenures that many HN readers would consider ridiculously long, I mostly settled into the decade +/- space outside of a couple (of short) "events" outliers. Even with making some changes along the way sometimes, that ended up my been-there/done-that range. Obviously people are different but that has been my experience.
- Johnsorc 2y agoHe had reviewed some of the restaurants that I previously opened/ran. He was generally a nice enough, but standoffish guy. I’ll never forget the feeling of realizing he was seated. One of those moments that you train for, and now it was game time . There are all sorts of tricks that people employ, cheat sheets with reviewers photos (there is one unfortunate photo of him that everyone has, it must be on every restaurant office wall in NYC), serving extra dishes to the tables around him (so that he got a look at things he didn’t order but should have), and calling friends to fill an empty dining room when he sat down for example. It was always an awkward interaction, he knew I knew, I knew he knew I knew. I generally think Sifton was a better writer, I appreciate that he reviewed restaurants that weren’t your typical white male chef joints, and I’m happy to see Tejal still doing well out west. I’m particularly excited to read some Mellissa Clark reviews in the meantime.
- treme 2y agorunning multiple restaurants in NYC must be quite an adventure. are you still in the business? what brought you to hn?
- kataklasm 2y agoYes, I'd love to hear some stories!
- Johnsorc 2y agoThere are plenty, but my favorite celebrity encounter had to be this one. Dan and Eugene Levy dining with Paul Shaffer, they were the last ones in the restaurant, and paid with a gift card signed “Love Dave.” It was mid winter, in Gramercy and they thoroughly enjoyed their evening, including wine. While I was fetching their coats, they were singing show tunes outside of the coat check (restaurant management isn’t always glamorous). Apparently when I got Paul’s jacket his yellow beanie fell out. I remember this because while I was getting Eugene’s jacket, Paul stormed through the curtain yelling “Where is my hat?! It was a yellow hat! It was a very good hat! Find my hat you son of a bitch!” There were a couple of times in my career when in the moment I thought “Given all the possible outcomes for my life, how did I end up in this one?” This was one of them. In the end, I found his hat and they were off into a cold and rainy winter night. They were all absolutely lovely guests. Funny, charming, and they tipped the staff well.
- vander_elst 2y agoIf everyone in the business knows your face isn't the review going to be skewed? Shouldn't the reviewers strive for anonymity?
- ghaff 2y agoThe top ones often do. But it isn't necessarily very effective at a top restaurant or even a popular local one.