foodmex wrote:These restaurants should be called "social media restaurants", they exist for the purpose of social media, they serve social media, they are critiqued by the social media and many last as long as social media posts do and are great fodder for social media in general.
"underground restaurants" are they akin to rebels of the "Arab Spring" or are they business' that are not registered, don't have health certification, and don't pay taxes that makes them revolutionaries? Or just social media restaurants.
I am going to have an hamburger now at Billy's drive in.

This isn't an underground restaurant- it's gosh down bonafide with taxes and health certificates and all that glory. Maybe you should read the rest of the thread before drive-by foodie sniping, which is the same exact sport Jeff Ruby engaged in when he thought he'd spice up his own review with a little sneering at the people at his communal table. Half of the paragraphs in the review are devoted to that, not to the food. It speaks not only to the annoying aspects of this sport, but more to how the print media and media in general has degraded over time. The reviewer not only did not manage to eat at the restaurant more than once (I wonder if the mag comped his wife- if so they could have afforded to send him alone to the Diamond, and to at least one of the other menus), but was apparently late for his dinner. I know Iliana doesn't mind these things, but Iliana is a chef, not a writer.

I understand some cultural divide here between people who like burgers and people who like tasting menus. I like both and I find Iliana's food less alienating than some of the anti-foodies might expect, given that it draws on common Midwestern cultural veins that people will find familiar. The owl menu in particular, which improved since I last had it, bridges the gulf quite a bit- pancakes, stuffing, bread & butter, and good old-fashioned red meat. It's very Little House on the Prairie. Which is one of the reasons I think a "reviewer" is going to get an incomplete picture from arriving late to the diamond menu, certainly the most esoteric of the menus. I think it might be interesting to test it on dad, who once ate at Manresa (our cousin provides the citrus there), and developed a prejudice against any tasting menu, saying he'd much rather have a steak. I wouldn't be easy to get him there though.