Eatiquette

Should Food Writers Out the Names of Restaurants That Make Them Sick?

Photo: Daniel Maurer

Last week it was dog-tooth rice, and this week it’s Mark Bittman wondering whether he should out the name of a midtown Manhattan restaurant that served him corn soup with mysterious plastic bits in it (and then made him pay for the soup!). Meanwhile, Food in Mouth is withholding the names of the five eating establishments (“places that have been covered by big time NYC food blog or NYC traditional media”) where he ate yesterday only to end up regretting it. The question (to put it a bit more delicately than Food in Mouth does): Do food writers have a responsibility to tell you what a meal did to their digestive system and not just their taste buds? We’ve pondered this issue before: Back when we got a currywurst with a side of roach, we alluded to the name of the restaurant via the photo above but generously kept its name out of the post so that it wouldn’t pop up in searches. An employee of the offending restaurant wasn’t happy with the compromise and, via the comments, called our “journalism” skills into question. Our fault for breaking the fly-in-soup code of silence?

Some Questions for You [Mark Bittman]
This is a Poo [Food in Mouth]

Should Food Writers Out the Names of Restaurants That Make Them Sick?