Where shall we go tonight?
I've probably written about how I select restaurants to review before, but it's worth explaining again. Here's the e-mail that prompted my thinking about this now:
Hi Elizabeth, ... How do you select which restaurants to review on a weekly basis?
Thanks,
Shelly
New restaurants are always my priority. After that, restaurants that have undergone major changes -- my recent re-review of Alizee in the Inn in the Colonnade, for example. ...
Other things being equal, I try to vary cuisines, geographical location (is that redundant? -- you know what I mean), and cost. It's not just to give my readers different places to read about. I need the variety to write about the restaurants with any enthusiasm. After you've described a crab cake for the 10,000th time...
One of the indications of how much more interesting a restaurant town Baltimore has become is how rarely I have a chance to return to a restaurant that hasn't made significant changes. Even important places don't get a return visit more than every five or six years.
But surely the opening of new restaurants is going to slow down with the recession, and I'll go back to revisiting old favorites more often. It hasn't happened yet, though.
Maybe we should start a list of restaurants you wish I would go back to.
(Lloyd Fox/Sun photographer)
Comments
so, what restaurants do you go to when you're NOT on the job?
Unfortunately, that's usually determined by convenience (closeness to home) and price more than greatness. Unless I'm in another city, of course. EL
Posted by: Matt | October 21, 2009 11:01 AM
EL-you minimized Matt's question. Do we have to wait for the last column-a la Frank Bruni- to get your favorite haunts?(I might be dead.) It would give us a better idea of your true personal tastes. Also, other than maybe being your groupies hanging out to get a glimpse and the paparazzi what's the real down side?
Everyone might go and then I wouldn't get a seat. But seriously, I am a little hesitant to point out certain restaurants that I'm not reviewing as favorites -- or that you would assume are favorites because I eat there. But I'm not telling you anything I haven't mentioned on this blog to say I frequent various Donna's a lot, Petit Louis, the Ambassador, Jumbo Seafood, Mari Luna Latin Grille. I like the food at all of them, but where I eat on my own dime also involves a lot of other factors. EL
Posted by: mdlrvrmuncher | October 21, 2009 12:46 PM
Thank you. I appreciate the response. Not to start our own dialogue, but on someone else's dime or a split check would you eat somewhere that you didn't like-be it food, service, or atmosphere?
Where were you when I was doing live chats and couldn't get anyone to talk to me? :-)
I try not to eat at restaurants I don't like. But it happens. EL
Posted by: mdlrvrmuncher | October 21, 2009 3:32 PM
We all end up eating in restaurants we don't like now and then. I was in a McDonald's a few weeks back. It was worse than I remembered.
Posted by: Lissa | October 21, 2009 10:01 PM