“I take Monday nights off to enjoy ‘boys’ night’ with my 3-year-old son Frank. His favorite food is dumplings, so we’ve been on a tour of dim sum houses, and dumpling restaurants in Chinatown. Which is why I think that my must eat/drink list is not ‘where’, but ‘with whom’. I’m not a critical eater.
I know what it takes to pull off a restaurant on a daily basis, and think people spending their time snapping pictures at dinner to share their two cents and critiques to the world on Yelp or whatever need to shut the f*ck up, and learn to enjoy themselves. Grab a loved one or a friend, focus on them, and appreciate that someone in the back is working their ass off to provide you with a good meal, despite occasional and often inevitable flaws, and love that moment for that moment is as good as it’s gonna get.”
My thoughts exactly, Paul Gerard ( Executive Chef/ Owner at Exchange Alley ).
I work as a chef in one of Canada’s oldest restaurant/cafe worker’s co-ops, the Sleepless Goat, and needless to say, being in the back of a kitchen can be some of the grimiest, sore-legs, stressful operations around. Too many people with too much time on their hands going off on how the food should’ve been prepared this way and that instead of just letting the moment simmer and flavour in their memory. A sign of the times? Perhaps.