Ligaya Mishan/Tejal Rao

[Wilfrid]

Please tell me she's not going to carry on writing like this. Please tell me she's going to get edited. What an absurdly overwritten piece. As her editor, I would have marked up just about every sentence.

I suppose passing through Times Square might resembled "running the gantlet" if you're writing for a non-New York audience.

"(L)ocate the lonesome check-in desk on the third floor, you’re escorted to a rotunda of elevators and sent rocketing up the atrium..." There may not be many revolving restaurants in the city, but there are countless high up and rooftop restaurants and bars such that the elevator experience is absolutely not worthy of comment.

"(T)hen sunset’s long orange smear, blue night massing like a thunderhead, and all the buildings coming on like constellations." I think leave that stuff to Hart Crane. Me, I had to google "thunderhead," apparently a specific form of cumulonimbus.

"(C)reamy-yolked quail eggs, juice bombs of cherry tomatoes..." Useful for those readers unfamiliar with eggs or tomatoes.

"(S)hrimp cocktail, nicely plumped..." How do you "plump" a shrimp cocktail. How do you even plump an individual shrimp. (Eww.)

"(Y)ielding carrots..." Not the chewy kind.

"(F)ries — crispy, salty, keeping you reaching back in..." Not the soggy, unseasoned kind, and yes you can have second helpings.

"When a tequila order went awry, no fewer than three people mobilized to solve the issue, returning every few minutes with updates until the amended drink was in hand." Three people and constant updates; perfect.

"You can taste your heart in your mouth." Unexpected addition to the menu.

 

[small h]

I got to ""Each forkful is too much and not enough" and had to lie down for a bit.

[Wilfrid]

I missed that one. This is really shockingly bad. "Get the burger and the chocolate cake." Period. That's all it tells you.

[Wilfrid]

Nothing really upset me about Tejal Rao's first review, although I did pause over the "slightly menacing coffee aioli."

[small h]

I could see feeling menaced by caffeinated garlic.

[small h]

Better.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/dining/chez-fifi-restaurant-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Yk8.Ne31.peKlG0b_GKD2&smid=url-share

[Steve R.]

I enjoyed the writing in the review & was especially thankful that it reconfirmed my plan to never go there.  So: a "win-win".

[small h]

It's cool when the moment you learn a place exists and the moment you realize you have no interest in it are so close together.

[sweatshorts]

So the best thing on the menu is the bread and butter? lol

[Wilfrid]

Catching up on a review I missed: Sneak liked the expression "news you can use." Does not apply to a review of an eight seat omakase counter in Los Angeles. 

[Wilfrid]

"She etches her blade into the milky top of a scallop..."

Ample poetic license might permit her to etch the scallop, but she is not etching her blade.

[Orik]

22 hours ago, Wilfrid said:

Catching up on a review I missed: Sneak liked the expression "news you can use." Does not apply to a review of an eight seat omakase counter in Los Angeles. 

It's barely mentioned in the review, but it seems like the chef is...

 

 

 

...a woman!

[small h]

24 minutes ago, Orik said:

...a woman!

You don't say! That fact was absolutely buried among all the pictures of some lady cutting up fish.

[backyardchef]

 

Quote

“The chef here is a woman,” he said to his date, quite loudly. “Can you believe it?” 

 

[small h]

I'm not exactly defending clueless loudmouth over there, but I've seen exactly one woman sushi chef (at Taka, a million years ago), and I eat a not tiny amount of sushi.

[backyardchef]

Just now, small h said:

I'm not exactly defending clueless loudmouth over there, but I've seen exactly one woman sushi chef (at Taka, a million years ago), and I eat a not tiny amount of sushi.

I thought it was actually quite wonderful. 

[Orik]

Not related the current restaurant, but I did learn that Ginza Sushi Onodera (where Ms. Mori worked), one of those places tourists went in Tokyo because it was easy for the hotel to book, is part of one of those multi-concept Japanese corporate chains. Sushi, Teppanyaki, Unagi, Ramen... they do it all. 

https://onodera-group.com/

[backyardchef]

bloop

Edited July 28, 2025 by backyardchef
bloop

[Wilfrid]

Ligaya's latest had me stuck on the first sentence.

Quote

To describe Smithereens as a New England-style seafood spot is like calling “Moby-Dick” a story about fishing.

But it's not a story about fishing at all. It's a story about whaling. Whales aren't fish.

Quote

...the martini tastes like a gulp of saltwater, the last memory of a drowning man.

Yum. Still not out of the first paragraph.

Quote

...sunnily sour...

No idea. Best guess, alliteration is funny, it makes a cloudy day sunny.

But the restaurant sounds quite good.

[MitchW]

We've eaten at Smithereens a couple of times, and quite like it. But I have to wonder - do they time their reviews to come out around the same time, because Grub Street (that is, Matthew Schneier) reviewed Smithereens two weeks ago...https://www.grubstreet.com/article/smithereens-nyc-restaurant-review.html

Gael Greene (RIP) is certainly rolling over in her grave.

 

 

[Orik]

I think there's information leakage, mostly via freelancers involved in the reviews. 

[Wilfrid]

What puzzles me is the review(s) appearing ten months after it opened.

[small h]

Yes, if I've already eaten at a restaurant by the time the review comes out, the review is verrrrrry late. I liked Smithereens a lot.

[backyardchef]

The PR companies work very hard to control the narrative. 

[Wilfrid]

2 hours ago, backyardchef said:

The PR companies work very hard to control the narrative. 

In this case, Smithereens must have been wondering what the agency was doing for ten months.