Last night I attended the 4th Food & Wine Blogger’s Club Meeting at the new Brio Restaurant on Adderley Sreet. Lovely evening altogether – great venue, stunning wines and very interesting people (our speakers were our very own Sam Wilson and Haut Espoir’s Rob Armstrong @rambowine).
My favourite part of the evening though was the “discussion”. I tell you, throw a bunch of people in a room who are passionate about a common subject, who blog about it, and who probably consider themselves experts and you’ll get one hell of an interesting debate. It’s hard to get a word in. Which brought me around to thinking how great Food24 is. Why? Because that is what we do on Food24 – we have conversations with you and with each other.
We have had some rip-snorter debates here and while some of them degenerate into Anonymous (there’s a surprise) calling Bob a Muppet, most of them are a great reflection of public opinion.
Who could forget the famous chickpea wrap brawl. Oh my shattered nerves. Imagine if jka had just LEFT THE DARN HAM out of the recipe… we would never have had the ‘ ah the chickpea wrap showdown’ that we still refer to fondly in editorial meetings.
And foie gras. Should we even go there?
And as for our user restaurant reviews. Well where are you going to get a more frank review than Cath’s here? (And no it’s not me… I haven’t been to Durban since I was 12). But look at the way no less than 3 people have already challenged her review. I love it. I’m just waiting for the “Oh Cath. Get a life” comment to appear. My personal favourite.
We dig it when you stand up for the waiters too – Simon has certainly put Unhappy Diner in her place here.
When restaurant owners and managers respond to reviews, which they are increasingly doing, they can turn a negative review into a positive thing by expressing genuine concern and some clever “problem solving”.
And when your grammar and spelling are diabolical we don’t edit it in any way, because if we did edit every review then it might as well be the same person writing them. And as far as we’re concerned it takes all sorts to appreciate a restaurant.
Then we have comments on our articles. Take Cathy Marston’s Top 10 World Cup Wines. I mean HOW VERY DARE SHE mention Tassies on this distinguished list? And while we’re on wine – another favourite of mine… Mike’s “take a chillaxative” comment on the SA’s most expensive wines article.
We love it. Bring on the debates, the challenges and the classic chirps. We don’t profess to know everything – that’s where you (all 150 000 of you) come in.
Thanks for the chat guys.