I'm not going to lie: being a food critic is one of the best jobs in the world. First of all, you get to eat out at restaurants for free. Then, you get to tell a large number of people what you thought of the experience. And the cherry on top of this sundae of employment delight is that someone actually pays you to do these things! Unless you're a professional video game tester who moonlights in R&D at a sex toy shop, I think food critic is about as good as it gets.
But just as those jobs are riddled with hidden pitfalls (boredom, frustration, accidental electrocution), so the field of food critique is not always a bed of lettuce. I've driven hours to a restaurant on my list only to realize that it's not ready for prime time. I've reviewed restaurants that have closed due to fire, flood or general suckage before the article goes to print. I've responded to angry chefs, imbalanced fans and folks who think I'm a walking restaurant referral service. I've forced my dining companions to order particular dishes to even out the tone of my review, and come away from some places wondering if one more visit, one more dish, would show me whatever charm kept the doors open.
Still, any setbacks were far outweighed by the perks. It's a great gig; I'd do it again in a second. I've still got the appetite. But I'm moving to Washington, D.C., and it's one hell of a commute.
Of course, I've considered the ramifications of this decision on my waistline, my pocketbook, and most of all, my dining companions. My girlfriends will no longer have to suffer embarrassment when they bring me to a new eatery and I make it my next target. My father won't be able to make loud comments about his daughter, the food critic, to get more respect in restaurants, and my brother and his buddies have lost their free lunch ticket. Sailor Boy, bless his hearty appetite, is crushed. After all, it's not easy to find a significant other with a professional obligation to buy you lobster.
And I'll miss my readers. I'll miss the sweet guy who e-mailed me asking for last-minute Valentine's Day reservation advice after his fickle girlfriend talked him into canceling reservations at both Bern's and The Melting Pot – then changed her mind. I'll miss the lady who writes in on a semi-regular basis to correct my French. Merci. I'll miss the thank-you letters from restaurateurs, and heck, I'll even miss the nasty notes from people who question my taste. (I've got an opinion, and so do they.)
But most of all, I'll miss discovering my hometown through the food that it serves. Though I was raised in Tampa Bay, I never knew it so well as I did when reflected in the tines of my fork. Traditions, culture, growth, change and community spirit are all embodied in the restaurant scene in this town. So in this, my last food column for the Weekly Planet before I leave Florida for the clogged beltways of Washington, D.C., I present:
Everything I Know about Food, I Learned in Tampa Bay
Go where the locals go. In this tourist town, one quickly learns which restaurants are set up to trap the snowbirds and Spring Breakers, and which are capable of filling their tables even in the September doldrums. For me, tourist season is the time when I can't get into Frenchy's Rockaway for love or money (luckily, the original Frenchy's is hidden on a nearby backstreet, and though the view isn't as nice, the sandwiches are even better). But in general, I watch the traffic flow of the natives – they know the locations of the town treasures.
A good chain is nothing to sneer at. There are evil, generic, bottom-line corporate restaurants, and then there are corporate restaurants that are just like your local mom-and-pop, but with a bigger advertising budget. These are the restaurants that treat their franchise owners with respect and dignity, let them individualize, and give the chefs a modicum of free reign on the menu. In Tampa, we're blessed with some of the worst and best. We've watched local favorites go from pretty Norma Jeans to drop-dead gorgeous (and equally overblown) Marilyns (cough, cough, Bonefish). And as a training ground for corporate restaurants everywhere, Tampa Bay has a responsibility to make sure that only the best survive. Speak with your dollar.
Seafood should be simple, fresh and geographically specific. What's our specialty? Grouper. Say it again. Grouper. On a bad day, I'll even give you snapper. But why spring for Chilean sea bass in a town blessed with the best fish on earth? If I'm ever in Santiago, I'll have the sea bass. Meanwhile, I'm going to pretend I buy some of that macrobiotic nonsense and keep to the local seafood.
If the restaurant has been around since dinosaurs walked the earth, there's probably a reason. The Columbia is 100 years old. Bern's is coming up on 50. There are a dozen more that are nearing a comfortable middle age. Tampa Bay may not have as many ancient institutions as older cities, but what we lack in quantity, we more than make up for in quality.
A direct corollary exists between the quality of a barbecue joint and its resemblance to a pile of spare parts and driftwood. There are rules like this for just about every genre of restaurant – a dozen little tips and tricks that serve as an instant indication of whether or not the place is worth your time. Make your own list.
It's called a "local specialty" for a reason. Eat it. Stone crab, grouper sandwiches, early strawberries, ham sandwiches with pickles and mustard, Greek salad with potato salad hidden inside, key lime pie, tangerine sherbet and swamp cabbage fritters – those who say that we're a culinary wasteland haven't even looked.
There are other guidelines of course, but they are more personal notations (stuff like, don't wear a skirt in a restaurant with a wine cellar set into the floor – thank you, Salt Rock Grill).
When I told my editor I was leaving the Planet, he made a crack about spaceships. But since I'd spent two years fending off the Lois Lane jokes (and I'm sure he's buried under a mountain of Clark Kent references himself), I played along. In some ways, I do feel as if I'm setting off into a new frontier. The Washington, D.C., culinary scene is a mystery to me. They don't serve grouper sandwiches, pressed Cubans are completely off the radar, the key lime pie is embarrassing and they've never heard of putting potatoes in Greek salad. The crab cakes, however, are to die for. There may be hope for this town yet.
But I'm never going to forget Florida. Tampa Bay is not only where my heart is, it's where my stomach grew up.
The Planet thanks Diana for writing about all the fish; we'll miss her voice, and we wish her well in D.C. Next week, look for the debut of Brian Ries in this space, a restaurant pro and certified sommelier whose reviews are already familiar to our Sarasota readers.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2005.