A Christmas gift from the New York Times, and what a total turkey it is. Stephen J. Dubner, who writes Freakonomics for the paper, has just returned from London and found restaurant food that "hews to the English stereotype of potted meat, soggy pastry, and vegetable mush".
All of it apparently is bad, bad, and thrice bad. As Dubner doesn't deign to tell us where he ate it's hard to talk specifics with him (do pop by, Steve). Suffice to say that almost all the commenters on his blog have him pinned down for sloppy journalism at best, and idiocy at worst.
We surely don't need to rehearse the old arguments about British food and its place in the world today so I'll keep it short and simple for Dubner - New York, like London, is a great restaurant city. But - shock, horror - you can eat some really crappy food there too. London is a city that can genuinely hold its own among the world's best. Yes, it has faults, but so do all of them.
Still, we can tell that Dubner is a numpty because he thinks Tesco and M&S Simply Food shops equate to a Manhattan outpost of 7-11. Which they don't. My advice, if you want a reputable New Yorker's take on London restaurants is to read this piece by Adam Platt of New York Magazine.
As to Stephen J Dubner, may the wishbone stick in his gullet this Christmas. Yo, bleedin', ho.
