By Melissa McDormand1
This past New Year's Eve, my husband Kevin and I decided to go out for the holiday for the first time in years. Not for a night of drunkenness and debauchery, but dinner at a local restaurant and a few hours to ourselves without our young kids. We strolled down the cobblestone side streets of Newburyport, Massachusetts at dusk, buzzing with our newfound freedom. We wandered into an Indian restaurant—new to us, but highly rated online and recommended by friends. We were seated quickly and picked out a few favorites from the menu - vegetable pakora, murgh makhani, lamb rogan josh, and garlic naan.
As we sipped on mango lassis and waited for our food to arrive, we found ourselves distracted by the table next to us. Four millennial-ish women, fresh from a yoga class, dressed in comfy clothes and seemingly enjoying each other's company, caught our attention as they began to engage with their server. Their smiles disappeared as they peppered him with questions. One of the guests, new to Indian food and allergic to dairy, asked him to list all the dishes on the menu that fit her needs (fair) and then pressed him to describe the taste of each dish (challenging! time-consuming!). After she finally chose her meal, her friend ordered a dish that unfortunately wasn't available that night. The friend was visibly taken aback and sputtered in protest, "No!? Are you serious?" Her friends murmured their disapproval. "Well, I'm pretty sure you're going to need to give us some free dessert for that." The server laughed politely, and Kevin and I exchanged a look and chuckled. Despite the waitstaff's valiant efforts, I had the sense that this table would not be easy to please.
Almost ten years ago, Kevin and I were driving to Burlington, Vermont, nearing a dinner stop along I-89. We knew towns like Waterbury and Stowe were notable for their impressive fare to accompany the many breweries and bars that populate the Green Mountains, though we often stuck to one of our favorites (shout-out to Prohibition Pig!). I browsed Yelp on my phone to see if any new spot could top ProPig and found that, among all the rave reviews, there were a few truly scathing outliers. I read them aloud to Kevin, and we cackled at the vitriol the reviewers spewed in their posts.
"Remember, it's tips that pay your bills."
"Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic!"
"EWWWW!"
As we drove on, we had the same idea everyone had around 2015—we decided to start a podcast. We’d bring the best of the worst restaurant reviews to our listeners and get a chance to recall our own visits to the restaurants the writers had panned. I read dozens of Yelp reviews out loud to Kevin on that drive, flagging particularly aggrieved reviews to build episodes around. After we returned home to Massachusetts from our vacation, we sat at our kitchen island and recorded our first episode. We started with Prohibition Pig, proudly defending the restaurant’s merits, and speculating on why the chosen reviewer had felt compelled to take to Yelp with his complaints.
As we got into a routine of recording together, we’d kick off each episode with a dramatic reading of a cranky Yelp review, before introducing that week’s restaurant and sharing our own experience of dining there. Our friends, many of whom were grown-up theater kids, made guest appearances, reading the hot-tempered critiques. In each episode of Food Feud, the ultimate question wasn't "How good is this restaurant?" but rather, "Is this reviewer an asshole?" We fancied ourselves restaurant connoisseurs (I'm trying so hard not to say foodies), and we always enjoyed poking fun at self-serious people.
As it turned out, we got a kick out of ragging on the assholes, but we were particularly drawn in by absurd and inscrutable critiques. They weren’t bad people, we theorized, but sad, eccentric, or looking for an outlet for their comedy. We imagined the writers, psychoanalyzing them and creating caricatures in our minds. “This woman is a self-proclaimed psychic who was once featured on a low-budget TV show about supernatural phenomena.” “This guy was kicked out of his frat for property destruction and now makes motivational YouTube videos about ‘failing forward’ and ‘the grind.’” “This lady wears way too much perfume and is $20,000 in debt because of her purchases from QVC.”
We put out about 25 episodes that year, until our broadcasting days came to an abrupt halt when our older daughter was born. We didn’t go out to a restaurant without children hanging off us with any regularity until last year, when we'd finally crawled out of our baby-rearing daze and the trauma of COVID. We found ourselves a teenager willing to hang out with our kids for several hours, occasionally even getting them to fall asleep before we returned. We’ve been on a couple of date nights since, most recently that night at the aforementioned Indian restaurant.
I know the disappointment of anticipating a meal out only to be underwhelmed or even grossed out. It’s such a pleasure to get out and enjoy food that we don’t have to cook or adjust to meet a 5-year-old’s palate, and to have an unpleasant experience when we finally get out would be frustrating. Still, after poring over so many indignant, self-righteous online reviews, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to write with the savage tone that so many amateur food critics use. Food Feud nearly always rated those reviewers as confirmed Assholes (TM).
I perused the Yelp page of our recent date-night restaurant, wondering if I’d find the yoga girls. No such luck, but I did find this one, which tickled me and did exactly what all of my favorite reviews do: paint a picture of the writer that leaves me full of questions and delight. Enjoy this review by James R., who I’m going to venture to say is Not An Asshole:
"My lady friend and I frequent the resturant often, this last time,I asked for mild spices as usual, this time it was so hot it blistered the inside of my mouth and could not it any or much of it, I took it home and fed the skunk ans wood chuck, they would not go near it, I feel we were way over charged, That will be our last time goint there, It has been 4days sinse,and still have blisters in my mouth" (sic).
Name drops: Mr. India + Prohibition Pig
A special thank you to this week’s illustrator, Jannik Stegen2. See more of his work here.
We’ll be on break next week. See you on April 3!
Melissa McDormand is a psychotherapist, amateur cook, and restaurant lover in Northeastern Massachusetts. Her podcasting days are on indefinite hiatus, but she still loves sharing her opinions.
Jannik Stegen is a German artist & illustrator. His work is highlighted by his bold and quirky characters, abstract shapes and colorful compositions. After trying out Medical School, he went for a degree in Visual Communication and studied in Darmstadt, Valencia, Athens, Hamburg & Berlin.