Restaurant Review: 10 Things I Hate About Food
Back in lockdown and without any restaurants to review, Pi’s resident food critic Max Raphael is slowly going insane…
Source: Unsplash
A wise woman once asked, “do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?” I was 9 when the lovely Ms Perry released that song, and far too concerned with picking my nose and collecting Match Attax to ponder her timeless ode to lost youth and artistic burnout in any depth, but boy do I feel it now. We’re back in lockdown, and that unfortunately leaves me a restaurant reviewer with no restaurants to review. It’s fucking hopeless. What am I supposed to do now? Focus on my degree? What kind of maniac would do that? No. No I can’t go back there. I can’t go back to that godforsaken place of J** W***s, Zoom quizzes (sweet Jesus the Zoom quizzes) and wine on my cornflakes. I think that might break me.
But I do still have this. I still have you. Please don’t leave me. And though there are no restaurants open right now, I might as well pump out a couple thousand words of tripe to keep you entertained and stop me from plunging into the abyss. So because people love reading the maddened ramblings of a man on the verge, and because I need to vent, I’m going to tell you about some things I hate about food. Indulge me.
Thing 1:
I’d like to start by taking a minute to address waiters about something that has started annoying me. Can you stop handing me the bill and then going away for ages, leaving me staring at that slip of paper thinking about how much poorer I’m going to feel once I pay? I understand that you don’t want to rush me out of your lovely restaurant, but that doesn’t mean you need to disappear off to f*cking Narnia for half an hour to let me sit and stew before cheerily bringing me the card machine like you’d only just left. I’ve finished my meal. The purpose of my visit to your establishment has been fulfilled. It’d be nice to leave with my dignity intact, please.
Thing 2:
While we’re still on waiters and before I forget: tap water. I like to have some tap water. I don’t know a single human being who’s never asked for tap water in a restaurant. If I want sparkling water, or even expensive still water from a BOTTLE (big DJ Khaled energy) I will ask you for it. If you could bring me some when I sit down, that would be lovely.
Thing 3:
OK how about this. Let’s do some role play (behave). You’re in a restaurant with a friend. They’ve finished their main course before you because they eat at a speed of mach 4. You (a discerning diner who enjoys taking their time over their dinner) are only about halfway through your meal, and you see a waiter approach your table. Don’t you f*cking dare, you think. Don’t you dare take their plate. The waiter arrives, and crippling social embarrassment kicks in. “Oh yeah, please, go right ahead. Thanks. Thanks so much.” You smile sweetly as your friend’s plate is whisked away before your very eyes, leaving you a sad solo diner, deeply uncomfortable as they have no choice but to sit there like a lemon and watch you eat. It’s a sort of twisted culinary voyeurism, except the voyeur in question is just as uncomfortable as you are. Waiters - what do you want from us? Why do you force us into these twisted little games of yours? Are we but pawns? Little, insignificant things that are at your whim to torment for sport? Am I overthinking this? Is the sky real? Am I real?
Thing 4:
Next one’s a biggie. Truffle oil. Oh boy. If you like this affront to taste and basic f*cking human decency you need to understand that you’re wrong. On a moral level. Take a long hard look in the mirror and re-evaluate the choices you made that brought you here. I went on a much condensed version of this rant in a review some time ago, but now the gloves are off baby, and I’m not holding back.
The second coolest man to ever live, Anthony Bourdain, summed it up quite well, “Let it be stated here, unto forever and eternity, truffle oil is not food.” Let me explain to the uninitiated what he means. The thing you need to realise about truffle oil is that despite what Big Truffle might try to tell you, it doesn’t actually contain a single iota of real truffle. Seriously. It’s a complete fraud. When you buy truffle oil, what you’re really getting is a bottle of cheap olive or canola oil that’s been mixed with a chemical compound called 2,4-Dithiapentane. Doesn’t sound particularly appetising, does it? Yet people seem to treat the stuff like it’s sex in a bottle.
What makes it especially f*cking annoying is that they put it on everything. Risotto? Sure, why not. Roast potatoes? Yeah, go on, give ‘em a good old splash. Ice cream? F*ck it, I can’t see how that could possibly go wrong. And then there’s the dreaded truffle fries. Jesus wept. If you’re in a London pub and the pints cost more than £4.50 I’d put good money on them having some form of truffle oil on the menu. And it’s sad because truffle, real truffle, is amazing. It can take a dish from very good to sensational. It’s the Syndrome school of cookery. If every dish is special, none of them are…
Thing 5:
Liquorice. It’s f*cking awful. We’re not arguing about this.
Thing 6:
Pi Media. I hate Pi Media. When I signed up for this job I thought I was going to be Gen Z’s answer to A.A. Gill, swanning around eating Michelin-starred lunches and getting pissed on the company dime. I have since realised that this is not the case. You may be asking yourself then, “how can this guy afford to be a restaurant critic?” The answer, dear reader, is that I can’t. The reality of my situation is simple. I eat a single slice of dry bread twice a day so that I can save my money and go for one very nice meal a week and write about it for your reading pleasure. I recognise that this is a deeply unhealthy way to live. The only thing A.A. Gill and I have in common is a high likelihood of lung disease.
Thing 7:
People who are rude to waiters should be banned from going to restaurants. Seriously. These people work outrageously long and unsociable hours, get paid (in many cases) far too little and are mostly just trying to make it to the end of their shift without collapsing. Now, you may be about to point out to me that I’ve spent a good chunk of this column complaining about waiters. That is very true. I reserve my right as a critic and restaurant-goer to complain. It’s how places improve. But I see far too many people treating waiters, right there in the restaurant, like they’re dirt. It’s just bad manners. Thank someone when they bring you food. Thank someone when they top up your water, and thank them when they notice your coat’s fallen on the floor and pick it up. And tip them - it’s quite literally their living.
Thing 8:
There’s a café not too far from where I live that sells a sandwich for £12. I’ll say it again for those who are wondering if that was a typo - a sandwich, for twelve pounds. That is, quite frankly, outrageous. It’s offensive. And it’s a pattern I’ve noticed emerging across London - cafés are starting to rob us blind - and we’re letting them.
I have a bit of a soft spot for Joe & the Juice. Now, I may not fit their target demographic of a 32-year-old graphic-designer-by-day, tantric-yoga-instructor-by-night with a flannel shirt, a septum piercing and an earlobe tattoo of an avocado, but they’re a solid option if you want something fairly tasty that makes you at least feel healthy. They sell a turkey flatbread sandwich for £4.50. That is, usually, just about the limit of what I’ll pay for any single item from a café. If I wanted to spend £12 on an item of food I’d go to a restaurant. Except now that restaurants aren’t open, I have no choice. I have to cave to the demands of the evil café cabal that controls the world from the back room of Caffè Nero in Bloomsbury. I am defeated. I will pay £12 for your thin slice of cold meat, carelessly chucked between two dry slabs of two-day-old sourdough stale enough to break teeth. It’s not like there’s anything else to do.
Thing 9:
Salt Bae is opening a restaurant in London. I am desperate to go. I know, I know, it’s ridiculous, but there’s something about him that I can’t help but love. He takes extremely expensive cuts of prime meat, chucks them around like he’s playing some demented game of solo-frisbee and then bounces salt off his arm, effectively salting about 10 per cent of the meat and 97 percent of the table. I saw a video the other day of him making a burger the size of a steering wheel and covering it entirely in gold. Why? Who this ridiculous man is, where he has come from and how on earth he’s built a global empire out of seasoning meat in a weird way I have no idea. He baffles and amazes me in equal measure. But I know a lot of people who hate him. This, equally, baffles me.
I don’t like it when people are overly serious about their food. I don’t get it - food should be fun. Salt Bae hasn’t done anything to offend the great gods of cookery. He’s not pretending to be the greatest chef in the world. Loosen up a little. To the Salt Bae haters - you’re not Anton Ego, you’ve just learned to poach an egg and now you think you’re Wolfgang Puck. Be quiet.
Food critics are even worse. Here’s the thing about us - we all hate food. It’s awful. We do this because we want an excuse to write about ourselves and like getting things for free. You think Jay Rayner actually enjoys going to restaurants? You think Marina O’Loughlin wakes up in the morning and thinks to herself ‘oh, how excited I am to go and eat a meal today’? You think I actually enjoy this job? No, dear reader. This is not the case. Look at my reviews. I’d say they’re about 20 per cent food related, at a push. That other 80 per cent is just for me to vent and talk about myself. And yet we (well, not me, but you know, critics) hold the power in the tips of our fingers to make or break a restaurant. Isn’t that awful?
Thing 10:
Question: how many times have you sat down for a meal at a moderately priced restaurant and been presented with a menu that has something like this on it: ‘silken purée of organic tomatoes and fresh créme, scented with fresh basil aromatics and freshly cracked black pepper fragments’? Restaurants - for the love of all that’s holy, why can’t you just say “tomato soup”? Putting an overly indulgent and lengthy description of the dishes on your menu isn’t fooling anyone into thinking that they’re suddenly having dinner at The Fat Duck. Here’s an idea - instead of trying to win a Pulitzer with your menu, why don’t you just try to make the food nice? What many would call the best restaurant in the world, Noma, once served a dish simply titled “Vegetables”. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for you, mediocre gastropub in Kentish Town.
Right. I’ve run out of words. I could go on. I probably will go on by myself, curled up in a ball in the corner of my living room for the next two days. God, that was nice though, wasn’t it? Nothing better than a good angry rant. You should try it. The next couple months aren’t going to be easy, and if you can take care of yourself, you should. Go on. Treat yourself. Get your favourite takeaway in. Or you could work out with Joe Wicks and make a sourdough. Live your life, I don’t care. Just do what makes you happy. And don’t buy f*cking truffle oil.