CJ goes to J Harrod's this week

[Robin Garr]

The CJ headed out to J Harrod's this week, and newly minted reviewer Nancy Miller has quite an interesting review. I'm prepared to say that there's clearly a new voice in town, as her style differs markedly from Marty's. What do you folks think?

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/en ... /12738475/

My personal take is that her writing style, in this episode, is oddly catty. "Those shoes are beautiful, until you wear them with those pants". Your house is tasteless, your décor boring, your food lacklustre but people sure seem to love you. The evidence is represented by the parking lot being full every time I drive by it. I haven't been in J. Harrod's in well over a decade and I'm sure that if I went in tonight I could have the same dining experience I had back then (I'm a sucker for schoolhouse cabbage casserole).

[Robin Garr]

I wonder if she's trying to prove that her background in PR doesn't disqualify her to go for the negative? Or maybe I'm just thinking too hard.

[Robin Garr]

I have to be fair and report that Mary read it, and she liked it that Nancy was willing to go negative, and felt her review "told it as it is" about Harrods. All the decor stuff at the beginning didn't bother her at all.

Yeah, but see, where was all of this two weeks ago? We get two rigidly stiff, yet glowing reviews of places she already was in love with and now, when it's time to get a little harsher, she's Mark Twain all of a sudden.


Inconsistent. Although I am glad to see she's been reading my criticism and has started to review more than the food. Structurally this was a far better review than her previous two throws.

She just needs to find her voice. Honestly, this was the voice I was kind of expecting when she started off with the "stingy with stars" claim. My only fear is that the trip to J. Harrod's was ear-marked to already be her negative review, in order to provide balance. ("two good reviews, hmmm, where can I go that I can trash the place?") But I'm always skeptical of this kind of stuff.

I think she just needs to calm down and write. Just go out to restaurants and then write. I'm sure somewhere around week 8 we are really going to see Nancy get comfortable and start to shine. This all feels like opening night jitters to me. I would probably be the same way.

For $4.95 I'm not sure what she expects from a Caesar salad...

The CJ headed out to J Harrod's this week, and newly minted reviewer Nancy Miller has quite an interesting review. I'm prepared to say that there's clearly a new voice in town, as her style differs markedly from Marty's. What do you folks think?

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/en ... /12738475/

Dude...Not to be a snarkopotomus...but I'm curious, why are you so obsessed with what "we" think about this woman's style of writing ? I mean this is what ?....The third week in a row you're asking this sh** ? Christ on a crutch, give it a rest and let her get her feet wet and then (maybe 3 or 4 months from now) ask what we think. Seriously.

I'm kind of with Mary on this one. Perhaps this reviewer is getting more comfortable and confident with her task but this review certainly wasn't dull as previous reviews. Seems as if she is trying to be fair and balanced and - as Jeff noted in a previous post - it's a next to impossible thing to be without misstepping somewhere. I'd read her again.

[Robin Garr]

Dude...Not to be a snarkopotomus...but I'm curious, why are you so obsessed with what "we" think about this woman's style of writing ? I mean this is what ?....The third week in a row you're asking this sh** ? Christ on a crutch, give it a rest and let her get her feet wet and then (maybe 3 or 4 months from now) ask what we think. Seriously.

Calm yourself. We talk about food and food writing here. If you don't want to be in this conversation, find one you like.

Robin threw Marty's stuff up here for comment every week too, but Marty was old hat so there wasn't as much literary criticism involved.

[Robin Garr]

Robin threw Marty's stuff up here for comment every week too, but Marty was old hat so there wasn't as much literary criticism involved.

I used to do it regularly when Susan Reigler was the CJ's reviewer, quite frankly because her stuff was often ... odd. It seemed like a fair conversation-starter, although I generally tried not to over-snark.

Marty was pretty consistent. A nice guy. Some things about his prose style didn't particularly appeal to me, but that wasn't grounds for picking on him. There didn't seem to be much point in posting his reviews for discussion every week, so unless there was something unusual about it, I didn't.

Nancy is new, so that's news. You'll note, although Stevie-the-curmudgeon may have been trying to find something between the lines, that I took care not to slant my question or ask it snarkily. Foodies around town are talking about the new reviewer, though, so it's certainly reasonable for us to do it here.