I wish they’d archive old lists, too. It would be nice to see the full history of recommendations plus it kind of sucks bookmarking the link to find that it’s changed six months to a year later.
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I agree. This is annoying.
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Jonathan Gold popularized the “essential” lists trend. Now they’re nationwide.
Really? Because it isn’t the first time this has happened. EaterLA staff do not need to defend their publication, selection criteria, etc. on here as @matthewkang has made it very clear in his various posts over time and along this same theme that there are many more factors that go into their listicles than “Places that are truly the best at serving XYZ” and that’s okay. We are not the target audience.
Likewise, since we are not the target audience, we will continue to comment and snark on such nonsense as “Essential Chinese Restaurants” with half of the named places being located west of downtown because we know that that is inherently ridiculous given the current demographic and culinary composition of the city. We can and will have these threads and posts, and we really don’t need “justifying” (do you like that word better than “defensive”?) rebuttals every single time the topic comes up…which is what comes across as “thin-skinned.”
As do most of us! I never said anything to the contrary, and I don’t understand why you’re trying to strawman-argue that my previous post indicated or even implied anything of the sort!
EaterLA provides information for a target audience that differs from us while having an overlapping interest in food; their target audience doesn’t take it as seriously as we do, nor are they as passionate. I have no problem with EaterLA staff participating in these forums, nor would I side-eye any of our posters from participating on their site – it really isn’t that deep, I just find it rather annoying that in nearly every thread containing criticism of EaterLA content we end up getting “explanations,” “justifications” and “defensive” rebuttals. We get it. The horse is dead; you can stop beating it now."
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“Defend,” “explain” and “justify” can all be used synonymously in this context.
…Except the initial question in this thread is why Santa Monica “essential” restaurants were limited to 15 with half of them from the same restaurant group, with many omissions of restaurants that @yogachik thinks are superior or more quintessentially “Santa Monica” than the ones in the list, and more recently that @secretasianman wonders why 44% of the “essential” Chinese restaurants in a recent update are west of the 710. I’m not really seeing much of an explanation as to why such a high proportion of these so-called “essential” restaurants are clearly either geographical pandering or promotional sponsorships.
In other words, the criticism/unanswered question is why publish listicles that are more or less bunk because of an artificial cap on the number of “essential” restaurants when one can instead throw the same number of bones to the sponsors/target geographies but include far more relevant restaurants so that the listicle isn’t completely worthless. AKA 8 Chinese restaurants west of the 710? Sure, just as long as it’s a list of 30 or 40 “essential” Chinese restaurants and the rest actually make some sense.
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I welcome the snark and feedback. Thanks for reading.
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Thank you so much for addressing the question! Seriously, this kind of flippant response is…odd, as I really don’t think the initial question is unreasonable or out of line in the least.
l think it’s because I feel like I’m talking to the jazz nerd in the “Game Night” sketch in I Think You Should Leave 
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I’m not familiar with your reference, so why not address the question? You said your responses were intended to “just explain some of the mechanics” of listicles, search engine optimization and engagement…so why go out of your way to deflect so flippantly instead of doing just that?
I really don’t care if you feel a certain way about me or not, and frankly that shouldn’t be either here nor there, anyway. I do suspect @yogachik and @secretasianman would be interested in reading your response, though, since they initially asked the questions.
IMHO, posting multiple rebuttals/responses to @matthewkang over what you yourself have described as a not-deep issue is sort of just perpetuating the problem that you’re complaining about…
::shrug::
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aintnobodygottimeforthat.gif
Any suggestions on which restaurants are best for me to wear my new Dan Flashes shirt? It’s got a super complicated pattern.
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so you’re tired of all the explanations yet you’re still asking for an explanation?
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lolll too good
You should check out the pants from calicocut-pants.com; they pair perfectly with the complicated patterns you can find at Dan Flash’s.
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Why are there no Valley options in Eater LA’s 28 “essential” Sloppy Steaks?!?!?!
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