28/10/99

Feedback

    What would it take, I have been asked again and again, to be Haim Shapiro's dinner-date companion?
    I asked Haim if perhaps people ask him the same about me. "Never," he said.
    I have to assume Haim is so desirable because he is our restaurant reviewer, and not because he is sexy. If I am wrong, I do not want to know.
     Apparently there is a gene inborn in everyone that triggers an urge to review restaurants. But Haim is faithful to his regular dinner companion, his wife, and his devoted readers have little hope of replacing her. However, there is now an alternative.
    A growing Internet site, www.eLuna.com, lets all the would-be Haim Shapiros tell how good the soup was. Restaurants are where you go to see and be seen, but eLuna is where you go to read and be read.
    From the time she conceived the website, about five months ago, Debbie Lampert "envisioned eLuna as a community site with reviews written by lots of different people. Anything publishable goes right up on the site. This has made for an interesting patchwork of contributions from all over the eating world. It's great fun to read." 
    Debbie, whose off-line homesite is Ra'anana, already has more than 600 subscribers and 80 participating restaurants. It's free, and at this point non-profit, non-commercial. The bottom line, she stresses, is F-U-N. That it also happens to be a public service and a boost to the gastronomic industry is eLuna's recipe for success.
    Participating restaurants must be kosher, and must provide discounts to eLuna's subscribers. There are contests, tasting tours, coupons and a newsletter. No such thing as a free lunch? Not here!
    Debbie posts full-blown reviews as well as pithy "feedback" comments, but with two conditions: they must be well-written, and you can't dump on the place. "What restaurant is going to give a discount to a website that publishes negative stuff about it? If we don't like the restaurant, we don't put them up on the site."
    Burned out creatively after 18 years in the high-tech industry, Debbie embraced this project with gusto. But, she says, "Everything I write these days looks like a spec for a software product. I figured nobody would be interested in reading my reviews, so I scoured the Internet for someone who could write stuff that people will want to read." She found her very own Haim Shapiro: "I chanced upon a wonderful guy named Arnie Draiman. His writing style was not spoiled by a million years of writing technical documentation, and he's probably the world's leading expert in Jerusalem restaurants. He can quote menus by heart!
    "Arnie and I have a totally different approach to eating. Arnie is willing to eat in a barn, as long as the food is good. I will only go to a place with great ambiance, and I don't care what the food tastes like. Between the two of us, we write one great review."
    Maps and photos are included in reviews, together with basic information about the restaurants: location, hours, ambience, even prices and recommendations of specific dishes.
    "We try to keep the writing light and funny, and we decidedly do not take ourselves all that seriously. The golden rule is to promote the restaurant. We only take restaurants that we are proud to represent."

FORGIVE ME, Haim: I trampled on your eat beat. Unable to push you off these august pages, I caved in to Debbie's offer to write a review for her.
    Satisfying both my journalistic curiosity and a whopping hunger, I consented to be fed. I chose my current favorite eatery, Gizmongolia.
    Kosher Mongolian may seem like a culinary non sequitur, especially because it's a kashrut-supervised unsupervised pig-out. For reviewing purposes, it's the perfect joint, because it's an all-you-can-eat self-serve stir-fry smorgasbord. (I wouldn't want to say anything beyond that, for fear that this may constitute a review, and heaven help me next time I bump into Mr. Shapiro in the Post miznon.)
    I tasted absolutely everything (well, except for the tofu), and waddled home where the real satisfaction started: writing about it.
    This could become a habit. My companion (I wish to state publicly: she was not Haim's wife) swiftly presented me with a rather long short-list of chiefly unaffordable restaurants.
    I'm not so sure I should take a chance, though. I just know what's going to happen. Someday, I'm going to be piling up the empty plates at one table, with You Know Who doing the same at the next.
    Have you ever seen two food critics in the same place at the same time?
    I don't imagine it would be terribly genteel: "How's the eggroll by you?" "Tasty. Try the dumplings."
    No, I fear the worst. A duel with kebab skewers, a loud exchange of sour grapes, an all-out food fight.
    If you're willing to risk it, and if your pen is at least as mighty as a butter knife, take a look at www.eLuna.com. (WARNING: This website should not be read on an empty stomach.)