LA Times Food - when will the reviews resume?

Is anyone else kind of mystified, and irritated, by the LA Times paralytic inability to resume reviews? Or any other interesting food coverage?

They have made all these announcements of recruited talent but the food section is boring as fuck right now. C’mon already - yes, he was great but he is not the only human that’s capable of reviewing restaurants or leading a food section.

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Thank you,

That had to be said.

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Meantime, the local FTC content has been filling the void very nicely for me, thank you very much.

I see PSS (Patrick Soon-Shiong) every now and then. Will pass on your gripe to him, @CiaoBob

All three will begin at The Times in December; reviews will appear in the new year.

All you had to do was ask, I guess.

Patricia on X’Tiosu

Bill on Fiona

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OK I spoke to PSS, and here you go

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My personal first impressions:

Loved Patricia Escárcega’s interview, and I really enjoyed the opening of her review. The meat of it felt a little workmanlike, but overall I’m excited to have her as a critic.

I found Addison’s interview, on the other hand, off-putting. To me he sounded entitled, self-congratulatory, and pretentious. Maybe it was because I had that unfortunate interview in my head already, but his review of Fiona reads the same way.

She’s great! Can’t wait for more from her.

Interesting. I didn’t take it that way at all. I enjoyed his review, in fact. :smiley:

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Yeah tbh I’ve liked the stuff of his that I’ve read in the past, and I’m not sure why I found it icky today. Maybe something about his lump crab childhood, his ‘funny story’ that was basically just a humblebrag, and this:

“Because one of the first adjectives that people like to use to describe me, I’ve come to understand, is “charming.” But there is a whole lot more to me than Mr. Charming”

It would have been fine, I think, but then his first line was about a white billow of whipped cream hovering like a lazy cloud, which - whew, talk about lazy.

I’m exaggerating my distaste for dramatic effect and I’m sure I’ll get over it, but I definitely didn’t love it as a first impression.

I enjoyed both as well. Looks like we are getting Town and Gown.

I think, to his credit, BIll really made me feel like I was actually eating that key lime pie. I have had very mixed experiences with Nicole Rucker stuff. I went to Fiona a few weeks ago and had this tangerine cake that was way too sweet. I will go try this pie now.

true
both have impressive prose

Though someone - I guess it falls to me - has to give Escárcega (and some lazy editors) a small geography lesson.
“Sunnin, the well-establishes Lebanese cafe with two outposts in Santa Monica” is not correct.

I think it’s still one outpost in SM. We tried it and were luke warm on the place.