Wells, Pete. “Filipino Food Worth the Wait at Bad Saint in Washington.” Review of Bad Saint in Washington, D.C., The New York Times, 29 November 2016.

I chose to read a restaurant review written by Pete Wells, the restaurant critic for The New York Times. He wrote the review for a Filipino restaurant called Bad Saint in Washington, D.C.. Wells set the scene by describing the line he had to wait in and what he did while he was waiting in line. I could picture what the place looked like; he wrote how regular customers brought their own folding chairs and drinks to make themselves comfortable while they waited. He also described how he “tried not to eavesdrop” on other people’s conversations and chatted with Black Elvis.

Once Wells was seated at the restaurant, he gave a description of what the interior of the restaurant looked like. Tables at the restaurant seat four people maximum, which helps give potential customers an idea of what to expect if they were to come in with a party of more than four. Although Bad Saint is a small restaurant, it makes use of the tiny space and Wells writes how it is easy to talk with others while sitting in the open kitchen styled restaurant. This helps readers picture the restaurant and feel included in the experience of Wells at this restaurant.

Following this, Wells talks about the Filipino food offered at the restaurant, giving short descriptions of the food. He explains what an adobo is, and how Bad Saint’s adobo of squid is “still astonishing.” He includes some recommendations for dishes to order; here, he says the oxtails and bok choy stirred in peanut sauce is an amazing dish to try. Wells writes how his guests were doubtful that pancit canton, a supposedly bland lo mein, would taste good, but were delightfully surprised when they tasted it.

Wells gives a brief background about the restaurant owners and the inspiration for their food. He talks about how the owners are Filipino but were born in the US, and some of the cooking “has a homey simplicity.” Laing is made differently in the Philippines, but the way the chef makes it at Bad Saint is “so luxuriously flavorful,” it’s clear that he knows how to incorporate the local ingredients to make this dish.

Wells wrote this restaurant review to share his experience and help other people decide whether or not they should try out this restaurant. I think this is a good example of a restaurant review because it is written by someone who has a lot of experience writing reviews and since it’s in The New York Times, a well-known newspaper, it should be quality writing.

I’m doing a Tasty Video as my rhetorical piece. Tasty Videos are a new phenomenon that combine recipes, blogs, ~aesthetics~, and mindless TV into one quick and easy watchable and make-able piece. The purpose of Tasty Videos from a production standpoint is to have as many views, likes, and comments on Facebook.

The Tasty Videos make use of Facebook’s autoplay feature on videos by being short 30-60 seconds and being easy to follow. None of the videos have incredibly complicated recipes and most use basic ingredients that the novice cook knows how to use. It cuts out all the prep work of a recipe that is mostly time consuming in video format. The cuts to pre measured and time jumps to frozen or cooked foods lets the viewer follow the recipe without being fully engaged.

While food blogs and Tasty Video page both are fully about recipes the Tasty Video cuts straight to the chase. There is no ‘about’ section or intro; instead just straight video of the food being made. That is part of the appeal; you can watch it without looking for something to make. It pops up on the Facebook timeline after a friend has liked or shared it. Much like reality TV you don’t have to be fully engaged in the ‘episodes’ to understand and follow the recipe.

Most viewers and likes of Tasty Videos never really intend on making the food. It is the aesthetics of the video that appeal to most viewers. It is quick break to scrolling through timelines. The videos are short and the images clean. The viewer never sees chopping, dicing, or other prep work unless directly needed for the recipe. The indigent are neatly put into bowls and added to the pot or bowl as necessary. The background clean of debris and relaxing music playing in the background. To me at least this is the ideal cooking situation; most of the hard work done for you, and no mess. All together this makes for lots of views and returning viewers on the multiple posts a day.

Tasty Video as a corporation is under the Buzzfeed umbrella with different versions sprouting up both from the company and independent. Currently there is Buzzfeed’s Tasty, Tasty Junior, Proper Tasty, and Bien Tasty; all looking at different groups in terms of recipes. Outside of Buzzfeed other groups have propped up mimicking their recipe of Tasty Videos; some of these are Jewishlish, Delish, and Cooking Panda. Each of these groups have a slightly different market in mind in terms of audience; some are categorized by age, region, or even religion but they all aim to get views.

The video should have someone making the recipe, as you pour the ingredients say what and how much you are putting in. And be edited to be short with good music. The video I chose does all of these things and makes me want to make the recipe; and yes I did ‘like’ it.

Fed Man Walking

This website serves as a good representation of a restaurant review. Unlike other reviews, Fed Man Walking focuses on a certain category then provides a top 10 list of restaurants for that given category. In this case, the review is of the top 10 Austin BBQ restaurants. This text lists each restaurant then provides individual reviews for each place. The layout is easy for the reader to understand, as each restaurant is numbered and followed by its review. The pictures also provide the reader with a visual of what their dish may look like. Sutter is also able to rank different categories within BBQ such as where each restaurant’s sausage ranks among the rest of the top 10. Another feature of this text that makes it very user friendly are the updates on each of the restaurants since the article was written. This lets the reader know if any major changes have taken place recently that may affect the rankings such as the chef leaving.

Restaurant reviews can be a pivotal factor on whether someone decides to eat at a certain restaurant. Reviews can also play a large part in whether a restaurant stays in business. If a restaurant constantly receives negative reviews, people will stop eating there and the restaurant may shut down. On the other hand, positive reviews can help restaurants generate growth and maintain their business for years. Today, many people will look up a restaurant on Yelp before trying it themselves. While these reviews are not as lengthy and in depth as the ones I am looking at, they still have the same function as typical restaurant reviews and can persuade someone to try or to stay away from a certain place.

Sutter, Mike. The Austin BBQ Top 10. Fed Man Walking, 2017, http://fedmanwalking.com. Accessed 21 March 2017.

     An unconventional piece of writing, Buzzfeed’s YouTube video “Mexican People Try Taco Bell for the First Time” depicts a few Mexican families trying United States fast-food giant and “Mexican” chain, Taco Bell.  The short is set up interview-style, with two to four people in each section.  The video begins with a question asked to all of the participants before they try the food: what do they expect? After each person gave their answer, the tasting process began.  Each dish was presented to the audience and was followed by the reviews, in which each set of people conversed about how they felt about the food: its taste, how authentic it was, and whether they would eat it again.  The interviews were wrapped up with a follow-up question about their newfound thoughts regarding Taco Bell.

    The video contains bright and clear visuals, easy-to-read subtitles for the audio in Spanish, and a coherent flow between each dish and set of people.  This video falls under the broad genre of food reviews, but defined narrowly, it is a filmed series of critiques with a humorous undertone.  This texts functions primarily for entertainment: it is short enough to keep the audience’s attention, funny enough to make the audience appreciate it, and relates to an establishment many audiences will be familiar with.  It additionally functions to provide feedback about Taco Bell’s dishes, but this is not the only purpose: after all, most of the audience have tried these foods before, they just want to hear what the interviewees have to say about it.

    I think this text represents a good example of the genre of video food reviews because it serves both the normal purpose of a food review, to inform an audience about what the authors think of a particular restaurant; and a different purpose, to entertain an audience for a short period of time, a task which I think is greatly influenced by the video’s distribution via YouTube.  This text should serve as a mentor for my own writing because it was extremely successful (currently, it has nearly 13 million views), the content is both funny and insightful, and the quality is extremely high in terms of audio-visual production.  

“Mexican People Try Taco Bell for the First Time.”  Youtube, uploaded by Buzzfeed, 8 March 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWSOiZrs3oA.

Steak With Garlic Butter. Youtube. Tasty, 11 Apr. 2016. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

 
The text I have chosen is a video recipe, which is a sub-genre of recipes in general.  Video recipes have exploded in popularity within the past two years or so, most likely due to their easy-to-digest format and visual appeal.  I believe that this specific recipe is a good example of the genre because it includes multiple archetypes of the video recipe genre.  For example, the video instantly starts off with the ingredients and directions.  The visuals are very attractive and bright, which catches the eye of the viewer, and because no time is wasted with talking or intermissions, attention is sustained throughout the video.  The descriptors shown during the video are concise and only serve to elaborate on the image, which means that the viewer is not forced to depend on them.  Finally, a shot of the completed dish is shown, which gives the viewer a reference for what their own creation should look like if they choose to follow the recipe.  While the effort of producing a video like this is quite high compared to a formal written recipe, the payoff is very rewarding, as more people are likely to view and subsequently be inspired by such an appealing video.  Another great thing about this sub-genre is that you can convert the video into a GIF image, which takes up less file size and time to load, which is extremely important in the increasingly digital world of today.