Merrill Shindler

Nation's Restaurant News,  Oct 14, 1996  by Richard Martin

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Shindller remarks to his during companion that the interplay with the hapless waiter is reminiscent of the time a server, when asked what the soup du jour was, responded, "It's the soup of the day."

"No wonder the restaurant is empty," remarks Shindler, who then notices the chef eyeing him suspiciously. "Luckily' he can't figure out who I am," the reviewer says, sotto voce. "If he did, he'd probably sit down at the table to tell me how great he is. He once did that when I was eating with another restaurant writer. He paid no attention, that time, to the fact that both of us had pushed our dishes away after a single bite."

Homeward bound in thick traffic after the lackluster lunch, Shindler says he'll most likely defer any mention of the restaurant in print or on the air. "It's a place that was clearly troubled, but I don't want to kick it when it's down because there doesn't seem to be any up to it. If it's empty, why bother?"

But if the place had been busy and bad, it would have merited a write-up, he adds. Some critics only write positive reviews, he points out, "and then there's me, who's usually more skeptical than anything else."

Shindler is especially fond of places that offer authentic, assertively flavored dishes, particularly Asian seafood places. And while his palate appreciates classical European cuisines, he often prefers an overstuffed pastrami sandwich at a vintage diner to a morel-stuffed breast of veal in some elegant eatery.

"My preferences have always been toward great ethnic dives -- places like [the Cuban cafe] Versailles for the garlic chicken, Dr. Hogly Wogly's [Tyler Texas BBQ] for the brisket, the Reel Inn for the Cajun shrimp," he explains. "I don't mind dressing up for dinner; I've got some really nice suits that used to fit me. But I usually come away from a fancy feed longing for some french fries, especially the ones at the Apple Pan."

He says he feels no compulsion or peer pressure to review hot, new restaurants-of-the-moment, instead preferring to critique places he finds worthy regardless of their notoriety or anonymity. "There are places I go to in the San Gabriel Valley that I am confident no restaurant critic has ever set foot in."

Of course, the buzz surrounding some much-anticipated restaurants makes them more likely to receive a visit. "I will get to Joachim Splichal's Pinot at the Chronicle [in Pasadena] and Crustacean [a spin-off of San Francisco's Vietnamese fusion restaurant, in Beverly Hills] when they open, but I won't necessarily knock myself out to get there."

But Shindler repudiates the "fairness" policy of some critics to delay reviews of a new restaurant for six months to allow kinks to be worked out. "If they're taking your money and they're open, they're open," he says. "Besides, if things are bad in the beginning, they don't usually get much better."

Though his gastronomic erudition is unmistakable, Shindler is not from the school of restaurant writers who feel obliged to display their knowledge of arcane food facts and historical taste-trend trivia. While one valid approach to food writing is scholarly and serious, he points out, "the other is kind of the caveman approach -- open mouth, eat food, yum yum. Then grunt to others about how good it is.