# Why I Don't Talk About Restaurants Online

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Internet Shaquille
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxmuU5E-5s

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxmuU5E-5s) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Sometimes I worry that I post too many concepts. Too many broad lessons. Then I post a short straightforward recipe for a really good pumpkin enchilada and it totally flops so buckle the freak in for a long phase of talking without much cooking. My tax liability would be significantly lower if I had more expenses I could write off. My accountant says I should go to conferences or record myself eating at restaurants. People love restaurant content! Especially ones in which a high-end trendy spot is outed as a scam or a struggling local food joint is blessed with lines around the block thanks to a big shot influencer who gave them exposure. When agents and managers try to court me, they always make sure to point out that I’m not posting to Instagram enough, suggesting that posting reels on meals I eat from restaurants would be profitable, shareable, good for growth, and good for my tax liability. So let me show you one attempt I made based on a meal I had earlier this year: I ate dinner at [redacted] in [redacted] and boy this place stank. Literally. A new restaurant had just opened up next door and they had a plumbing issue on day one, so this restaurant smelled like raw sewage all night. I’ll just stop there because you see problem number one I’ve already faced. Should I tell anyone about this experience? It’s true, it’s kind of funny, and I’d probably find a way to tell the tale without naming and thus disparaging the restaurant to a massive audience. But if there’s anything I’ve learned by the number of times people pixel peeped something in the background of one of my photos, it’s that sleuths will find out. So why spread a story about one unlucky dinner service in which the problem is totally out of the owner’s control? Right away the hostess greeted us when we arrived and said “hey, we can move your reservation or honor this one, and either way, you’ll get a discount. ” That’s very nice. Nobody wants to eat raw fish sitting in doodoo stench, but Bree and I get so few opportunities to leave the baby at home and eat out, so we toughed it out. Not exactly the most romantic night out, but we found the menu so great that we came back again a couple months later. The stank issue had been long-resolved. It’s a great place to eat, and now we have a funny story with a happy ending. However, this short little tiktok I was supposed to be able to crank out in 2 hours had become a tangled mess of a script and an annoying reminder that during a time in which businesses can boom or bust based on one random influencer’s meal there, posting restaurant vlogs feels loaded and fraught with power dynamics. This lady got a restaurant closed after the chef made fun of her for not having enough followers. This lady is famous for ordering a bunch of food, not paying the check, and offering her influencer photos as payment. She’s been arrested like seven times. There is a way around this, and that’s to only say good things, so you never run the risk of doing harm to a local business. But that feels just as dishonest as recipe vloggers who treat every bite of food like it’s their first in a week, curling an index finger over a chewing mouth while rolling their pupils towards their cerebral cortex as if to say “oh yeah this is yum delish point five”. The only way I’d be able to pull that off while remaining honest is to focus on the magic that is dining out itself like what’s up everybody today I came to Din Tai Fung and you’re not gonna believe this: I got to order exactly what I wanted, a personal assistant brought all the food right to my table, and at the end, I got to walk out without having to do any dishes! Honestly, could be a funny bit, but I imagine it would get old fast. It feels like in order to do well and remain positive you have to remove the review element altogether and replace it with a hook like this gal who eats a bunch of weed gummies before eating out. Once the notion of reviewing the place comes in, content consumers seem to crave extremes, like “come with me to the worst dinner ever” or “run, don’t walk, to the hottest secret spot in the city”. And so I think whatever I make would be either unproductive or unsuccessful. Hey, maybe even both. The way I see it, to put your trust in a restaurant is to risk disappointment, and ignoring the reality of disappointing meals is antithetical to talking about what it’s like to dine out. I went to a steakhouse where “steak frites” was misspelled on the menu. So was Manhattan. That was a red flag. The food was terrible. It was the single most upsetting meal I ate all year. But I can’t shake the nagging feeling that for me to go online and name and/or shame the owners is a lose/lose situation in which someone’s passion project gets trashed all for the whims and desires of one guy’s opinion. The closest I ever came to solving this personal problem was briefly showing the food but focusing on the restrooms at a restaurant, since that is something I actually care about, but wouldn’t you know it, the gendered nature of bathroom use proved there’s truly no escape from culture warriors who wish to wage battle online. What do you mean you’d rather I say “sex-segregated” than “gendered” for toilets? Wouldn’t the progressive goal be to define bathroom usage by expression of gender rather than biological sex, lest we peep people’s peckers pre-peepee? Oh no I’m engaging in discourse online, aaaaah! So, whether it’s in response to my CPA asking me why I have so few work expenses every year, or to my followers asking why I hardly ever post about restaurants, you’ll understand why I don’t get into… all that. It’s hard to do well, and I don’t like the outcomes of doing it poorly. Audiences are ill-prepared to properly filter critique, as evident by the fact that the classic phrase “You are nitpicking and biased I win bye bye” is now 7 years old and still relevant, and it’s hard for me to stay diplomatic on things loved a lot or despised. Just listen to this snippet from a review of an overpriced local bar that I wrote in 2019 without ever sharing before: This train-themed restaurant gets lots of love on instagram

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxmuU5E-5s&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 07:00)

for its fake windows that make it look like you’re traveling across the open country. In real life, TVs aren’t yet very good at mimicking real windows, and if I wanted to blow a month’s cocktail budget with screens in my face like an alcoholic iPad baby I’d go to Applebees, order fifteen Smoocho Muchos, and watch every sporting event available on ESPNs 1-8. How rude… how nasty! Personally I’ve been fiending for well-written food essays ever since Gold and Bourdain forsake us on this mortal plane. The closest I’ve been able to find is the guy who runs applerankings. com. I do hope that someone figures out how to talk about restaurants without leaning on tropes like reviewing fast food in a car or screeching empty platitudes about trendy cuisine with the influencer accent dialed up to 11, but no because... not meeee... Wildgrain has paid to be mentioned at the end of this video. I am not good at baking, nor do I wish to get good at baking. Wildgrain makes it possible for me to keep a freezer full of partially made bread items in my freezer, so that when I do want freshly baked bread with almost zero effort, I just put the Wildgrain in the oven. You don’t defrost or proof them— you just go straight into the oven from frozen, and they’re ready in 25 minutes or less. Before me I have the standard box, complete with sourdough loaves and chocolate croissants, but they also offer gluten-free and vegan options as well as a new type of box that prioritizes an increased protein content. This is the solution for someone who likes convenience but still wants their bread to be slow-fermented for 20+ hours in a real bakery and made out of super simple ingredients. You can stick to nothing but classic loaves of sourdough or dabble in the seasonal products that are always coming in and out of rotation. One thing that’s nice about Wildgrain is that every time you order a box, you get to choose a food security nonprofit organization to donate 2 meals to at no extra cost to you. You get to nosh on tasty bread and make your home smell like a bakery all winter long without having to mix, knead, rest, shape and proof everything yourself. If you use the link in my description you’ll get $30 off your first box, as well as free croissants in your box… for life! Oooo...

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/43876*