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How To Eat Out (2012)

by Giles Coren(Favorite Author)

3.75 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

144470690X (ISBN13: 9781444706901)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Hodder & Stoughton

review 1: I started off hating this - Mr Coren comes across an arrogant snob. But at least he's an honest, arrogant snob and one with clear ability to write.In fact, the more I read, the more I found I agreed with him; how fashion dictates the increasingly ludicrous lengths top-end restaurants go to,how irrelevant the obsession with authenticity in imported cuisines really is (frankly an "authentic" Indian meal should be a bowl of rice, cooked indirty water over a fire made of dried cow-dung). Most of the time he's right; a restaurant's food is probably good enough.I also found myself agreeing with his frustration that entering a restaurant or hotel is like playing a game; a high quality experience is available but the staff always make achieving it very challenging.I'm in complet... moree agreement with him about Pizza Express as well. I remember large, rustic and tasty pizzas in the early 1990s. Several years later I visited for the first time in a while and was shocked to see how much smaller and less interesting the pizzas were.There are some purple sections, obviously lifted directly from his reviews, but there are also some laugh out loud funny moments (I shall tread carefully when I'm next on a French beach). And I definitely share his complete inability to find restaurants, bars or pretty much anything listed in guide books, with the exception of the largest tourist attractions.I was slightly suspicious of how he claims clear memories of eating out in the 1970s, given that he's five years younger than me and I don't. But he does suffer from the old adage "when you finally got back to your boyhood town you realised it wasn't the town you missed, it was your boyhood".All in all an irritating but entertaining book. Though I am glad I don't know Mr Coren personally.
review 2: Although this is largely extracts from his Times restaurant reviews, strung together with some new narrative, it really works. Unlike similar works, like Charlie Brookers Dawn of the Dumb, it reads like a book, with a coherent narrative and some surprisingly personal relationships are exposed - such as that between Coren and his famous father and the late Micheal Winner. Crucially it is full of the humour for which Coren is known (when writing). Even a shameless plug of his Supersizers... TV series (something I consciously avoided) in the final chapter did not remove the lustre of this enjoyable collection. less

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