In general, I like St. Pete Times restaurant critic Laura Reiley. She's rarely negative, has a bigger dining budget than me, and gets to jet off to Beard dinners in NY, but despite that I've found her to be a very nice person. Until now.
She just posted a tidbit on her blog called "I'm laughing at Creative Loafing lovers" where she calls out the numerous voters in our recent Tampa Bay's Top 50 Restaurants reader recommendation poll. Here's what she said:
I happened to take a gander at their Tampa Bay Top 50 Restaurants Reader Recommendation Results post (seeing as we've been running a reader poll of our own, it seemed only fair) and feel that Creative Loafing readers must be smoking something. Their top recommended restaurants? In order: Paci's Pizza, The Floridian, Bin 27, Green Springs Bistro, Backfin Blue and Bamboozle. Huh. The top-most, super-special, gotta-try-it restaurant in the whole area is PACI'S PIZZA?
Maybe our readers are cool because they are smoking something, Laura, did you consider that?
Admittedly, I spent a few hours making fun of Paci's ballot-stuffing efforts yesterday — which is why we only let you pot fiends pick 5 while I picked 45 — but that was before I tried their pizza. Now? I'm kinda happy they won a spot in the Top 50. That pie is very, very good.
Stick it to Reiley by voting for the best of Tampa Bay's Top 50 Restaurants, in five different categories, later today.
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2009.