Ex-Times Food Critic Mimi Sheraton Unloads On Brooklyn, Food Trucks, Sam Sifton, David Chang
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In an interview with Capital New York, former New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton offered her candid thoughts on food in Brooklyn, food trucks, current Times critic Sam Sifton's work, and David Chang's cooking, and she really isn't keen on any of them. Sheraton, who was the Times' food critic from 1975 to 1983, offered the following:
On Brooklyn:
"[S]o far anywhere I've been to there has not been worth the trip from Manhattan. I haven't been to Al di la, because you have to wait on line, and I'm not going to Brooklyn to wait on line. ... The Times has certainly been very exaggerated in its Brooklyn coverage, because most of them live there. They begin to see it as being better than it is because it's so close to them. I would go to Brooklyn if it were exceptional."
On David Chang:
"I really don't take him seriously as a chef."
On food trucks:
"[A]nd the truck thing, I don't know how long that'll last. I don't know where they eat it, that's what I can't figure out about a truck. Where the hell do you eat it?"
On current Times critic Sam Sifton's work:
"It's food writing for an audience less interested in food and more interested in the experience and the theater of it. I don't like it at all. I always told people what the place was like, but these long, long introductions about the scene--I usually skip the first column and a half and get to the food, because that's what I think it's about."
Eater aptly characterized her rant on food trucks as "Onion-inspired Seinfeld-esque," and they round up the responses on Twitter from Chang and Sifton themselves, and Times food writer Oliver Strand.
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First Posted: 01/04/11 12:56 PM ET Updated: 05/26/11 02:29 PM ET