There's nothing more fun than a scathing restaurant review

Pete Wells lets loose in today’s NY Times about Bluebird London, a branch of which opened recently in the Time Warner Center.

Some tasty nuggets from his review:

A glass case [at the cafe-slash-wine bar] serves as a temporary prison for aging pastries and tragic snacks.



The “crispy shrimp” have the limp, expired quality of tempura that’s been doing laps all night at a conveyor-belt sushi place.



The thicker crust around a farmhouse pork terrine, served with a chill that brought out its Spammy qualities, is on its way to being cooked. The very, very thick football of crust encasing beef Wellington is cooked only on the surface; deep inside, where it meets the tenderloin, is a mass of wet, gluey dough. This costs $95 and will serve two people, both of whom had better like the taste of raw flour.



Atmosphere: Cafe in the front, bar in the middle, dining in the back. Desperation all around. Servers often seem to be hiding panic; you want to ask them to blink twice if they’re being held against their will.

Some good lines. Well played.

That is a beautifully-executed review, from headline to punchline.

Oh my that is bad. Loved many of the lines but this one is really funny:

“Servers often seem to be hiding panic; you want to ask them to blink twice if they’re being held against their will.”

Didn’t Jay Miller post a positive review here?

We obviously had different Beef Wellingtons. Mine was fantastic and he doesn’t seem to have sampled either the excellent dressed crab or the execrable artichoke and foie gras.

And no mention of the amazing view?

I liked → “Yellowfin tuna poke has been tossed onto a big, damp heap of unseasoned quinoa, which must be there to soak up any seasoning that accidentally attaches itself to the fish.”

And Ryan Sutton’s take:

“Let me be clear: Bluebird is New York’s worst new restaurant of 2018.”

Thank you for posting John.

“At lunch there is a lobster Cobb salad with lettuce and round, red objects that are probably supposed to be tomatoes.”

I giggled.

Now that’s how you slam a restaurant. Perhaps someone should forward it to Ms. O’Loughlin for inspiration?

I can’t get the tragic snacks out of my mind.

At least they also liked the dressed crab:

“If pressed to order anything at dinner, a mound of crab with trout roe expresses its maritime punch with aplomb.”

This is how you slam a restaurant:

He has a two volume “Worst of”-collection available on Amazon. I haven’t read the second yet, but the first is fantastic.

Rayner is the worst. He is just a caricature at this point. He is the type of reviewer that goes into a restaurant hoping to find something bad that he can flame.

Thank you for posting…a good laugh.

Wells is kind of a jerk. But he is a very good writer. I used to enjoy reading him.

That is both entertaining and painful to read. Excellent writing.