(Wrong Marx)

It’s time to change things up a little bit.

There’s only so many 1,000 word reviews of restaurants a critic can do before he starts repeating himself, and boring everyone (including himself) in the process.

And let’s face it, there’s only so many eateries in Las Vegas that merit four strong paragraphs of food writing.

Until a bunch of new ones come on-line (doubtful for at least another year), we’re faced with the prospect of checking in and updating old favorites (e.g. Sage, Nakamura-Ya and Cut), or finding the occasional hidden gem in Chinatown (Hobak Korean BBQ), or mining the brunch bunch for excellence. (As much as we love Rosallie, Kitchen Table and a few others, we can only get so excited about eggs, breakfast pastries and hot sandwiches.)

Plus, our new edition of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants will be published next week, and we might just want to rest on those laurels for a while before gearing up for the 2017 edition in a few months time.

Plus, we’re getting married in ten days, and hopping a plane immediately thereafter for a week in Tokyo, so our attention is somewhat divided these days.

Soooo, here’s what we’re going to do, God, the internet and Japanese wi-fi permitting:

Henceforth, our posts are going to be shorter, punchier and occasionally live, as in: we’ll be live-blogging/posting from whatever foodspot or dining establishment we’re in at the time. Given the constraints of iPhone size and technology, these posts will be of the several sentence variety, rather than the Tolstoy-length ruminations you’re used to. What we’ll endeavor to do is give you a snap shot (with a snap shot!):

(Drop dead delicious chocolate 0n chocolate on chocolate at Fabio Trabbochi’s  Fiola in Washington D.C.)

…of our meal(s) and what about them we are loving (or loathing) at the very moment we’re experiencing them.

In other words, we’re going to be posting our restaurant meals on this web site much as we do on our Twitter, Instagram or Facebook feeds, as well some occasional culinary miscellany:

(You’re right! It’s not ripple! Fine wine tempranillo times at Jaleo in D.C.)

….done just for grins and giggles.

We’ll especially be doing this a la minute articles when we travel, and hope that they will give you a good sense of where we are, what we’re eating, and why we’re loving it.

As we write these words we are asking ourself: Is the era of the written restaurant review dead? Judging from our various news and food feeds it certainly seems so. Every day our Facebook page is filled with Thrillist this, and Tabelog that touting the “14 Best Sushi Bars in Chicago” or “America’s 46 Favorite Ice Cream Parlors” (Only 46? Who knew?) — all of them listicles cadged from p.r. notices and crowd-sourced “reviews” containing such gems of wisdom as “The coarsely ground soba dumplings come out piping hot and are nice and chewy.”

Yes, restaurant writing is pretty much a dying art in today’s world, but we’ll continue practicing it in both old-school and new-school ways — occasionally surprising you with an actual review that demands more than thirty seconds of your time — until we throw in the towel altogether and leave the newer generations to whatever bought-and-paid-for Eater and Buzzfeed bullshit is satisfying their thirst for information at the expense of knowledge.

Because, in the end, we write this site because we’re compelled to. It’s a passion and an obsession for us, and we hope, for readers like us, who are looking for the best food that Las Vegas (or wherever we may be reporting from) has to offer.

Kanpai!