The Difficulties and Limitations of Being a Food Critic

While I am but a newbie, amateur in the world of food critics, in eating and writing about food over these past several months I have begun to realize the difficulties and limitations of being a food critic. I wanted to write about these limitations for several reasons. First, I think they are interesting. Second, in a sense I want to both get them off my chest and serve as a disclaimer to blog readers. I want blog readers to know that my thoughts about a restaurant are only that, my thoughts. I could be wrong and they could have a very different experience.

An initial limitation is that I experience food through the lens of my personal preferences. I like weird, exotic foods. I tend to like spicy food. I am not a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I gravitate towards the savory side of the food spectrum and shy away from the sweet side. I love seafood. I like chewy food. I enjoy the liver or gamey taste that many organ meats or game meats have. Not everyone shares these preferences. Whereas there is an open debate in the field of aesthetics as to whether some art is better than other art, I don't think there is any question that there can be no general objectivity in the world of food. Everyone is made differently. We taste differently and we therefore like different foods.

I am also constrained by my limited experiences. I like to write about "exotic" foods that are not part of my upbringing or cultural heritage. Whereas I can bring a wealth of experience to reviewing Southern food and barbecue, when I review a Vietnamese dish it is likely the first time I have had that dish. My review of a Vietnamese dish and a review of the same dish by a Vietnamese person are likely to be very different. I am limited by both my cultural background and my experiences. When you read my reviews, know that they come from a twenty-five year old, white, Southern male. But also know that this white male has gotten escargot in his stocking at Christmas since he was a little boy and has always ordered the oddest thing on the menu for as long as he can remember.

I am also constrained by another form of limited experiences. When I go to a restaurant I order only a few items off of the menu. I may order the restaurant's best items or I may order their weakest items. I of course try to order what look like the best, most unique items on the menu, but whether I am right is mostly a matter of chance.

Beyond these internal limitations, there are also a host of external constraints. To begin, restaurants have good and bad days. My reviews are the result of one meal at a restaurant. If the restaurant is having a bad day and is usually better, my review cannot reflect that fact. If the server is hungover or is the restaurant's worst server, my generalization about the restaurant's service will not be accurate.

Restaurants also change over time. Chefs come and go. Menus change. Management changes. My review is, again, a review of one meal at one point in time. My reviews cannot account for any changes that may have occurred since I ate there.

Finally, there are simply a multitude of variables that go into any review. A review must account for taste, service, atmosphere, etc. I may erroneously overvalue or undervalue one element. You may place a greater or lesser degree of value on that one element. If you really want pupusas you may be willing to sacrifice a level of service. (Although Rincon Latino had fine service. This is just an example.) If you want an nice date meal you may be willing to forgo a level of uniqueness or a particular cuisine in favor of a higher level of service or a more formal atmosphere.

In conclusion, take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Know that I do my best, but I am limited in many ways. Go out there and explore for yourself. Do not continue to eat the same old cuisine week in and week out. There is an amazingly exciting world of food out there. Don't be afraid of looking stupid or trying something you don't like. You are likely never going to see the people in the restaurant again, and if you don't like the food no one can make you go back. Failure and the challenge are all part of creating interesting new experiences. Get out there and explore.

Rincon Latino

I highly recommend Rincon Latino because the food is tasty and the prices are cheap. The restaurant was clean and well kept and the service was friendly and moderately prompt.

After we placed our drink order and while we were still perusing the menu, our waitress brought us chips and two types of salsa.

One was a red salsa and the other was a green salsa. Both were creamier than the typical red or green salsa. The green salsa also had a nice heat, whereas the red was very mild.

My wife had a tasty strawberry milkshake and I ordered an orange Jarritos. I am usually not a big fan of soft drinks, as in I never drink them, but I really love Jarritos. It is sweet but not sickeningly sweet like I find American soft drinks and it washes down Latin food very well.

We ordered way too much food. Take it easy when you eat here. You will think that the prices are so cheap that surely you need to order more to be satisfied. You don't. Probably the highlight of the meal was the sopes.

Closeup of the pig skin ("chicharrones").

Sopes are a traditional Mexican dish from the Sinaloa region. They consist of a flat disk with pinched sides made of thick fried masa. Masa is ground corn and is the same thing used to make tortillas. The masa in a sope is thick and it is fried only lightly so that the exterior is crispy and the interior is still soft and moist. The particular sopes I ordered were the chicharrones con salsa verde - pig skin sopes with green sauce. The sopes were topped with cooked pig skins covered in a green sauce. On top of that was lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and sour cream. The pig skin was fatty and almost creamy. The fattiness paired well with the creamy, rich, acidic green sauce with a slight heat. All of that meatiness and creaminess then was contrasted against the fresh tastes of the toppings. The sopes were fantastic and cost $5 for two sopes. Just writing about them makes me want more. We were nearly full after just splitting the sopes and the chips.

I also ordered one of the seafood cocktails - the shrimp and octopus cocktail.

It had shrimp, octopus, avocado slices, cilantro, and onions all mixed in a sauce. The sauce was a tomato sauce that was a little too sweet for me and tasted a little like a sweet cocktail sauce with less horseradish. The cocktail was good, but it did not blow me away like the sopes or the pupusas (below) did. The cocktail cost $11 which made it one of the more expensive items on the menu, but it was huge.

Next we had two different pupusas. Pupusas are a Salvadoran dish made out of a griddle fried masa outer layer stuffed with different items inside. Pupusas are sort of a like a greasy, stuffed corn pancake. Pupusas are traditionally served with curtido. Curtido consists of lightly fermented cabbage, carrots, and onions. It is similar to a vinegar colesalw or sauerkraut, but sauerkraut is fermented much more heavily than curtido. The first pupusa was essentially a combination pupusa with everything in it. It had pork, beans, cheese, and loroco. Loroco is the flower bud of a vine that grows in Central America. It is a popular ingredient in El Salvador and Guatemala. The second was a loroco and cheese pupusa. Loroco has a fairly unique taste. It tastes very plant like and is mildly reminiscent of a roasted pepper. Overall, it is a pleasing taste that I recommend trying.

stacked pupusas

the inside of the combination pupusa

The pupusas were fantastic. The hot, greasy, grainy shell with the rich, cheesy filling contrasting against the cold, acidic, crunchy relish is perfect. The vinegar in the relish cuts through the richness of the pupusa. In conclusion, an excellent combination. It would make great hangover food. The pupusas are also very cheap at $2 each.

Finally, although we could barely eat anything more at this point and took most of it home, we had a chicken gordita. A gordita also consists of a masa shell but it is stuffed to the brim with fillings. It is similar to a pupusa but filled to a greater degree, less greasy, and containing different fillings.

The gordita was also excellent. The chicken was shredded and sauced well. It was topped with lettuce and cheese. The earthy, grainy corn taste, as in the other masa based dishes, paired well against the meat and fresh toppings.

As stated before, I highly recommend Rincon Latino. I can't wait to go back.

Rincon Latino
5055 Buford Hwy. NE
Doraville, GA 30340
770-936-8181

Sawicki's

We had sandwhiches at Sawicki's for lunch last weekend. Scoutmob got me in the door, but the sandwiches may bring me back. While I was not blown away, the sandwiches were fairly good.

I had the Italian sandwich.

The Italian runs $7.25 and, per the menu, contains "Genoa salami, hot soppressata, finocchiona, fontina cheese, field greens, tomato, hot giardiniera (a vegetable relish) and salsa verde on ciabtta." Soppressata is a form of salami, a dried cured pork sausage. Finocchiona is another variety of salami. The soppressata was quite hot and gave the sandwich a nice spiceness. The sandwich was spicy, salty, sour, and sweet. The giardiniera gave it sourness and saltiness. Giardiniera consists of pickled vegetables. The meats were salty, and the soppressata was spicy as mentioned before. The tomatoes were juicy and slightly sweet. Overall, a very tasty sandwich. My only complaint was that the bread was a little too chewy.

My wife had the Mediterranean sandwich.

Again, per the menu, the Mediterannean consists of "chicken, hummus, tomato, field greens and salsa verde on ciabatta" and runs $8.00. Both my wife and I thought that the chicken was juicy and flavorful. I liked the mix of all the flavors and liked the sandwich. It tasted very fresh. My wife liked it but thought that it was a little dry and could use more hummus. Again, the bread was a little too chewy which made it hard to eat.

A funny sidenote, Sawicki's is a tight space. It is especially tight when filled to the brim with people. While we were there, two, not one but two, nimrod fathers thought it would be a good idea to wheel their baby stroller all the way through the restaurant. I am talking about a double wide running stroller. People had to move and tables were moved just so he could get in line. Fortunately, we had left before he finished ordering and had to conduct his exit manuvers. While I understand that you can't leave your children outside unattended, both fathers were accompanied by their wives. The father or mother should order while the other waits outside or at a table. If you are going to bring a stroller then sit near the window and watch it outside or buy a bike lock for the thing. Don't be that obnoxious guy trying to push it through the restaurant. You look stupid and you annoy everyone else. End of rant.

Sawicki's gets my usual, "good, but not amazing." The prices are a little high for a sandwich, but the ingredients are top quality and the taste is fresh and satisfying. If you are in the area, need lunch, and have been to Farmburger and Taqueria del Sol on numerous occasions, then stop in at Sawicki's and give it a try.

Sawicki's also has a wide selection of local, sustainable produce, meats, and cheeses. As you may know from previous posts, I am a strong supporter of local and sustainable. However, I am not quite sure when I will be able to afford tenderloin for $37 per pound.

Sawicki's Meat Seafood and More
250 West Ponce De Leon Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030
404-377-0992
http://www.sawickisfoods.com/

The Porter

Maybe the best way to sum up The Porter is a line I used to describe a dish later in this post: "I would never have expected to find something this good and this exciting in a bar in Little Five Points."

Food in America has changed. We have gone from a not so distant past where the majority of neighborhood bars served Budweiser, Coors, Miller, french fries, hamburgers, and nachos, to today where you can find a bar serving beef hearts, mussels, deconstructed caesar salads, and creme brulee. Are we in the midst of a food fad, a food bubble? I'm not really sure, but I sure hope not. I find this to be a happy or tasty state of affairs.

The Porter is the new breed of bars. It has a beer list that goes on for pages. You will not find any Bud, Miller, or Coors products on it. You will find Belgian Trappist beers, German weizens, barleywines, IPAs and every other variety of beer you can imagine. More heady adventures than any one man could possibly hope to sample. I had one of my absolute favorite beers, a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. I also had a Smuttynose IPA because it was the suggested beer pairing for my mussels and a Smuttynose Wheat Wine Ale for dessert. The wheat wine ale was a combination of a wheat beer and a barleywine. All were good, although I am still a little unsure about barleywines.

For food we sampled a number of items thanks to our friends, a couple who invited us out and suggested The Porter. A hat tip is owed to R and E. We started off with the goat cheese fritters.

There were five to start. This picture was taken after two were consumed.

We had a small debate at the table about these. They were decent and could have been a little warmer, but should they really be called fritters? We concurred that "logs" or "sticks" would have been more accurate. I understand that a fritter is any food coated in batter and fried, but it just didn't seem to accurately describe the dish. Maybe that is a trend at The Porter. See the description of my wife's salad below. The fritters were battered and fried logs of goat cheese covered with a honey sauce. Anything with goat cheese or fried will be good, and you can't fail with the combination of the two.

We also tried the salt and vinegar popcorn. This was a very interesting dish and a great idea for bar food.

I often find popcorn to be a little bland and boring. The vinegar gave it a welcome kick. It almost tasted like salt and vinegar chips. One bite had such a strong vinegar kick that I felt it in my nose, but other than that the popcorn was delicious, and I love the idea.

For my appetizer I ordered the beef hearts. Of course I ordered the beef hearts, it was the weirdest thing on the menu. The beef hearts were shaved with red wine blueberries, pickled scallions, and radishes.

The beef hearts were excellent. The meat was super tender and had a taste I can't describe. Everyone at the table agreed that it was good but also was unable to describe the taste. The taste is a little bit organy but not in a strong, overpowering way. The blueberries, pickled scallions, and radishes added some sweetness, tang, and crunch that paired well with the deep, rich taste of the meat. Overall, this was a tasty, bold, and inventive dish that worked well. I would never have expected to find something this good and this exciting in a bar in Little Five Points.

My wife had the macaroni and cheese as an appetizer.

It is hard to have bad macaroni and cheese, and this was good, but far from the best macaroni and cheese we have ever had. The dish consisted of shells with white cheddar cheese. It was super cheesy and very creamy, to the point of being a little soupy.

As an entree, I had the mussels appetizer.

The mussels were cooked in a broth with carrots, onions, some other vegetables, and sriracha. I am a huge fan of sriracha, and liked the idea, but I wish the sriracha was a little stronger in the broth. Overall, the mussels were good, but not amazing.

My wife ordered a caesar salad as her entree. The menu stated caesar salad and then something like "parmesan, anchovies, egg, . . . "  But nowhere did it give a clear indication that the salad was a deconstructed caesar salad.

The lack of clear description on the menu was more than a little annoying for several reasons. First, the dish brought to the table was not what was expected. Second, it required significant work to get the salad to be anything close to a caesar salad. My wife had to spend several minutes mashing up the egg and anchovies and slicing the romaine and cheese. This would not have been a problem if it was expected. It is not that we are lazy diners, but one would like to know that the diner will be doing all of the work. Finally, it was a little annoying because the dish didn't totally work. Caesar dressing requires a thorough mixing of the ingredients. The resulting salad was not gross and had some interesting taste, but it wasn't really a caesar salad. This one dish was a bit of a failure in my judgment. I would award and A+ for inventiveness and thinking outside the box but a B- for execution and taste.

Finally, I had one other complaint. We were seated at a table in a small passageway between the front bar and the back room. Our table was directly across from the bathroom. I could almost reach out and touch the bathroom door. While I would find this to be a problem in almost any establishment, in an establishment that is just as much a bar as a restaurant this is a real problem. There were frequently lines of people waiting to use the restroom. For a while there was a long piece of toilet paper on the floor outside one of the bathrooms, and at one point a waiting patron thought it would be perfectly acceptable to rest his drink on our table without asking. I understand that The Porter is a small place and tables have to be placed where there is available space. But no one should be seated across from the bathroom. Give up one table and take the small hit in your ability to turn a table. Don't try so hard in terms of beers and food and then squander it all away by seating someone next to a bar bathroom.

Other than the bar bathroom table and the deconstructed caesar salad, I was rather impressed with The Porter. I would definitely go back. However, I would make clear that I would gladly wait any additional time necessary to not be seated next to the bathroom.

The Porter
1156 Euclid Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
404-223-0393
http://www.theporterbeerbar.com/

Little Paul Gibson's BBQ

Good, but not amazing. (For amazing, see my post on Po' Pigs Bo-b-q on Edisto Island, South Carolina.) The restaurant is no frills, almost like eating in some one's living room.

The barbecue is cooked well, is moist, and falls apart easily.

It had a lightly smoked taste. It is pulled and then chopped lightly. It is not the super-fine chop you see at some places but more of a medium chop. The barbecue came with a small thing of vinegar sauce which was a little spicy, but over top of the barbecue it was nice.

The tomato based sauce available at the table was very sweet with a little kick. It was too sweet for my taste and was not my favorite.

The baked beans are a little spicy with pork, peppers, and onions in them. They have a taste that I can still not figure out and which I also am still not sure if I like or not. I think it must be some spice that makes them taste a little odd. The cornbread was hard as a brick and dry to the center. It was what my father-in-law calls a "window breaker." I tried it anyways and the taste was decent, but there was no way I was going to take more than a nibble of something that hard and dry. In Little Paul's defense, we did come in after the peak lunch hours (around 2:30) and the cornbread could have dried by then. But if the bread has dried you shouldn't serve it to your customers. The creamy coleslaw was good but not really distinguishable from the creamy coleslaw you find anywhere else. The sweet tea was decent, although a little on the sweet side.

The only other problem was that the small "slow roasted Southern style pulled pork plate" I ordered came with a rather small portion of the barbecue and two sides for the $6.45 price. I'm sure the restaurant can charge almost anything it wants due to its prime real estate across from the hospital, but I expect a little more for the money.

Finally, I am told that the lemon meringue pie was excellent.

However, I did not get a chance to sample it as my father-in-law finished it off in record time.

Little Paul Gibson's Barbecue
815 Madison St. SE
Huntsville, AL 35801
256-536-7227

Thien Thanh

I left Thien Thanh disappointed. While it could have just been the dish I ordered, I don't think I will be heading back to Thien Thanh anytime soon.

I ordered the hu tieu dac biet. Hu tieu is a vermicelli rice noodle soup and dac biet just means that it is a combination soup. It comes with all of the available proteins: shrimp, squid, pork meat, pork heart, pork liver, and eggs.

The soup broth had a taste reminiscent of ramen noodles from my high school days. Overall, there was not a strong flavor in anything, and it was just sort of bland the whole way through. The one exception was the strong taste of celery.

The pork meat was a little overdone. The eggs consisted of one quail egg softboiled. It was tasty and interesting when it popped in my mouth and let out the runny yolk. The shrimp and squid were okay. I am not sure which component the pork heart and liver were or if they were even present. There were some unidentified protein bits in my soup that could have been them, but the bits looked more like the meatballs you usually find in pho. Whatever they were, they were slightly odd tasting but good.

Other than the lack of any distinctive or appealing flavor, the one thing that struck me about the dish was the stinginess with the proteins. There was one egg, two shrimp, maybe two or three pieces of squid, and a small portion of pork meat. You can easily go to a different Vietnamese restuarant on Buford Highway, or anywhere else, order a bowl of pho and receive a generous helping of protein.

The best thing about Thien Thanh may be the cheesy Vietnamese karaoke videos playing on the giant screen in the center of the restaurant.

My final verdict would be to take a pass on Thien Thanh. At the very least, put it down at the bottom of your list and give it a try after you sample all of the popular Vietnamese restaurants on Buford Highway. I was excited to try a new, odd Vietnamese dish, but I was let down. Be wary of suffering the same fate.

Thien Thanh
5219 Buford Highway
Doraville, GA 30340
770-676-0512

Po' Pigs Bo-b-q

This is the real deal! A South Carolina barbecue buffet where the barbecue is delicious but the multitude of sides may be even better. Where to start?

Everything was excellent so I guess the best way to start is to just go around my first plate. Yes, my first plate. This place is so good I of course went back for seconds. But, on second thought, let's start at the bottom of the Po' Pig food pyramid and work our way up.

The barbecue is tender, moist, and tasty. So good that it doesn't really need sauce.

The only problem is that with all of the delicious sides the barbecue gets a little lost. Maybe that is a good thing. The tables have an array of four different types of barbecue sauce: Carolina red, Orangeburg sweet, Pee Dee vinegar, and Midland mustard.

The Midland mustard is good. It is not too sweet with a slight vinegar kick. Of course, I am partial to mustard sauces. The Orangeburg sweet isn't too sweet and appears to have a mayonnaise base. The Pee Dee vinegar makes your mouth pucker up. It is nearly solid vinegar with a little spice, but not hot. The Carolina red had a lot of flavor. It was like a spicy, watery version of a ketchup sauce.

Plate #1

Plate #2

The field peas were meaty and rich with stringy bits of pork throughout. The beans, with the meat cooked down in them, make a delicious sauce covering them. The lima beans are almost a creamy soup. The coleslaw was excellent: crunchy and creamy. The greens n' roots consist of turnip greens with diced turnips. I love greens with a generous dose of pepper vinegar and was not disappointed by this specimen.

If you have never tried pepper vinegar you should give it a try. It turns greens, which could otherwise be a bland dish, into a go-to dish in the barbecue buffet line. You can also see the okra and tomatoes on my plate. I didn't take any notes on the okra, but okra and tomatoes is an excellent dish and, if my memory serves me correctly, it was good. Last, because it doesn't really fit into either the vegetable or hash and rice part of the food pyramid, but not least, are the cracklins. Cracklins are fried pig skins, also known as pork rinds. In one way they are sort of like eating spicy, crunchy, Styrofoam. But they are actually quite good despite the odd description. They have a nice crunchiness and the Po' Pig spice mix was tasty.

The hash was fantastic. Po' Pigs offers two versions. As mentioned in previous blogs, my family has a history of South Carolina barbecue. But I have only ever had one version of hash. Po' Pigs offers the standard version I know, an orange hash, as well as a dark brown hash.

The standard orange hash had the right consistency, like a meat puree, and over white rice was quite tasty. The dark brown hash is made of pork liver. It has a complex, deeper, richer taste than the standard hash. I wish this recipe was more common. While I don't necessarily prefer the brown hash to the orange, I like it at least equally as much and I love the variety.

Finally, Po' Pigs had good sweet tea. The tea was sweet but not necessarily sickeningly sweet like some barbecue places. For dessert, there was banana pudding.

While I am guessing that the pudding was topped with canned whipped cream and that detracts from the dish, I am also fairly certain that the banana pudding itself was homemade.

Overall, I highly recommend Po' Pigs. This is real, South Carolina barbecue and sides. It is even better than most small town South Carolina barbecue buffets both in terms of taste and in the variety of sides. Don't be scared by the fact that Po' Pigs shares a wall with a gas station. The parking lot full of pickup trucks should reassure you.  If you find yourself on Edisto, definitely drop in. If you are in Charleston, consider taking a day trip down to Edisto and having lunch or dinner at Po' Pigs. You could spend the rest of the day on the beach, put your boat in at Steamboat Landing right up the road, or do some hiking at Botany Bay WMA or Edisto Beach State Park. Don't miss your chance to taste South Carolina's traditional cuisine.

Po' Pigs Bo-b-q

2410 Highway 174

Edisto Island, SC 29438

843-869-9003