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When You Open A Restaurant, You Don’t Get Credit for Trying

Lori Pomeranz, co-owner of a furniture store a few doors down from Cafe Stellina on 12th Ave., takes issue in this week’s letters section with Bethany Clement’s review of Stellina in last week’s paper. After accusing Bethany of being ignorant, writing “drivel,” and attempting to “ruin the livelihood of Cafe Stellina’s owners,” Pomeranz makes a point that I hear too frequently about local ventures that don’t measure up: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

You said that it would not be difficult to write this drivel about a corporate eatery. You claim that it was difficult to write it about a “mom and pop” establishment whose owners are so obviously working their butts off (like you said, you can see them working behind the counter) but… you wrote it anyway. […]

I feel weird having to say it, but Bethany, you need to reread your article, interrogate yourself, and ask what, why, and how your overly opinionated editorial truly assists Cafe Stellina in strengthening its high points and improving upon its shortcomings.

See, that’s exactly the point. Editorials (technically reviews, but let’s not be picky) are supposed to be opinionated. The point of a review is to tell readers what to expect when they go to a restaurant (or performance, or art show, or movie)—and whether they should go at all. Hand-holding, pulling punches, is intellectually dishonest. It’s also a disservice. The idea that we have an obligation to grade local ventures on a curve insults our readers and trivializes the efforts of local businesses that are not only “working their butts off,” but actually doing a good job.

If anything, I thought Bethany was reserved. On my visit there with her, the best thing I had was a beet salad that was just so-so. The rest ranged from vaguely icky to downright stomach-turning (that would be the hominy tinged with the taste of burned Teflon.) The mussels with chorizo, while at least not brain-cell-destroying, couldn’t by any stretch be called good: A mayonnaisey sauce, squeeze-bottled hither and yon, sat uselessly on top of the shells or curdled into the chicken-y broth, giving the whole thing a clumpy, unappetizing texture. The chorizo was still in its casings, and chopped into unappealingly irregular bits: Some bites were barely a morsel, others were easily two inches long. (And it was, as Bethany mentioned, grainy.) The potatoes, meanwhile, had disintegrated into mush. Many mussels had sunk into the broth unopened, a sign of shellfish you don’t want to eat; reports from others’ subsequent visits confirmed that this was not a one-time occurrence. The rice, unflavored by so much as broth or salt and pepper, tasted like Minute Rice; the vegetables were, indeed, incredibly dry. The “warm spinach salad” was pretty much cooked throughout, as if the chef had turned her back on the pan while the spinach was wilting (which should be a two-second operation). And the desserts were, frankly, a huge disappointment. The milk-chocolate mousse, which Bethany described as a “mousse pile,” evoked exactly what that phrase implies; the blueberry tart was grainy and almost tasteless, except for the off-puttingly sour interior.

Need I go on? It’s your job to serve good food, Stellina. It isn’t a reviewer’s job to cover for you when you fail to do so.

Comments (31)

1

He should complain to God [sic] for making him an idiot.

Posted by Mr. Poe | April 26, 2007 2:26 PM
2

Agreed.

Letter-writer Pomeranz identified herslef as a Stellina regular, as if that held some value on its own. In any case, by now Bethany can also call herself a Stellina regular, having visited the restaurant three times and sampled three-quarters of the available menu.

On one of the visits, I went with her, and not only was the food less than good, the kitchen made such an outrageous flub we were comped the whole meal. This extraordinarily bad experience was left out of the final review, which, like Erica, I consider to be restrained and fair.

Posted by David Schmader | April 26, 2007 2:30 PM
3

That is the best, most pukey description of bad food I have ever read.

"A mayonnaisey sauce, squeeze-bottled hither and yon, sat uselessly on top of the shells or curdled into the chicken-y broth"

I'm laughing and barfing. I'm larfing.

Posted by sniggles | April 26, 2007 2:34 PM
4

ha! everytime i heard someone say "larfing" it makes me want to start baughing...

Posted by infrequent | April 26, 2007 2:42 PM
5

ECB- you should have written the review. Youre cold blooded. Bethany is more diplomatic.

I agree, part of food critic-writer's job is to tell me-based on her experience- what's up and whats worth trying out. We dont always have to agree. Just dont diss the Elysian's fish and chips. =)

Posted by SeMe | April 26, 2007 2:42 PM
6

BOL! (Barf Out Loud)

Posted by monkey | April 26, 2007 2:43 PM
7

I not sure how seriously I can the opinion of someone who harps over Frito Pie and other simpleton cuisines from Texas.

Posted by Chef | April 26, 2007 2:45 PM
8

Instead of writing a most pukey description, I would have stuck quarters in my nose and called it Fnarfing

Need I go on?
NO!

Posted by jonathan | April 26, 2007 2:45 PM
9

I understand that it's a reviewer's job to be honest, but this post seems a little petty and vindictive.

From the infinite wisdom of the Simpsons:
"Homer, it's easy to criticize..."
"Fun, too!"

Posted by gillsans | April 26, 2007 2:54 PM
10

I won't take a position on the content of the review, but please please please can there be an absolute moratorium on the "open letter" conceit?

Posted by David | April 26, 2007 3:02 PM
11

Come on, gillsans. Are you really suggesting that these professional critics stop with the criticizing? As ECB says, they're doing their job.

Posted by Come On | April 26, 2007 3:04 PM
12

@7-
Only a Chef would have the nerve to knock simpleton pleasures from Texas.

Posted by Mr. Poe | April 26, 2007 3:05 PM
13

David, it's nice that you have strong opinions about "open letters", but there isn't one in evidence here. It was just a plain old letter to the editor. Surely you're not opposed to those too?

Posted by fnarf | April 26, 2007 3:07 PM
14

I understand that reviewers are doing their job and I'm not suggesting that they stop giving bad reviews or even stop being brutally honest. I just think it's a little petty for ECB to write a rebuttal to an Editorial letter (aren't they supposed to be opinionated too?). It must be nice to always have the last word.

As for the Simspsons quote, I just thought it was funny.

Posted by gillsans | April 26, 2007 3:21 PM
15

Hi Fnarf, I love letters to the editor. However, at this time I move that Bethany's review, subtitled "An Open Letter to Cafe Stellina," be entered into evidence.

Posted by David | April 26, 2007 3:25 PM
16

SeMe @5, the Elysian's fish and chips are the worst I've ever had in Seattle, and I've tried em twice. Soggy and still sporting gross silvery scales, both times. BOL

Posted by Explorer | April 26, 2007 3:25 PM
17

520 Bar & Grill in Old Bellevue is the home of the worst mussels in the world.

I recommend ordering only the Cajun Salmon Sandwich and a Corona.

Posted by Mr. Poe | April 26, 2007 3:32 PM
18

David, you win. I amb dumb.

Posted by fnarf | April 26, 2007 3:34 PM
19

Agreed--Elysian's fish and chips are AWFUL. This extends to their Tangletown restaurant, where they compliment the awful fish (how do you screw up FRIED FISH) with incredibly rude service.

Posted by Seth | April 26, 2007 3:53 PM
20

don't care about stellina even though i live about 2 blocks away. i'd BOL if i went to a restaurant that served oxtails, mussels, and chorizo.

what's with the anti-vegetarian backlash at the stranger? it used to seem like a vegetarian restaurant was reviewed every other week. now it's not even mentioned if a restaurant has vegetarian/vegan options. we've got to be a significant percentage of your readers.

my theory is that it's the fault of those BOL-inducing linda's ads about MEAT.

Posted by jamier | April 26, 2007 3:54 PM
21

@9 -

I agree that this post goes beyond a critic's responsibility to accurately review the shortcomings of your dining experience for the benefit of the readership, and slithers into the murky waters of abusing one's post as a widely-read columnist to level additional picayune defamations of a transparently personal nature against Lori Pomeranz and Cafe Stellina.

Personally, I live for opportunities to share my personal dining experiences via the citysearch and blog avenues available to me. If a place sucks; it's dead to me, and I'll do my best to persuade others to take the same tack. If it's wonderful, every single person I know will hear about it, and I think that's pretty normal for most people.

The difference between my being petty because I've been suckered out of $20 for a shitty dinner and write an overly-aggressive hate anecdote in a misguided attempt to cripple the business forever, and ECB being petty because she feels the friends and neighbors of this particular restaurant don't have a right to take issue with the debatable editorial shortcomings of The Stranger in a misguided attempt to cripple the business forever, is sort of this, I think:

Critics, writers, what have you, who actually get paid (albeit Stranger salaries, or so I've heard) to criticize things and who have access to very large mouthpieces (i.e. widely circulated weeklies and widely read blogs) are charged with not abusing said mouthpieces to take supererogatory swipes at their enemies. When I decide to negatively impact the business of a restaurant by using all the descriptive majesty of the English language available to me (like "chicken-y"), I still only reach a dozen people at most. This means no matter how dirty my tactics are to disparage a business, my overall net impact will be low. When the Slog is leveraged as a weapon to inflict mortal wounds of reputation to a business, well, it could be tantamount to just burning the place down as a reasonable response to a fly in your soup.

I know how you feel, restaurants that have wronged me or my friends are my enemies, too.

When a letter from a reader gets met by such a snarky, patronizing response (explaining how an editorial works followed by an unnecessarily cruel and long-winded stomping of the restaurant), it just paints you as the bigger toddler who's authority has been questioned by the smaller toddler so you take advantage of the fact that you're bigger and wipe the floor with your victim. Like how dare they question the supreme authority of your colleague; they shall be shown the penalties for such insolence.

It is also a disservice to the unintelligentsia to refer to draconian attacks as "reviews."

For the record, though, I have not eaten there and probably never will based on David Schmader's corroborating remarks.

Posted by jackie treehorn | April 26, 2007 4:13 PM
22

It should be noted that ECB and BJC are best buddies.

Posted by Floats all Boats | April 26, 2007 4:25 PM
23

I should clarify that when I refer to ECB as a "widely-read columnist," I mean to a very specific Slog-reading, restaurant-frequenting demographic here in the city, for the most part, and do not mean to imply that hers, or anyone's influence as a staff writer at The Stranger necessarily impacts anything on a global, or even county-wide scale.

Except for Charles Mudede, who I believe is behind the conspiracy known as global warming.

Posted by jackie treehorn | April 26, 2007 4:48 PM
24

FYI, Stellina is not my "enemy." I, too, wanted to like it. But the tortured hand-wringing over panning a restaurant just because it happens to be in our neighborhood (I work a block away, too, remember) seems misguided. It's a restaurant, not a child. It's not my job to "nurture" it even when it's bad.

Posted by ECB | April 26, 2007 5:11 PM
25

Oh, please. Spare me from the outraged bleatings of the Entitlement Generation. Just because you do something, it doesn't mean you're good at it and it doesn't always mean you get a gold star for your effort. Sometimes people need to be told that their work is crap, and they need to hear it in the harshest manner possible.

Posted by art | April 26, 2007 5:20 PM
26

Reviews, and retort-reviews, do not have to nurture, and they do not have to pander to the bleatings of anybody, even those who apparently dislike people born between the years 1979 and 1994. Totally agreed. Lots of things suck, including restaurants, and I'm not arguing that Stellina doesn't (I'm the one who hasn't eaten there, remember), I'm just pointing out the use of what I perceive to be a disappointing use of excessive force versus an informatively objective review.

Posted by jackie treehorn | April 26, 2007 5:37 PM
27

I agree with Treehorn's point. Erica's critique of Stellina in this post contains just the sort of sourness and spirit of attack Bethany carefully kept out of her review.

Posted by David Schmader | April 27, 2007 9:23 AM
28

Wow. You people have different taste buds than I.

I frequented Stellina's when they were at 20th and Union for the morning coffee and little $3 quiches, which are maybe the best fast breakfast food I've ever had.

Now that they've moved to 12th I don't get there as often, but every time I have gone I've adored the food. I find the pot pie scrumptious, more subtle than maybe you're used to, allowing each individual carrot and piece of chicken take a moment in the spotlight.

The beets w/ feta, balsamic, and mint is inspired, and the black bean salad is a lesson in simple elegance.

Cafe Stellina, I love you.

Posted by NaFun | April 27, 2007 12:06 PM
29

BOL is going to go Richter around here. This thread is incredible!

Posted by ROTFB | April 27, 2007 3:08 PM
30

It's not as if this was an inaccurate description of the food at Stellina. They may be working their butts off, but the fruits of their labor were mediocre. I can't believe I wasted my money there twice.

Posted by corporate_slave | April 27, 2007 5:52 PM
31

jackie treehorn is onto something, and that something is this: if you know any critics at The Stranger, you know they are paid very poorly, and are stuck at The Stranger indefinitely in a kind of career stasis. There's really no where they can go, and no one who will take them. They haven't developed the discipline skills to launch into a bigger market, so they shrink into bitterness and small-town thinking. And also, it's cozy for them in Seattle to kick around town be D-listers. So this leads to tripe like Bethany’s review, which appears to be so Seattle helpful, but is actually boring, mean-spirited, and disingenuous. There is a way to be critical and give a shit, and that way is to be more interested in your subject than yourself. If you know any Stranger critics this will be pretty transparent to you.

Posted by Ari | April 29, 2007 1:24 AM

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