Balaban’s Closing and Joe Bonwich
Jan 31, 2008 restaurants
In today’s Post Dispatch there is an article Joe Bonwich wrote about Balaban’s closing. It’s a great piece and there’s some really interesting information about the restaurant’s history.
It’s definitely worth a read if you find yourself with a few minutes to spare.
I also ran across this article recently on thecommonspace.org that Joe Bonwich wrote in 2001 about life as a critic when he worked at the RFT.
If you like negative reviews and wish he’d write more, read it. I agree with him, and he made his case far more eloquently than I did in the “St. Louis Good” forum topic.
And if you’re a person that dislikes the term “St. Louis Good”, he nails it with this one:
…I’m fairly well convinced that our best stack up favorably against the best in all but the very top echelon of American food cities. Yet even the Zagat guides have stopped doing one for our hometown.
Tags: American food, Balaban's, Joe Bonwich, Post Dispatch
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January 31st, 2008 at 11:24 am
Thank you for pointing out the 2001 article. It reminded me of Melissa Martin, perhaps the most honest critic this city has seen in years. She knew how to skewer a place and, thereby, honored her reader’s pocketbook. Great writer. Joe mentioned “benign neglect” but the neglect is not harmless when it leave unwitting diners and their hard earned money subject to marching into bad restaurants left untouched by “critics with a (restaurant owner favoring) conscience”.
January 31st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Speaking solely for myself, I don’t necessarily think any critic is abdicating his/her responsibility by practicing “benign neglect” or whatever you want to call it.
I think of it this way: I review 50 restaurants a year. In any given calendar year, more than 50 restaurants open in the metro area — far more, I’d bet. Even if I reviewed only new restaurants (I don’t) and counted places I review on my blog, but not the paper, I couldn’t cover all of them.
Some reviews I have no choice but to review, good or bad, because they are “important” to the scene: An American Place, etc., etc.
Other weeks, it’s not so clear-cut. So I have to choose, and often I’d rather promote what I think is worthy (for whatever reason) rather than take down Joe Schmoe’s Bar & Grill just ’cause. It’s a matter of advocating good food to people who care, rather than simply being a consumer advocate.
Very important note: Just because I don’t review a restaurant doesn’t mean I ate there and didn’t like it.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:29 am
All of this explains why I think Ian’s and Joe’s reviews are so boring to read.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:21 am
Zing!