Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Bazaar opens; bloggers already in revolt

Mozzarella tubes from KevinEats.com

Some bloggers with apparently plenty of disposable income have already hit Jose Andres' Bazaar at the SLS hotel. I really appreciate their effort, but I'm afraid I don't have the attention span for Kevin's rundown of the 49 courses he had. I confess, I skipped to the end: some courses were quite good, while others were frankly awful. Kevin is incensed also that the policy on photograhy is rather erratically enforced -- apparently they really don't want you to take pictures, but sometimes they'll let you if you arrange it beforehand. I don't think they counted on the rather enthusiastic foodbloggers in these parts. Uber-chowhound Exilekiss was there too (not sure if he was with Kevin or not), and seemed a little more enthusiastic, plus he doesn't mention being hassled about photos. Frankly, it all seems a bit much. But in these times, restaurants should probably do everything they can to inspire customer loyalty. You know how those bloggers tend to spread the word.

6 comments:

weezermonkey said...

No pictures allowed?! Blasphemous!

H. C. said...

Given how some foodbloggers freely dispense with flash, I can understand some restaurants' concern with photography (though not strictly banning).

Sidenote: I'm so totally going to confuse this Michael Mina's XIV somewhere down the line

Natty said...

I never understand taking pictures of food with a flash!

Anonymous said...

I believe that the really dedicated bloggers, which include exilekiss, kevin and burumun, all use cameras that can photograph food without a flash. I agree that flashes going off can be distracting and offputting -- even if it is that group taking the birthday snap. So is getting up on a chair for a better angle, interrupting a server who is busy working, and blocking traffic or otherwise interfering with other diners' experiences. Having said that, I've enjoyed and appreciated the detailed reviews and fun food porn that the three above (and other serious reviewers) have posted.

kevinEats said...

I wasn't with exilekiss. He likes to dine early, so may have been gone by the time I started. I bumped into Fiona from Gourmet Pigs, and she also had issues with photography. Perhaps different management was in place while exilekiss was dining?

Also, I definitely wasn't using flash, so bothering others wasn't the issue. I think they're just overly paranoid!

H. C. said...

heh, just noticed the edit -- I totally thought there was an XIV hotel coming up!