True Dining Guide Confessions #5: Who Flunked Out

Unless something so grosses me out or captivates me that I feel the need to single it out, like perhaps a bathroom that smells like an outhouse on a summer day in Georgia, my focus is on the plate. Good food is the reason I choose a place. Well, no, that’s a lie. I’m a critic. I go to tons of places that suck, but good food is the reason I choose to send you to a place.

Because of this emphasis, I have snubbed a few restaurants that I originally thought were shoo-ins. Recent tastings proved to me their shortcomings. The Hitching Post’s signature fried chicken, for example, was dry and tasteless. A fry cook at Eamonn’s somehow thought it was a good idea to send out a burnt, blackened piece of cod that could have been used as a hammer. And Marvin can’t seem to produce a single thing that pleases me these days—unless you consider pulling a Belgian draft an act of culinary skill.