Review of Guy Fieri's new Times Square restaurant

This is officially now my favorite restaurant review of all time (although, it can be argued that it's not really a restaurant review).  
 
http://observer.com/2012/...y-crimes-of-guy-fieri/

More like a tirade from a Bloomberg wannabe.  Now I want to eat there, just to pi$$ him off.

I dont care much about this guy one way or another. I found it a good article, however.I love a good rant. Joe-any mushrooms yet?

Disaster Train to Salty City.

It's rockin' 2 Stars on Yelp. That's Bananas. Bananas is bad.

ann peeples


I dont care much about this guy one way or another. I found it a good article, however.I love a good rant. Joe-any mushrooms yet?

 
No home grown yet, but I'm not giving up.  It has been a banner year for the wild ones.  My freezer is full.

Wow, hit piece if I ever seen one. Maybe he was expecting to get comped.
 
Honestly, I know little of Fieri except for a few youtube episodes that I watched. His style isn't my cup of tea, but I did find some of the kitchen sequences rather informative with the questions he asked and the type of restaurants he reveiws I find personal interest in behind the kitchen doors. I've seen too little to form a real opinion and don't have cable to watch his shows. I really don't have any business commenting, but a piece like this and the words used are absolutely unacceptable. This isn't journalism or a food review, it's a venemous invective against mr. Fieri's character.

I've read other reviews.  The place is a huge pile of suck - a temple to suck, even.

I didnt feel that way, Dawn. However, chacon a son gout.He , in my opinion, loves deep fried stuff, and has no taste in anything else. Just my opinion. Slopping anything on french fries is not good. Give them a side sauce, yum!

Ann, I'm not taking issue with the food or Fieri, as I said I know little of him and all probability would never set foot into a restaurant like this just out of choice.
 Nobody deserves to be character attacked like this. Especially the words used, even if they weren't the actual, vulgar explicatives, the meaning is the same. Any respectable editor should have rejected this article. Opinion is one thing, this borders or falls into libel.

TJ Jackson


I've read other reviews.  The place is a huge pile of suck - a temple to suck, even.

 
Every other review I have read were as much about the owner as the food. I wouldn't expect much from a themed restaurant in Times Square, but as others have stated, this and the other reviews I have seen would have meant more if they stuck the topics that should be the focus of a "restaurant" review. This particular one seems like something over done by someone trying to make a name for himself.

Things must really be getting bad when Rachel Ray and Paula Deen are beginning to give me warm and fuzzy feelings.

That's a tame article compared to the sporting section of most papers.

Alex Rodriguez is always asked if articles bother him. He says it comes along with being in the spotlight in NYC.

Is it personal?

I think it's more about the persona he portrays on television...and how that relates to this restaurant offering.

Anthony Bourdain would be first on line for a "suit" if it came time to fitting. He has said things way beyond...about many Food Network personalities.

Why would no one deserve to have their character attacked, particularly if you deliberately become a public figure and invite the public to watch your show and eat in your restaurant?  Guy is saying "HERE I AM!  WHADDAYA THINK?"  Well, this article is what one writer thinks.  Just his opinion- it's not a news story.  Calling it libel is way off the mark in my opinion.  Libel involves false claims.  

Or a statement that may cause or be deemed a threat to himself his family etc.....false representation of his personal (outside what he portrays on TV) life.

Critics are sometimes critical.

The theme to Guy's American Kitchen...is Guy. There's not much getting around the atmosphere...when the atmosphere decor etc. is tailored after the offered to the public "brand" of Guy Fieri.

I guess I am old fashioned and assume there should be some degree of objectivity when one serves in the role of "journalist". This writer hates Fieri and wrote his "review" to serve as proof of why we should all hate him. He certainly has the right to do so, but it would seem such a piece belongs on the op-ed page not the food and drink page where one would normally expect to find actual restaurant reviews and not hate filled tirades.

Pigiron


This is officially now my favorite restaurant review of all time (although, it can be argued that it's not really a restaurant review).  

http://observer.com/2012/...y-crimes-of-guy-fieri/

It is absolutely not a restauant review. It is nothing more than a venomous attack piece. And one does not have to like the object of this vicious tirade to recognize it for what it is.

I agree...mean spirited...not good journalism, at all!

It's The New York Observer.

It's not exactly a publication carrying the news to the people.

What exactly does Guy's personal appearance(weight, hair)have to do with his restaurant?  It was a hack piece, written by a piece......
 
 
 

Like most of the rest of the world...don't read The New York Observer.

Maybe it will be deemed political and will deserve a flag for the moderator.

Pigiron


Why would no one deserve to have their character attacked, particularly if you deliberately become a public figure and invite the public to watch your show and eat in your restaurant?  Guy is saying "HERE I AM!  WHADDAYA THINK?"  Well, this article is what one writer thinks.  Just his opinion- it's not a news story.  Calling it libel is way off the mark in my opinion.  Libel involves false claims.  

 
The comment in red above really disturbed me.  I just don't believe that public figures "deserve" to be attacked because they are public figures.  I see shows I don't like, eat in restaurants that I don't care for, etc...  While it is a free country and I have the right to say and do pretty much whatever I please, it doesn't mean that I should or that it is a good idea.  I live not far from Times Square and I could go down there and verbally attack celebrities day in and day out or I could do it from my keyboard if I wanted to...but that is not the way my parents raised me.  I try to do right by others and be kind to others.  It just seems like a much happier way to go through life.  
 
When I write Trip Reports for Roadfood I usually do include the elements that worked and that did not work about a particular place but I never go on the attack about the owner or make it personal.  
He has every right to say it but the flip side of that coin is that I have every right to dismiss him and not take him seriously as a reviewer.  I don't know, maybe Mr. Stein wrote this piece just hoping to get as many hits on it as possible as we are all here still debating it.  For me though, any restaurant "review" that contains references to bodily fluids, body orifices and bodily excretions has 3 references too many.  
 
I just found this quote from Howard Stern's movie, "Private Parts" and it seemed apt for this thread:
Researcher: The average radio listener listens for eighteen minutes. The average Howard Stern fan listens for - are you ready for this? - an hour and twenty minutes. 
Pig Vomit: How can that be? 
Researcher: Answer most commonly given? "I want to see what he'll say next." 
Pig Vomit: Okay, fine. But what about the people who hate Stern? 
Researcher: Good point. The average Stern hater listens for two and a half hours a day. 
Pig Vomit: But... if they hate him, why do they listen? 
Researcher: Most common answer? "I want to see what he'll say next." 
 
Just some food for thought...

That's why this sort of stuff appears.

I watch Guy all the time (he's on enough). This just isn't libel. It's catering to the readers who enjoy this. Just like the many other radio hosts in NYC that do the same thing....from WFAN WWOR WABC. That's why I listen to the Korean music channel.

billyboy

Pigiron


Why would no one deserve to have their character attacked, particularly if you deliberately become a public figure and invite the public to watch your show and eat in your restaurant?  Guy is saying "HERE I AM!  WHADDAYA THINK?"  Well, this article is what one writer thinks.  Just his opinion- it's not a news story.  Calling it libel is way off the mark in my opinion.  Libel involves false claims.  

The comment in red above really disturbed me.  I just don't believe that public figures "deserve" to be attacked because they are public figures.  I see shows I don't like, eat in restaurants that I don't care for, etc...  While it is a free country and I have the right to say and do pretty much whatever I please, it doesn't mean that I should or that it is a good idea.  I live not far from Times Square and I could go down there and verbally attack celebrities day in and day out or I could do it from my keyboard if I wanted to...but that is not the way my parents raised me.  I try to do right by others and be kind to others.  It just seems like a much happier way to go through life.  

 

I like the guy, he never has anything negative to say about all the places he visits on DDD, and Lord knows he surely makes them famous, he's most welcome here!

Pigiron

 Just his opinion- it's not a news story.  Calling it libel is way off the mark in my opinion.  Libel involves false claims.  

Granted that if he's expressing a personal and subjective opinion it isn't libel in most states. Nor is slur anymore. However misrepresentation and demonstrable economic loss
is certainly grounds for legal remedy. I don't know what the makeup of surrounding restaurants are or what they serve, but singling Guy out for unhealthy fare when it's essentially the same offerings that everyone else is serving with the same relative fat and caloric content is misrepresentation as if some way he's obsessed with creating and intentionally serving unhealthy food is misrepresentation. Should his joint venture failed and it can be shown that the article's misrepresentations impacted the venture financially, then were at that border that I mentioned and two parties have exposed themselves to litigation.

I guess journalism isnt what it used to be. Editors allow things in publications now that would NEVER heve been allowed years ago.I worked for the Milwaukee Journal in the 80s to 90s, and these guys were fairly careful.Unfortunately, this kind of stuff is put out there, and we read it. Thus it shows up here, as well as all over the internet. People are attacked nowadays, all the time. No one deserves it, but its going to happen.I post something on Facebook, and I get attacked. So i choose to limit my comments.

billyboy

Pigiron


Why would no one deserve to have their character attacked, particularly if you deliberately become a public figure and invite the public to watch your show and eat in your restaurant?  Guy is saying "HERE I AM!  WHADDAYA THINK?"  Well, this article is what one writer thinks.  Just his opinion- it's not a news story.  Calling it libel is way off the mark in my opinion.  Libel involves false claims.  

The comment in red above really disturbed me.  I just don't believe that public figures "deserve" to be attacked because they are public figures. 

 
I actually agree with you in spirit Billy.  I shouldn't have used the word "deserve".  I was responding to a comment that DawnT made: "Nobody deserves to be character attacked like this".  My response came across as meaning that public figures SHOULD be attacked.  That's not what I meant.  What I was trying to put across was that anyone who deliberately and calculatedly makes a public persona of him/herself is setting themselves up for criticism.  
 
This article is not news, it's not journalism, it's not even a restaurant review.  It's commentary and opinion.  It's mean and acerbic- but also freaking hilarious.  It's at the expense of a person who has made himself so ubiquitous in such an obnoxious way, that, in my opinion, pieces like this are inevitable (and this is FAR from the first piece critical of Fieri).  No, the author didn't HAVE to be so venomous, but that's the way he wrote it.  No one is forced to read it.  I enjoyed it immensely.  

I think the writer comes off as a pompous ass, but he has a right to say what he wants, and if he has an audience, then more power to him.
I wouldn't choose Guy's place to eat, but since I can sometimes be an instigator, I'd probably go there just to spite the writer because I can't stand a pompous ass. Call it a character flaw of mine.

It's a little silly to think dining at this restaurant would spite the writer. A writer shoots to have impact (positive or negative) and it seems like it certainly worked.

The writer would not care if you dined at the restaurant. He's not trying to hurt the business. Pompous ass is the writing style of many of the various "art" critics...going back a hundred years. Elitist or like Anthony Bourdain so so cool.

The review reveals much more about the author than it does the restaurant.