Whenever food critics, whether in newspapers or blogs, argue about who first wrote about a restaurant or rail against those who followed their “discovery,” I remember the The Simpsons episode when Gabbo knocks Krusty off the air. Gabbo makes a crank phone call to Krusty, Bart accuses the ventriloquist dummy of plagiarism, and Lisa reminds her brother that Krusty stole the bit from Steve Allen. Then, Krusty answers the phone, gets punked, and yells at Gabbo, “If this is anyone but Steve Allen, you've stolen my bit!”
But sometimes, rip-offs really are rip-offs, and that's what happened to Weekly contributor, KCRW-FM 89.9 food critic, and Fullerton boy Eddie Lin, internationally known for his Deep End Dining blog, where he reviews those cuisines deemed nasty by others with brilliant, hilarious prose. Back in May, Lin wrote about eating brain tacos–in the hands of a lesser critic, it would've read like a Sir Richard Burton dispatch about mystic fakirs, but Lin wrote with love, detail, and recalled with glee wabs calling him a loco chinito.
The lesser critic piped in earlier this week: one Hadley Tomicki, blogger for New York magazine's Los Angeles food blog, Grub Street. His post not only visited the same restaurant Lin reviewed, but had nearly the exact headline. Read more about it at Lin's evisceration of Tomicki, and you know something's up when New York offered a link to Lin's original review after he complained.
Worst part about Tomicki? Pendejo doesn't know his shit. In trying to set up his Livingstone-among-the-savages tone, he wrote certain L.A. restaurants “were noted for their brain preparations, or the much more
palatable 'sesos,' as they are called in most restaurants.” How about all restaurants, Hadley? The technical term for brains in Spanish is cerebro, but the term is ALWAYS sesos when they're prepared for consumption. It's one of those weird Spanish quirks, like how chicken is gallina when clucking, pollo when before you on a plate. Quirks pros like Lin know, and that fools like Tomicki know only after the fact. Gentle readers: complain about Tomicki's idiocy here.
