THE MEDIA DOG



The Outside World

Checkout lines monitored by thermal imaging, rotisserie chickens twirling like tops, a virtual supermarket on the fantasy website, Second Life - it's all in our future thanks to the wonders of food technology. (Lower Hudson Online).

In the Spring issue of CityFood, under "restaurant trends" (page 19) we talked about the trend of "false fronting" or how restaurants are learning to take advantage of the media's competitive habit of reviewing restaurants within mere days of their openings (and sometimes even before they are opened.) In the weekend Independent, food writer Terry Durack reports on how the practice is becoming common place in London and what happened when he waited a few weeks to review Gordon Ramsey's latest gastropub. What he found did not fulfill the promise of the restaurant's early reviews to say the least. So, to what extent is opening day propping for the media resulting in disappointment for the dining public at our local level? One might as well ask why the much touted single-animal deli and butcher shop of So.cial is still curtained off and being used as a storage room. We think it's time for media to start making repeat visits, especially to some of the dining rooms that received the most immediate ink a few months ago. Let's see if reality is living up to the hype.