The Food Dude Diary – by John Mariani
ELV note: The following was published this past Saturday in John Mariani’s The Virtual Gourmet online ‘zine. In satirical form, it pretty much captures the illiterate idiocy that permeates the way most guys under 40 think (or think they should think) about food and restaurants — which has created a deadly dull cycle of negative reinforcement between food television and its brain dead audience.
All of it makes ELV long for a time when fops like this guy ruled the restaurant writing roost. At least they were original, witty, incisive and smart…and you never heard the words “yo” or “dude.”
Here is the link to the original article, which will also link you to a certain review of a certain Arthur Avenue Italian restaurant written by a certain critic whom you know and love.
THE FOOD DUDE DIARY
By John Mariani
Yo, I was like waiting outside Shake Shack for like ninety @#$%^ minutes in 100-degree heat for their Shackburger, but, hey, I once waited two @#$%^ hours in the rain outside Torrisi’s for a sub sandwich. Whatever. So I see my friend Donny, who says, “Dude, get outta line, man, we’re going over to this new place on the Lower East Side where they sell bangin’ bahn mi for like four bucks. Like nobody even knows the freakin’ place is even open yet.”
We hopped in a cab and split the eleven dollar fare, and–@#$%^–when we got there, there’s like 60 freakin’ people waiting outside already because Eater already wrote it up that morning. I was pissed. And hungry. So I said to Donny, “Yo, you know what? Why don’t we go over to Momofuku Ko and see if there’s like a cancellation? If there isn’t, we can see if we can score a pizza at Pulino’s and check out the hotties on line.”
So, no @#$%, we get to Ko, (left) and the guy says, “This is your lucky night, we just had a no-show for two people.” I said, “Dude, you have made our freakin’ day!” So Donny and I sit down on those stools without the backs and they’re playing Girls at Dawn—who I just saw at Brufar Falls like two nights ago!—and we’re chowing down on Chang’s awesome pork belly and this other great shit I don’t actually remember now, but, yo, it was worth the $125 bucks plus drinks. Like you pay what you gotta pay for awesome food, right?
Next day I’m hungry again, and my man Donny says there’s a fried chicken and waffles place in Williamsburg we need to check out. Maybe we can be the first to twitter about it. 
So we take another taxi—this time $27—so we get there fast, and $%^&*! We can see a line forming outside, but we still get there just as it opens, so they let us in but say they haven’t got any chairs or tables or beer license yet. I tell the guy no problem, man, we came for the freakin’ chicken. Then we wait, like %^&* forty-five minutes, but it was worth it. Real crisp, real meaty, with this orange sauce—I don’t know what the @#$%% it was but it was awesome. Fifty-two bucks for the two of us.
I’m already twittering like mad, saying how the place wasn’t redecorated at all since this was a plumbing supply shop—funny thing was, the urinals didn’t work—like real industrial. Smells funky too. And 
there’s two Mexican guys in the back cooking, you can smell they’re using real lard, man, and the waitress is a deadringer for that bangin’ spy on, what’s that show? The music, I don’t know what the @#$$ it was, just loud, man, but it rocked.
Then I get a message on my Blackberry, and s#$%&! It’s my friend Laurie and she’s going to be on freakin’ TV, in the background of some Paraguyan chile joint in Astoria while that douchebag Adam Richman (above) shoots a segment of “Man v Food.” I am like freakin’ pissed she didn’t tell me she was even going there.
Like I didn’t take her to that taping of Guy Fieri (left) demolishing that Greek lasagna at the diner in the Bronx? That is messed up! I am done with this $%^&, man!
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.