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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The most scathing restaurant review you'll ever read

I've never understood the appeal of Guy Fieri, the host of the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."

The few times I watched the show it seemed to consist of shots of Fieri watching someone whip up a meal in a kitchen at a diner, drive-in or dive somewhere in America's heartland.

And then the camera would show him wolfing down the food right there in the kitchen like he was some truck driver who was double-parked outside. That's the entire show. At least that's what I remember. Annoying.

Lucky for me I no longer get the Food Network; so there's no chance I'll see Fieri on TV ever again. Not even by accident.

Today I learned that I'm not the only one who finds Fieri and his schtick annoying.

New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells has written a review of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square.

Wells' review reads like an open letter full of questions for Fieri. It's a brilliant, hilarious and scathing takedown.

Here are some of Wells' best lines:
•“Hey [Guy], did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?”

•“Has anyone ever told you that your high-wattage passion for no-collar American food makes you television’s answer to Calvin Trillin, if Mr. Trillin bleached his hair, drove a Camaro and drank Boozy Creamsicles?”

•“When you cruise around the country for your show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” rasping out slangy odes to the unfancy places where Americans like to get down and greasy, do you really mean it? Or is it all an act? Is that why the kind of cooking you celebrate on television is treated with so little respect at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar?”

•“When you hung that sign by the entrance that says, WELCOME TO FLAVOR TOWN!, were you just messing with our heads?”

•“And when we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about?”

•“Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?”

•“Oh, and we never got our Vegas fries; would you mind telling the kitchen that we don’t need them?”

“Thanks.”


Read Pete Wells entire review by clicking here.



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