Richard Godt, MD writes:

I read your review of Spaggi’s restaurant and cannot believe someone wrote such a nasty review of such a wonderful restaurant. You are either blind or vindictive. Starting out with “located in an unsavory strip mall” surely puts the reader on notice that your review will be negative. Firstly, who cares where a fine restaurant is located so long as it it a safe environment for you and your family? Secondly, the area in certainly NOT unsavory although I shall agree it is within a strip mall. Your criticize the decor as gaudy and museum like. Could not disagree more. The decor is lovely, inviting, and well done. Yes, come of the paintings have more ornate frames than I would use in my home, but they are lovely to gaze at while you are dining. I have never, ever noted any unusual dust. In fact, the restaurant is always impecable. The hostess (on occasion, Henry’s wife) always greets the guests at the door. The wait staff is always professional, knowlegable, and warm. My wife and I are treated as very welcome guests. In fact, I am considered a friend. My wife and I dine there almost weekly, my children and grandchildren have all been there several or more times.

Chef Henry is extremely personable, usually coming out from the kitchen to greet every table. He listens to his guests and gives them respect. He will make any dish you desire so long as he has the ingredients. He listens to your raves about his dishes and to any complaints you might have. He is never insulted or hurt if you did not like a particular dish, just wants to know how he could do better next time. His menu is varied so that each diner may have what he or she feels like eating. His wine list is quite extensive. His deserts are always good, although I often pass (to save on calories).

For you to suggest that people would be better served by eating at the Del Taco across the way shows the quality of your opinions. I would not eat at any Del Taco if it were free.

You did a disservice to Spaggi’s and you should make an effort to go there again and perhaps re-write your review.

Dr. Godt, allow me first to say thank you for taking the time to read my review. Furthermore, let me thank you for writing me with your thoughts. It is my - and probably most writers’ - greatest pleasure to know that something I wrote affected you. I hope you read more of my reviews and recommend my site to others, even if it’s simply to point out to others how wrong I am.

I appreciate you sharing your personal experience with me. It differs from mine and I should hope that you wouldn’t begrudge me my personal opinions based on my experience. Obviously, you regard Spaggi’s very personally. I’d accuse you of actually being the owner Chef Henry if it weren’t for the family members you CC’d on your email to me. Because of my impartial position, I feel I can give a more unbiased review of the restaurant.

Additionally, I have worked for several years in the serving industry from hot-footing it in turn and burn family chains to silver polishing at upper crusty joints. I have eaten at lowly all-night Mexican food stands at 2 a.m. and swapped stories with world-class chefs in Beverly Hills. In short, I have a fair dining sense that I am constantly honing by eating at as many places as I can. Even Del Taco.

If my comment about the unsavory strip mall is where readers are first tipped off that my review is negative, then either I’ve done a poor job as a writer or my readers aren’t very observant. My hope was that my first paragraph about Spaggi’s being a fine-dining facade would tip them off. Additionally, location is very important, both for the restaurant and for the reader/diner. A restaurant with a view of the ocean is decidedly different than a restaurant with a view of a Wal-Mart, for instance.

Reviewing a restaurant is not an exact science, however, I think it can be generally agreed that if a restaurant presents itself as a fine-dining establishment that it must be judged by a higher standard. It is not enough to simply be greeted warmly at the door - which I was not, by the way - as you can get that at any place you frequent. Instead, attention to detail, food, service, customer consideration and all the little things must be considered. For that reason, I stand by my review 100%. I would hate for someone who’s never experienced fine-dining to go to Spaggi’s, pay fine-dining prices and think they’ve received a fair shake. While I’d like to imagine that my experience is the exception and not the rule, I don’t have the luxury of dining there week after week to get an “average” of the experience. Moreover, regular customers will be less forgiving and won’t be back for a “second chance” nor should they be expected to. The hope is that my negative review will spur Spaggi’s to correct the points I criticized. That way customers who eat there can write me letters telling me how wrong I am. Better that than me writing a favorable review based on my hope of what the restaurant offers and have a customer dine there and receive the same sub-par experience I did. I’ll get the same letters telling me how wrong I am, but in this scenario I’ve wasted their money.

As for my Del Taco comment, I don’t know how to explain it without sounding condescending so I’ll just say that if you haven’t eaten there you don’t know what you’re missing. Their chili-cheddar fries are some of the best.

Thanks for reading. Please come by again.

René

When I was a kid, I never thought about the delicate balance of work-life and personal-life. I watched my parents go to work in the morning and then they came home when it got dark and we were a family. The end. Even when I started working as a teenager, my day job (or night job, depending on the hours) was just that - something I did during a certain time of day to pay the bills - and it never spilled into any other parts of my life, unless I wanted it to. Now that I’m on my career path, it’s amazing how much my job has devoured my “free time.” For the past couple of weeks, I haven’t had a day off. Moreover, every day was an 11- or 12-hour shift.

Let me just say now that people were not meant to put in these kinds of hours. Anyway, I haven’t had the time to blog, because I’ve been understandably drained whenever I get home. That’s not to say I don’t have things to talk about. On the contrary, I’ve still done my best to get out and about to keep my creative side from drying up. So, now that the hectic-ness of my day job has calmed down, I can spare a few hours writing about what’s going on my life. Look for some gigantic posts in the coming week. Until then, thanks for checking in on the blog. I know that you dedicated are out there lurking (you come up on my Web stats) and I want you to know that I appreciate you.

I’ll catch up with all of you soon.

Everyone wants free money. Getting something we want with zero effort and zero commitment cannot be beat. Which is why, I think, the whole blogging for money craze took off in the first place. Everyone loves sharing their opinions. Getting paid to do something you love can’t really be called work.

Sometimes, it is.

Sometimes, you just don’t feel like writing to feed the search engine monsters. With that in mind, I can understand why people scrape feeds and repost the content as their own. At the end of the day, we money-bloggers just want people to click our ads. Wouldn’t it be nice if our Web site could just be one gigantic ad? How convenient would it be if the sole purpose of our site was to sell Adsense links? Heap Media seems to have found a way to do that with Blackle.

Blackle is the black version of Google. Actually, it is Google, just without the sidebar links and dressed in black. What Heap Media has done is taken the Adsense for Search tool (like the one I have at the top of my page) and fitted it look similar to Google’s homepage. When you search using Blackle (or my site), if you click any of the premium (above the line) links, the site you searched from gets some cash. Therefore, the whole point of Blackle is for users to search Google…in black. Blackle is just one giant Google ad unit. The site requires no updating and no maintenance. It’s everything money-bloggers are looking for!

Of course Blackle has to give you some incentive for using them over Google. If you read the About Us section, you get to read some hogwash about how CRT monitors consume less energy when displaying a dark screen. Therefore, if more people used Blackle, they could be saving the world a significant amount of wasted energy. Capitalizing off people’s good nature is awesome! I wish I had thought of it first.

The energy savings is marginal, but, “Every bit counts,” Blackle claims. Though I wonder if they’re talking about energy savings.

Now that the job-front is looking more secure - actually, it’s kind of dicey right now, but we’ll get to that another time - I’ve been making strides back into the freelance world. I got picked up by Inland Empire Weekly (www.ieweekly.com) and I’m one of the two restaurant reviewers they have on staff. As a writer, one of the basic bits of advice published writers will give you on getting published is: Write what you know. Since I’ve worked in restaurants for several years, both in front and back of the house, it seemed only natural that I start writing reviews. Strangely, it wasn’t the perfect fit I figured it would be when I started out.

Recently, I’ve been getting hits for searches on “how to write restaurant reviews” or “restaurant cover gig advice,” so I figured I’d help my fellow junior restaurant reviewers hit the ground running. Keep in mind, however, that these are not hard-and-fast rules. It will really depend on the publication you’re writing for. Your local regional lifestyle magazine will probably have different standards than Food & Wine.

1. Lose the Narrative: The purpose of the review is to give the reader a sense of what an average visit - their average visit - will be like. They don’t care about how you’re dressed, your routine or really anything about you. Having come from a creative non-fiction background, I was all too eager to write myself into my restaurant reviews when I first started out. Fortunately, my editor gently, but firmly steered me in the right direction. Since then, you don’t know how many times I’ve come across a restaurant review that barely reviewed the restaurant. That’s not to say a little bit of personal experience or editorializing is going to kill your piece. Just make sure there’s a reason for it.
2. Temper Your Criticism: Your role as a restaurant reviewer does not give you carte blanche to rip into the establishment. Everyone and every business has “off” nights. Sometimes unforeseeable acts of God get in the way of good service. Line cooks slice their fingers open. Customers bump into servers, spilling trays of food. Sewage systems back up and come exploding out of the floor like a fountain inside the restaurant. (Yes, I’ve seen this happen. I used to work at that restaurant.) Crazy things happen. It would be unfair to lambaste a restaurant on these rare occurrences. A good way to include these events in your review is to focus on how the restaurant handled them. Sometimes, however, bad service is just bad service. If that’s the case, then you should review it as such, but keep it in the professional realm. No one takes outlandish criticisms seriously. For an example of overboard criticisms, read my review of the City Broiler in Chino Hills, CA. This was just written for me, not a publication.
3. Nuts and Bolts: When I write a review, I try to cover a few basic points that I feel are relevant to any reader who knows nothing about the joint:

• Surroundings - I like to describe the area around the restaurant - urban, industrial, downtown, etc. - so that people have a general idea of what they’ll see out the window when they eat there. Plus, it’s always good to know if your car will be where you parked it when you come out.
• Atmosphere - I do my best to write about the décor. I’m no interior designer, so my vocabulary is a bit limited in this regard, but I think it passes. It’s nice to know if the restaurant is geared for romantic dinners or for family fun. Also, giving the reader a feel for the general floor plan helps them decide on party sizes.
• Menu - Since you obviously can’t reprint all the food offerings in your review, tell the reader what he/she can expect to order. Cover the major groups: poultry, fish, steak, pork, pasta, vegetarian dishes, etc. This is a good place to discuss the wine list (if there is one) and give the price range for the restaurant.
• Service - I think for most people eating out at most places, service accounts for at least half of the reason for eating there in the first place. If you’ve never worked in a restaurant, sometimes it’s hard to know what good service is. Typically, you can get by with just covering speed, presentation and demeanor. There’s more to a server’s job than that, of course - enough to fill a book - but most people don’t care about anything beyond those three things.
• Exclusives - I try to mention the things that make the restaurant different from others, like special events, cooking classes, hosted dinners, live entertainment, whatever it is.

4. Ask Questions: Your server is a wealth of knowledge about the restaurant (or at least they’re supposed to be), so don’t be bashful in pumping him/her for information. Also, if appropriate, have the Chef come out and tell you a little about him/her.
5. Expert Opinions - Eating alone sucks, so I recommend bringing a guest. Friends are fine, but I suggest bringing someone who complements your expertise. Since my food and wine knowledge is spotty in parts, I like to bring my friend who’s an Executive Chef to fill in the blanks. I know that most of you aren’t going to have access to this kind of resource. To that, I say get out there and start networking.
6. Experience the Courses - If you’re a serious writer, then due diligence demands you sample every course - appetizers, soups/salads, entrée and dessert.
7. Collateral - Depending on the kind of restaurant, try to snag as much literature from them as possible. Take home menus, press kits, fliers; anything that you might need to review later while you’re writing. There’s nothing worse than being under a virgin-tight deadline and forgetting the name of what you ate and not having something to reference.
8. Revealing Your Reviewer Status - I have mixed feelings about this issue. On one hand, if you eat at someplace under the guise of an average patron, you get to see what average service is like and you can write a more accurate review. On the other hand, if you prepare the restaurant and tell them that you’re reviewing them, they have a chance to put together a press kit for you and you’re that much more prepared to write a comprehensive review. If you’re just starting out, chances are that the publication you’re writing for isn’t covering your tab. Heck, they may not even be paying you at all. In which case, you may want to give the restaurant a heads up on your review. More often than not, you’ll get a portion of your bill comped. For my part, I like springing my reviewer status on them after I’ve paid the bill. It’s fun to see General Managers falling over themselves to boost my opinion, but having no recourse since I’ve already signed the credit card chit.

Alright, fellow reviewers! That’s all I have for one night. I hope at least a few of these pointers will help. Now get out there and write some good reviews.

Yeah, I’m a little late.

You know, I’m pretty good about following through with the things I say I’ll do. Typically, if I give my word that something will be done, I will even inconvenience myself to make sure I don’t break my word. That’s why I’m so disappointed that I haven’t kept up with my blogging as much as I claimed I would. When Working Author launched, I decided I would blog at least once a day to keep feeding search engines with new content. (I also wanted to provide you with my pearls of wisdom, of course!) Unfortunately, life — actually, work — got in the way and so many of my goals have fallen by the wayside. I’m hoping that I can keep the back burners hot enough to keep these goals from going cold while I climb over the busy season at work. We have a gigantic tradeshow to get organized in a few weeks and everyone’s scrambling to get their part done. Not everyone is handling the stress very well. Ah well; such is the workplace.

Unfortunately, I’ve also put my workout plan on standby, opting to use those early morning hours for more sleep. Admittedly, I’d have more than enough to work out if I didn’t spend so much of my nights slaving away to get this blog in tip-top. I blame all of you Internet Explorer 6 users. DAMN YOU! (Just kidding, but I hope you’re happy with the layout now. “Look Ma! No broken divs!”) Speaking of this site: The other casualty to my busy schedule is the Month in Review Post.

December was a bit barren when it came to site updates, but you can imagine that I was busy with tons of other things, including working 12-hour days (including weekends), holiday shopping and spending time with family. Come the end of January, things should be back to normal and I’ll be my punctual self. Without further ado:

December Movie Reviews:

• Dragon Heat
• Beowulf 3-D

December Restaurant Reviews:

• Harry’s Pacific Grill Pre-Opener (Rancho Cucamonga, CA)

December Site Enhancements:

• Gravatar - Sign up for the free service and you’ll be able to share you mug on every site you post comments on that supports the service…like mine! (I haven’t tested it yet, so don’t hold it against me if it’s broken.)

Bleh. Looking at that short list is embarrassing, like premature ejaculation. If you’re a return reader, thank you for coming back. Hang in there for a couple more weeks.