By Andrew Galarneau
FourBites.net

A decade ago, when I wrote my first restaurant review, my first draft made an editor blanch.

“You can’t say that in a restaurant review.”

From the beginning, determined to offer descriptions and judgements in non-standard language, my drafts contained sentences that walked the line between fun and appalling errors in judgment. 

So I did what working writers do: Remove sentences red-flagged by editors. 

To save for later. At some point, I reasoned, readers might get a kick out of a collection of funny sentences that were horribly wrong for a review.

So on the auspicious occasion of The Buffalo Hive’s public launch, please enjoy some of the meanest sentences I’ve removed from review from consideration over the years.

Most of them should never have been in a review, I will whole-heartedly agree.

Except one. I will continue to hold that in describing the best animal-free menu in town, one may be justified in using the term “vegasm.”

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Other than the ending, how was dinner, Mrs. Lincoln?

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In these trying times, dining comes in two flavors. There’s “take-out,” also known as life support, for both restaurant crews and the families that rely on them. Then there’s “dine-in,” which is less popular these days because there’s a tiny chance it could kill you and your whole family. 

Maybe. Maybe not. Chances are, you’ll be fine.

Hungry yet?

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Even if this review takes on certain hostage video tones, I would encourage you to venture into Black Rock to see what this preposterously talented fivesome have to offer.

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Awed, I felt like Gomer Pyle at the Louvre.

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If you’re having a hard time choosing between the two restaurants, you should know that one is run by a cook born and raised there. The other is run by a cook who learned the cuisine from a book. You can taste the difference.

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Chaos in the kitchen meant servers walking double-time with loaded trays. So we settled into a low-key Sunday afternoon at Talladega NASCAR vibe, getting our beverages on while we waited for crashes. 

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In the corner, servers with time on their hands were simulating coitus with an on-and-off grindfest.

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I ate so much I checked for stretch marks.

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Flies buzzing around, joined by a larger fly. “That’s a different kind!” is not what you want to hear from a guest at table.

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The food is acceptable for a tourist attraction, but dramatically underperforming for a restaurant. 

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Customers were left to lunge for their food with the feral velocity of WWII prisoners-of-war spotting a gap in the wire while the guards pointed searchlights elsewhere.

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The table was lit with the unflinching glare of an autopsy slab.

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It’s kind of like eating at the Overlook Hotel, except the bartender here charges you for your whiskey.

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This is the kind of restaurant that makes me want to write Yelp reviews.

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Runners wordlessly abandoned dishes on our table and slunk away like they’d just left an infant on a convent porch.

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The food was better than you’d expect from a restaurant between a strip joint and a sewer plant.

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Obvious health code violations were few and far between.

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The prime rib was wheeled around the dining room in a covered casket feebly warmed by Sterno, like a mortician that delivers.

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I recognized two choices on the “artisanal” crostini as toppings from Sam’s Club. I remembered them because I brought them back to Sam’s for a refund.

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It tasted like faded nostalgia.

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The chowder tasted like the cook had read about chowder once, in a book. A novel.

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The restaurant has a pier-centric décor scheme, with pilings, rope and more fishnets than a Rocky Horror Picture Show revival.

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Lemony cheesecake in cast iron caused a chemical reaction that made dessert like licking a railroad.

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The décor was gilded TGIFriday’s, as if the decorator had an unlimited budget and a Williams-Sonoma catalog fetish

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The décor was Gothic whorehouse crossed with hangover hospital.

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After a time of quarantine, reuniting with old friends over dinner feels more decadent than ever. Sink into the comfy chair. Take that mask off like the last slip of clothing between you and a lover, and talk to a live human being. 

#30#

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Andrew Galarneau writes lots of restaurant reviews. You can find them at FOUR BITES, in addition to guest pieces here.