Just my opinion. J Gold is more a storyteller, who offers his personal experiences with a given eatery through prose. He doesn’t offer his thumb up or down - that he lets the reader decide. So he is a very different reviewer from others who professionally write about food for publications. He seems to attempt to keep an at-arms-length relationship with the industry. This was obvious pre-Pulitzer, as very few seemed to know what he looked like, and he preferred to keep it that way.
From the few write-ups I’ve seen by kevineats, not that he’s a cheerleader or shill for these places he visits, but it’s obvious that the better he is treated and presented with dishes prepared with special care, the better the places look through his lens. Your observations confirm this in my mind.
i don’t agree or disagree with you, and your opinion deserves as much or as little weight as any other 'round here,
but:
i do hear the little tinkle of irony bells when i read a post criticising a thread about criticising some other writing.
i wish i was smart enough to see the difference, but i haven’t had my friday night cocktail yet.
Me neither. Never met him. On the contrary, I love his blog, as I hope I have made clear enough. The writing is often hysterical to me, and its about food, so I enjoy sharing it here. I would have said, a few months ago, that it is hard to imagine ANYONE doing a task they are so clearly incompetent at, as he is at writing. But then the Spicer/Trump Show was launched.
I would say his writing is certainly improving with age. I used to be able to pick almost any sentence and find a wealth of mirth. Now I may go one or two whole dishes before I find a zinger.
Don’t feel too bad for Gilabert. He was posting flurries of fake reviews, and using CH, to knock other searches down the list and help hide his misdeeds:
I tried to point this out on CH a couple of times, and the mods just zipped my posts.
And knowing how much of a piece of work he probably was made his posts even more hilarious. Couple that with the responses and it was pure comedy that keeps on giving to this day.
I remember someone (apparently you) saying that you thought he was using CH to knock down search results. I don’t remember why, though. Gosh, for $2.5 mil, you think he could’ve afforded some better places to eat…
I doubt he ate at any of the places he reviewed. His aim, I believe, was that if someone searched his name, the first page of search results would all be his “reviews”, so the criminal stuff would only start on the second or third page of results, and thus be “hidden”. Someone else had pointed all this out before I did (back then), but CH deleted their posts as well. Apparently CH didn’t mind being blatantly used, or decided it was worth it for the increased hits.
Ahhh… now I see. I was about to ask you guys what you were talking about.[quote=“CeleryVictor, post:54, topic:5405”]
His aim, I believe, was that if someone searched his name, the first page of search results would all be his “reviews”, so the criminal stuff would only start on the second or third page of results,
[/quote]Thanks!