Reasons To Be Cheerful

[voyager]

Good points.   "Annoyance" should not be part of the dining out equation.    Lines/no reservation is a deal breaker for us.  And as household restaurant picker, I have to anticipate husband's response to food and ambiance.    

Off topic, my current problem is that I read menu after menu and can't put together a meal that I want to eat.    Most seem seem like expensive same old same olds.    And the seemingly ubiquitous tasting menus are usually minefields of stuff I'm not interested in.   Where allowed, three starters usually the most interesting option.   

 

[Sneakeater]

2 hours ago, voyager said:

Off topic, my current problem is that I read menu after menu and can't put together a meal that I want to eat.    Most seem seem like expensive same old same olds. 

Word.

(Tasting menus are kind of over over here, though.)

[Sneakeater]

8 hours ago, joethefoodie said:

We've fledged, but other people do still flock; it's just that they don't get their info from foodboards, they get it from other media.  Take the Korean rice dog phenomena; it has certainly been mentioned here, but is it something anyone in their right mind, or anyone over 30 for that matter, wants to eat?

I follow a number of food (or is it restaurant?)  what one might call influencers.  I wouldn't eat 99.5% of the shit they're trying to influence me to eat. And obviously, I (and my cohorts - i.e. people within a decade or two of my age, and people who care about what they put into their bodies) am not the target audience. And I'm okay with that.

I'm not talking about causing people to go somewhere.  I'm talking about having substantive conversations about places.  (Which is just what influencers DON'T promote:  another reason I hate social so much.)

So I don't care about people who "don't get information about restaurants from food boards" (and I'm not talking about them).  I'm talking about the people ON FOOD BOARDS.  I'm not going to expend the time and effort (taking me away from the writing I [almost] get PAID for) to write up restaurants here if no one else is going to have anything substantive to say about them.  Because I don't care about getting my opinions out there.  I care about learning from conversations.

Indeed, you're really proving MY point:  that it's now a waste of time to write up restaurants here.  (And also that social is a pernicious destroyer of culture that must be resisted at all costs.)

[Sneakeater]

8 hours ago, joethefoodie said:

Wait a second...I've been twice!

Wait a second...you just mentioned this for the first time when a bunch of were at Park Side last week!

You've been to Coszcal twice cuz I nudged you about it IRL.  We both know you wouldn't have gone AT ALL based on a write-up here.

Same re Corona Plaza.  Sure I'll mention it to friends IRL if it comes up (like if we're sitting in Corona).  But I can't see expending the time and effort to write it up here.

We both KNOW what would happen if I did.  Someone might reply, "Sounds like fun.  I'd like to go."  But nobody would.  There'd be no substantive discussion.  No comparisons of the various food stands.  No knowledgeable explanations of the various regional Mexican and Central American cuisines on offer.  No recon on when it's liveliest, or what days and times bands are most likely to be playing for dancing.  The thread would die out after only two posts.

Then, next Spring, when The TImes publishes a piece about the inevitable effort by the brick-and-mortor businesses lining the Plaza to get the City to tamp down the informal scene that's exploded there, someone would link the Times article here and say, "I never heard there was anything like that happening on Corona Plaza."  So why should I have bothered?

[Evelyn]

You're preaching to the choir of those of us who (used to) write up restaurants outside of NYC. 

[Wilfrid]

Given the number of things I am capable of forgetting, I am not going to castigate myself for overlooking a year-old thread. (And I don’t think Sneak expects me to.)

I think there are a few factors in play here, for me anyway. Mouthfuls is 18 years old and before Mouthfuls there was eGullet (etc). I wrote The Pink Pig for 10 years. No, I am not as avid as I once was when it comes to reading and writing about — and indeed visiting — restaurants.

On that last point, the pandemic almost certainly changed things for me. I was forced to go cold turkey overnight after some forty years of visiting bars and restaurants. That was an extraordinary experience and I had no choice but to find ways of making staying at home every night tolerable.

Having learned that it’s not necessary to go out five or six nights a week, the lesson stuck.

What I’ll never know is whether I would have aged out that routine anyway, without the pandemic. Similarly, I really missed traveling; now it’s possible again I am waiting for my enthusiasm to return (I write this on an Amtrak to Boston, but that’s hardly traveling).
 

 

[Sneakeater]

Can you imagine anything like Ali's in Astoria being a thing here again?

[Steve R.]

"... I participate on discussion boards for conversation.  If posts don't generate conversation, then as far as I'm concerned I wasted my time writing them".

Agree fully.  That's why I stopped writing up almost any place I've gone to (& we go to a lot of places).  It's funny that our snark and sarcastic comments generate more conversations (a lot of them really good ones at that) here than any food review.

And I also agree with just about everything else being said on this recent spurt of comments (probably a 1st for me).  Except one small part of Sneak's comment; that is, that tasting menus are over.  We've been keeping up with the procession of chefs at Fulgurances/Laundromat in Greenpoint & have enjoyed the tasting menus that some of them have come up with (don't bother hunting for my write-ups of any of them - I didn't bother).

[Wilfrid]

No. And part of that kind of scene was that many of us would eat out together, a lot. I don’t know how many dinners I had at Boulez with Mouthfuls people.

[Sneakeater]

1 minute ago, Steve R. said:

 It's funny that our snark and sarcastic comments generate more conversations (a lot of them really good ones at that) here than any food review.

Which is why we're still here, right?

[Wilfrid]

Funny spellcheck in the (my) above post, I think I’ll leave it.

[Sneakeater]

Yeah I really loved it.

[Steve R.]

2 minutes ago, Sneakeater said:

Can you imagine anything like Ali's in Astoria being a thing here again?

No, but in the past month we've been there.  I've also recently been to Mombar, some Flushing food malls, some E.European places, Park Side (as you know) & other "has beens" of the food world.  Mostly satisfying dinners/experiences.

[voyager]

2 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

 

(Tasting menus are kind of over over here, though.)

FWIW they are not here.     Many of the small places we'd choose still feature them.

Marlena    now temporarily as a pop-up

Cassava   albeit with some choice per course

Sorrel

NIghtbird

And the list goes on.

[joethefoodie]

2 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

Indeed, you're really proving MY point:  that it's now a waste of time to write up restaurants here.  (And also that social is a pernicious destroyer of culture that must be resisted at all costs.)

What am I here for, if not to prove YOUR point? On the second statement, that ship has sailed.

2 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

You've been to Coszcal twice cuz I nudged you about it IRL.  We both know you wouldn't have gone AT ALL based on a write-up here.

Actually, I believe you wrote about it here, and we (Sig Eater and I) went for lunch on one of her off days. Prior to us going again, with you.

1 hour ago, Wilfrid said:

On that last point, the pandemic almost certainly changed things for me. I was forced to go cold turkey overnight after some forty years of visiting bars and restaurants. That was an extraordinary experience and I had no choice but to find ways of making staying at home every night tolerable.

Having learned that it’s not necessary to go out five or six nights a week, the lesson stuck.

I think this is quite true, in addition to my credit card bill being a bit less (though not when buying product from places like Regalis, DeBragga, et al.).