Mixed meal yields 3 CJ stars for Proof ...

[Robin Garr]

Go, read it, and then tell us what you think. I'm honestly not sure what I would have done, so I'll try to keep my mouth shut while I wait.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/en ... /83613382/

That is one of the more "interesting" (I'm trying to be nice here) reviews that I have ever read. I really don't know what to say. Do they actually pay her to write this stuff?

Robin, reviews like this make me appreciate your work even more. (By the way, I'm off to The Hub this evening for those nachos.)

As someone mentioned in the comments... she describes the pop tart as forming a brown, goopy mess on her plate. But the photo taken by a CJ photog shows a literally perfect looking dish, quite the opposite of what she describes.

I have sometimes bumped up against what I've considered a negative overreation to her reviews -- at least regarding the food, if not the writing style. So I can skip over the "haughty pot", roll my eyes, and not get worked up over it. But if the food was so bad that she was really, reallly about to leave until she got free cotton candy (cotton candy?!?), then, wow. And three stars, no less. It reads like a parody of a Nancy Miller review.

That said, I don't know if I'm more put off by the review or the fact that Proof now serves pop tarts and cotton candy.

[Robin Garr]

That said, I don't know if I'm more put off by the review or the fact that Proof now serves pop tarts and cotton candy.

I believe you have successfully cut to the chase.

[Robin Garr]

As someone mentioned in the comments... she describes the pop tart as forming a brown, goopy mess on her plate. But the photo taken by a CJ photog shows a literally perfect looking dish, quite the opposite of what she describes.

Now, this is an interesting point. I got yelled at once by a chef I admire, because the picture of a dish that ran with my column wasn't prettily plated and had fallen apart when the server got it to the table.

But that's why I like to take my own food photos if it's practical. I'd rather have the review illustrate what I got in the actual stream of events while I was at dinner. It seems to me that having a photographer come back later and do a studio photo of a carefully constructed sample dish doesn't really do the dining public as much of a service. I'm sure the restaurateurs prefer it, though.

Her writing reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw..
"Suc*s syntax "

As someone mentioned in the comments... she describes the pop tart as forming a brown, goopy mess on her plate. But the photo taken by a CJ photog shows a literally perfect looking dish, quite the opposite of what she describes.

But that's why I like to take my own food photos if it's practical. I'd rather have the review illustrate what I got in the actual stream of events while I was at dinner.

Robin, in my opinion those are the only photos I want to see. Let me see what I'm going to get if I order it, not something set up for a photo shoot and/or styled by a food stylist.

In my meat-eating days I used to frequent both Subway and (blush) Burger King for lunch. Nothing that I got looked anything like what I saw (and continue to see today) in their TV and print advertising.

[Robin Garr]

In my meat-eating days I used to frequent both Subway and (blush) Burger King for lunch. Nothing that I got looked anything like what I saw (and continue to see today) in their TV and print advertising.

Somewhere on the Internet there's a funny page that compares the ad and the reality side-by-side.

Here you go, this is awesome ...
https://www.buzzfeed.com/christianzamor ... .ct0xap3lG

Cool! I should do that with my wedding pictures!

[Robin Garr]

Cool! I should do that with my wedding pictures!

The poptarts are homemade and delicious. The cotton candy is a whimsical thank you from the staff. Under chef Wajad's helm, I have had some truly amazing meals there. Love it.

[Robin Garr]

The poptarts are homemade and delicious. The cotton candy is a whimsical thank you from the staff. Under chef Wajad's helm, I have had some truly amazing meals there. Love it.

Okay, that's fair. So you do you relate that to the review? Or the pop tart in the picture that doesn't seem to match the pop tart in the description?

The poptarts are homemade and delicious. The cotton candy is a whimsical thank you from the staff. Under chef Wajad's helm, I have had some truly amazing meals there. Love it.

Okay, that's fair. So you do you relate that to the review? Or the pop tart in the picture that doesn't seem to match the pop tart in the description?

The two times I've had it, it looked like the picture. Maybe she had a bad batch or she was looking out for a mother breast feeding and got distracted.

[Robin Garr]

The two times I've had it, it looked like the picture. Maybe she had a bad batch or she was looking out for a mother breast feeding and got distracted.

Maybe someone in the kitchen recognized her and made her something "special"?