The steak in front of me is cold

“Now doesn't that look good?” the server asked.

“Well, no,” I answered.  “It’s cold, the glob of herb butter hasn’t even begun to melt.”

“OK,” she said.  “You enjoy, then!”

No amount of perkiness was going to repair this disaster.  An inexperienced grill cook at a pricey and alleged steakhouse had sabotaged a $42 piece of prime beef.  The steak was thin, too thin, and I wondered how any chef could have rendered it medium rare while nearly charring the other side.

I stuck it with a fork and turned it over: the other side was raw.  The assumption, I’m guessing, was that the two sides averaged medium rare.

Food score: F

Welcome to my job as a restaurant critic for the daily newspaper, the job each and every one of you wants.

Hint: It’s not just about eating out.
It’s about knowing when a dish is properly prepared.

It’s about knowing when a restaurateur is doing its best — and when it’s in the weeds.

It’s about biting the inside of your cheek to keep from being a wise-a** to an untrained server.

It’s about keeping your own ego in check for the good of the review, for keeping a balance between giving readers an accurate interpretation of the experience while, in my case, writing a piece that may actually help a restaurateur find solutions.

From the e-mail I receive, there are recurring themes, your questions and comments that I never have a chance to dispel.  Get a glass of wine and read on.

You’re on the take.  My wife and I went to the restaurant you loved, and it was terrible.  You got good service because they know you.

Oh, where to begin.  First, any restaurant can have a bad night.  I’ve reviewed them one week, written a great review and revisited a week later — when I would have failed the joint on every level. Such is life.

The difference between a good restaurant and a bad restaurant is how they respond to a bad night.  If I call a bad experience to the attention of a server or manager, a good restaurant will make it right, beginning with an apology. A bad restaurant, and it has happened to me more than once, will ignore the complaint and stupidly say something like: “Sorry, we hope you’ll come back.”

Fat chance — that you’ll be here to return to with this attitude.

Do restaurateurs know me? They shouldn’t, but I’m occasionally outed by an over-zealous acquaintance.

That just raises the bar for the review.  Then, I’m on the lookout for special treatment — don’t lavish me with amuse bouche while other diners can’t get a menu; I’m watching and will take you to task for such behavior.

Oddly, some of the worst meals I’ve had occurred when the chef knew I was in the house.

Your review ruined my business.

No, you ruined your business —  I just happened to be there to tell the story.

My style is to offer positive feedback to a negative situation.  If your wait staff is under-trained, the food is cold and prices too high, I may suggest training, heating your plates and a less mercenary attitude when pricing.

Don’t worry though, there are enough people who apparently enjoy being price-gouged and served bad food by poor servers that you’ll survive.

Many restaurateurs don’t understand that the experience begins outside the door.  If the food words on the sandwich board are misspelled, I already know you don’t care about the food.  If the menu is delaminating and covered with grease, you don’t really take the food seriously.  If the server can’t answer a simple question about a dish’s preparation, I’m confident that you don’t care about the food —  or your employees.

I asked the waiter at a pricey local eatery what wines he had by the glass.  He stared off into space apparently hoping a cartoon balloon would pop open with the answer.  He finally said, “Uh, red and white.”

Comedian Lewis Black would have had an aneurysm.  I had a glass of red —  and scored service an “F.”

The food arrived and guess what — you’ve served me some overpriced crap from a freezer case.  The pasta with seared scallops is missing an ingredient —  mainly, the scallops.

Did I make any of these decisions about your business?  Uh, no, you did.
You’re pretentious and only eat at the finest restaurants.

Hmmm, do you really read all of my reviews?  I frequently belly up to a barbecue dive’s outdoor tables and graze the steam tables of soul-food joints.  They are scored on their food only.  I can’t, under the newspaper scoring system, adequately compare the ambiance of say, Angel’s Barbecue and Elizabeth on 37th; they are extreme opposites.

However, the food at each is extraordinarily good, the service equally enthusiastic.

I’m an equal opportunity diner.  I savor sweetbreads and foie gras with the same penchant that I have for oxtails and funnel cakes.  Regardless of what I eat or where, I try to answer some rudimentary questions:

Is this prepared properly?
If it’s an unusual interpretation, does it work?

I don’t just order food I like.  I eat lots of things that may not be to my personal taste — but I objectively evaluate the preparation and presentation.

OK, you’re not a snob.  What do you look for when reviewing?

See the two questions above —  those are the foundation of the review. 

I also look at the overall development of the menu —  is it imaginative and exciting?  Does it offer something new?

Is the restaurant clean, well-organized and offering pleasing surroundings?

Is service attentive?  Is the server knowledgeable about the menu?  Does food come from the kitchen in a timely manner?  Is the plate presentation appealing?

Does the menu offer good variety and good value?  If there’s a wine list, does it offer by-the-glass options — and are those prices in line with the market?

What qualifies you to judge?

Being a journalist for more than 30 years does not qualify me.  Just because I can string a sentence together does not make me a critic.

I’ve cooked all my life.  I’ve worked in restaurants.  In my real life, I teach and oversee a commercial food operation.  I research constantly — reading cookbooks, magazines, trade journals and food Web sites.  At a minimum, I hold a chef responsible for plating a meal at least as well as I can at home.

I occasionally test my palate by dining with chef friends whose taste and skills I respect.  They read and comment on my reviews.  From these professionals, I get validation of my abilities — I don’t put much credence in a rant on a blog or an angry e-mail.

Why don’t you blog?

I do —  it’s called a review.  You’re welcome to visit savannahnow.com and comment on any review I have there.

Blogging, IMHO, is the best thing and the worst thing to happen to food criticism.

On one hand, it provides an open forum for discussion and opinion among like-minded people — hurray for the First Amendment!

On the other hand, it provides a soapbox for mean-spirited, unknowledgeable, self-proclaimed foodies to trash good chefs and restaurants.  Frankly, I stopped reading food blogs when I read one that panned a restaurant based on its menu —  and the blogger freely admitted he had never set foot in the place.

That’s just plain irresponsible and ornery.  I hope he finds a fly in his soup one day soon.  LOL.

Do you wear disguises?

No, that’s Ruth Reichl’s old game.  I’m average enough that I don’t think I stand out.  I make reservations under my real name and often dine at a place two or three times on my own tab before reviewing.  I enjoy listening to people talk about my alter ego — especially when they claim to know me.

You seem to do more good reviews than bad ones.  Are you too easy?

First, I don’t go looking for bad food — that’s too easy.  There are enough restaurants in this city to never have a bad meal if everyone is on his or her “A” game.  If a guy or gal has enough moxie to open a restaurant, my minimum expectation is that they’ll do a good job.

That said, when I find a bad one, I’ll tell the story.

Why do some restaurants get reviewed more than others?

I do revisit restaurants.  A bad review will result in a second visit some months later to see if there has been a positive change.  The city’s most popular restaurants are revisited regularly to insure there’s always a fairly current review.

You must eat a lot.
Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?

After several years of self-help books, I eat less and less.  I grew up in a world where eating a lot was a sign of good health — and besides, there were starving children in India.  An unfinished morsel was tantamount to treason.

Today, I find myself dissecting dishes for ingredients and tasting without necessarily having to eat everything.  Guess what, I’ve actually lost a little weight.

What makes you happy?

A perfectly prepared steak.  Dark chocolate.  An awesome glass of wine.  Hoppy beer.  Arugula.  Oysters Rockefeller.  Pulled pork.  Grilled corn.  Fried chicken.  Seared foie gras.  Garlic mashed potatoes.  A plump piece of grouper.  Lamb chops.

And seriously, helping readers and restaurants really, really come together for a memorable dining experience.  That can be as simple as a barbecue sandwich and a beer on a truck tailgate to a seven-course tasting menu with wine.

Food and drink are the foundation of the experience.  Great companions and wonderful surroundings are what make the memory.

Many of Pete Lamb’s past reviews can be read on savannahfoodie.com.  His reviews appear about every two weeks in the Diversions section of the Savannah Morning News and on savannahnow.com.