The Book of Eating

August 19, 2019
James Beard Award–winning New York Magazine restaurant critic Platt shares his culinary adventures in this spirited memoir. Platt begins with his formative years moving around Asia with a diplomat father. As a child, Platt and his family spent years in Taiwan eating “sizzling meal of fried rice” with “sweet fatty slivers of ‘La Chang’ sausage” prepared by their hired chef. In Hong Kong, he enjoyed “chunks of fatty pork belly,” while in Tokyo he devoured onigiri, yakitori, and more. Later, after starting work in food media, failed diets and gout plague the critic, who shares memorable foibles, such as the time he was recognized in his oversize coat (the “giant, flapping undertaker’s garment” he wore while sampling restaurants) and another time was bounced from ZZ’s Clam Bar by an unwelcoming staff. As a member of the culinary old guard, Platt displays some self-deprecating wit (he reckons with the internet’s influence on a rapidly changing dining landscape and joins Twitter as “Plattypants”), yet he comes across as out-of-touch at times (Asian cuisine is “exotic” or “bizarre” rather than just unfamiliar, for example). Nevertheless, gastronomes and fans of Platt will savor this behind-the-scenes look at real life as a restaurant critic in the big city.

September 1, 2019
A memoir of a life in food that is as much a reminiscence of family and travel as a discursive account of 20 years of culinary trends and developments. In the summer of 2000, Platt succeeded Gael Greene as restaurant critic of New York magazine, well aware of the haughty, slightly absurd image the food critic held in the public imagination. The former travel writer was nonetheless a natural "gastronaut." The son of a career diplomat, Platt and his brothers had grown up at various posts, chiefly in Asia, with stopovers in his native New York as well as Washington, D.C. The Platt family dove into each food world with the gusto of omnivorous feeders. Platt learned early on how to escape the expatriate cocoon and dive into a culture. Little has changed: "I've always equated the glamor of travel and living in far-off lands with the eternal joys of a good meal." The author fell in love with the theatrical pageantry of restaurants, and he would come to see a critique as "part cultural essay, part personal diary, part service journalism, and part travel and cultural commentary." A James Beard Award winner, Platt writes that the strange Kabuki world of the restaurant critic, a once-rarefied realm, has given way--for good and ill--to the democratizing influences of social media and internet culture, which he chronicles with some distaste (and grudging appreciation). The self-styled "Grumpy Adam" can be as admiring as he is dyspeptic, but his disquisitions on the art and practice of criticism sometimes slip into excessive self-deprecation. Still, his tone is comradely, offering not only an elegy for a vanished golden era of New York cuisine and the traditional expense-account food junket, but also a lament over the disappearance of so many gifted old-school critics, many of whom have been replaced by manic bloggers. A candid, entertaining look at an often bizarre new gustatory landscape.

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November 1, 2019

Platt is a former travel writer and current contributing editor and restaurant critic for New York magazine and its food blog, Grub Street. In his first book, Platt builds on his New York pieces, offering new insights into the world of New York City dining, the changing state of food culture, and his family. Musing on his early career as a restaurant critic, Platt provides a glimpse into foodie culture before it became mainstream. Interwoven with these professional experiences are personal stories about being the son of a diplomat and father to two adopted daughters. Platt also shares his mostly unsuccessful forays into dieting and trying to lose weight, a challenge for someone in his line of work. Throughout, Platt comes across as someone with a deep respect for good food and the people who make it. VERDICT Recommended for readers interested in the changing roles of food critics and the evolving nature of food writing in the digital age.--Meagan Storey, Virginia Beach

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2019
There's perhaps no more enviable job today than that of restaurant critic for a major media outlet. Nor one more wretched. After all, the glamour of eating for work quickly grows stale; pounds pile on; health risks climb. Yet somehow the admiration continues. In a peripatetic manner, laced with adjectives and spiked with human and humorous observations, New York magazine restaurant critic Platt joins fellow journalists like Frank Bruni and Ruth Reichl to chronicle his life in food, using a series of short pieces centered on memorable moments: An introductory lunch with predecessor big hat Gael Greene. A variety of family snapshots about dining, including his mother's collection of hot pots and vegetarian preferences and his daughters' predilections for ramen and cheese pizza. Conversations about reviews (the most negative review is the one not written), the ascendance of online culinary philosophy kings (vis-�-vis Yelp), and a few terrifying pages on his encounter with fugu (deadly puffer fish) in a Tokyo establishment. A meandering, entertaining, and honest account of restaurant journalism, and a life worth exploring.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)