BY
The recent spate of hysterical and violent assaults on your three distinguished restaurant reviewers, Davis Wang, Andrew Jacobs and David Bitkower, moves me to defend their good names. I refer specifically to the diatribes by Patrick Chung and Giselle Fahimian in the Nov. 29 RECORD, as well as the similarly irrational and unprovoked attack that appeared in the issue prior to that one.
(Allow me to note that I submit this defense of the “He Said” trio only after having received assurances from one of them that they would as a group indemnify me from any defamation actions arising out of my letter. David Bitkower informs me that such an arrangement will probably not stand up in a Massachusetts court of law. But I have confidence nonetheless in their earnest assurances, as I do in the quality of their restaurant reviews.)
I think it is fair to say that the “He Said” trio is the most distinguished gathering, in one publication, of culinary experts and geniuses in the history of the American republic. I would like to single out Davis Wang’s elegant ruminations for special commendation, graced as they are with sophisticated borrowings from the French language. The fact that neither Davis nor any of his colleagues actually says much about the restaurant at hand can be brushed aside by any reasonable person only on one condition, which in this case is met: namely, whether the reviews are buttressed by profound analyses of American culture, HLS traditions and so forth. Andrew Jacobs’s contributions are remarkable in this regard, as are those of David Bitkower, whose review of Betty’s Wok was especially brilliant.
I personally will not go to any restaurant in Boston or any other American city without first consulting your distinguished trio of reviewers beforehand. I question the motivations of any who try to call into question the integrity of these men’s efforts, and I defy anyone to locate a restaurant review column that is consistently more informative, engaging, witty and entertaining than the one in question.