{"id":512,"date":"2018-09-13T11:11:31","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/?p=999918237"},"modified":"2018-09-13T11:11:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:11:31","slug":"restaurant-review-negative-food-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/food\/restaurant-review-negative-food-criticism","title":{"rendered":"A Long Beach restaurateur invited the writer of a negative review to talk face-to-face. Here’s what happened."},"content":{"rendered":"

I, admittedly, thought I was heading into the lion’s den as I walked up the Promenade toward Table 301, the restaurant I critiqued in my first negative review ever.<\/a><\/p>\n

After all, I was not only meeting the restaurant’s owner, David Solzman; I was also meeting with the property owner, Tony Shooshani\u2014the guy who has invested millions into revamping the former City Place space into The Streets<\/a>\u2014and their PR head, Cameron Andrews.<\/p>\n

Surely, I was about to get ripped a new orifice.<\/p>\n

The reality, however, was quite the opposite and, in a very particular sense, could be described as Very Long Beach. In fact, it was nothing short of amazing\u2014and this piece is, admittedly, a bit selfish.<\/p>\n

I came in with as much understanding as I could; I knew distinctly that my piece had an effect and that, in part, was the precise reason I had never written a negative review beforehand. (In fact, up until this past year, I had never even done “Best Of” lists because I found them filled with more ego than direction, if not outright being unfair: How can one say that Phnom Penh Noodle Shack’s bowl of noodles<\/a> is inferior to a plate of Ellie’s\u00a0Garganelli all\u2019Amatriciana<\/a>?)<\/p>\n

I have always tried to approach food in the way of my culinary heroes\u2014Anthony Bourdain and Jonathan Gold, surely having a spiraling, deeply prolix conversation up in the heavens about whether Jiro of Sukiyabashi Jiro or Albert Ba\u00f1uelos of Burritos La Palma have the world’s most delectable rolled-up food\u2014and that means talking to chefs.<\/p>\n

Eschewing the ever mysterious Food Critic persona, I\u00a0talk to chefs and restaurant folks.\u00a0<\/em>A lot. Before tasting their food most of the time. Ask Chef Jason Witzl<\/a>. Or Chef\u00a0Manuel Ba\u00f1uelos<\/a>. Or cocktail master\u00a0Nathan McCollough<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And when a writer, especially one who loves food, talks to chefs, they discover journeys and stories and nuances and idiosyncrasies that make it very difficult to eat a plate of their food and judge its merits or lack thereof. Tack onto this Long Beach’s mostly-endearing-but-sometimes-blind sense of pride and any rightfully negative talk of food gets pushed to the quiet murmurs inside one’s bedroom walls.<\/p>\n

My piece about Table 301, given this history of my writing, wasn’t Brian Addison Trying to Ruin a New Business. It wasn’t a pot-stirring piece.<\/p>\n

It was a discussion in the newsroom, our group of editors analyzing the potential damage it could bring; we also analyzed the potential change it could bring. It was a frank conversation I wanted to have about Long Beach’s food scene, removed from my typical approach to food. It was many things.<\/p>\n

But it was, first and foremost, a call to action.<\/p>\n

I said it in the beginning of the piece, I said it at the end of the piece, and I will repeat it: I\u00a0know Table 301 can do better\u2014<\/em>and it would be unfair of me to step into a gorgeous restaurant, where its owner easily threw down $1.5 million, and not alert him, as bluntly as possible, that he would find himself out of business if he didn’t have a kitchen to match the restaurant’s outer beauty.<\/p>\n

Humble, understanding, and rightfully tired,\u00a0Solzman thanked me. It was something I didn’t deserve but there was a vulnerability there that was, to say the least, noble.<\/p>\n

Was he pissed at the piece? Of course he was.<\/p>\n

The way he framed it, however, showed me a man with deep integrity: “You have these things in your head running a business\u2014you know what’s wrong, you know they have to be fixed. And to have a complete stranger repeat that to you in such a fashion, it… It can be painful. It’s like I wanted to grab you and say to your face, ‘I know what’s wrong!<\/em>‘”<\/p>\n

Perhaps most respectable and tactful\u2014besides not telling me outright to go sit on a bottle of two-buck Chuck and piss off\u2014is that he respected my view, understood it as not an attack but a forthright call-out, and took action. And he wanted to have conversation about it. About the future, about change, about doing better.<\/p>\n

“It was already being discussed but your article helped push things along,” he said. “We’re getting a new chef thanks to a recommendation from our beverage director\u2014he’ll start his new menu in October. We’ve cut down our menu. We’re looking to change because you’re right: That food should have never been coming out of that kitchen.”<\/p>\n

I only want the best for Long Beach and, as it so happens, so does Solzman.<\/p>\n

“A guy like me is only given this kind of chance once in a lifetime,” he told me. “And I feel so blessed to have it that I know I can’t lose it on fixable things. Long Beach deserves that.”<\/p>\n

Amen, David. Looking forward to the new menu, Table 301\u2014expect me for lunch and dinner soon.<\/p>\n

Table 301 is located at\u00a0301 The Promenade North.<\/em><\/p>\n

Brian Addison is a columnist and editor for the Long Beach Post.\u00a0<\/em>Reach him at\u00a0brian@lbpost.com or on social media at Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, and LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I said it in the beginning of the piece, I said it at the end of the piece, and I will repeat it: I\u00a0know Table 301 can do better\u2014and it would be unfair of me to step into a gorgeous restaurant, where its owner easily threw down $1.5 million, and not alert him, as bluntly as possible, that he would find himself out of business if he didn’t have a kitchen to match the restaurant’s outer beauty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":66036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[36],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-downtown-long-beach","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}