Give me strength A few weeks ago, several foodie friends and I were outraged by a Twitter, Instagram and Facebook post by a blogger who said he'd had to use his "food writer card" to "muscle" his way into a new restaurant, adding that the queue for a table was very long. He ended the post with a cheery, "My review is coming up!" We expressed indignation as we discussed this. It wasn't so much that he was writing a review of a place where he was known - many restaurant reviewers in Britain have photo bylines and it doesn't prevent them from having bad meals and writing about them. And, occasionally, I am recognised when doing a review. No, what we were angry about was the way he was throwing his weight around - it made him look like a bully, lacking in integrity. Indeed, someone replied to the post and called him out on that, asking if this is the way other food writers behave. You won't see the blogger's post now - he deleted it after a few days, although, suspecting that this would happen, several of us had the foresight to get a screengrab. Unfortunately for him, deleting a post isn't going to erase people's memory of it. I did a little investigating and it was explained to me that it was all just a big "misunderstanding" - the blogger actually got his table the way most of us do: by calling in advance to make a reservation. Hmm, maybe. I've never shown my name card (which, as that of the South China Morning Post 's senior food and wine editor, trumps a "food writer card" in the hierarchy of these things) in order to get a booking. The "muscling in" wording was explained to me as an attempt at being humorous. Again, maybe. Perhaps the blogger should have put up lots of happy-face emoticons, to make it clear this was meant to be a joke. Or maybe he should be more circumspect about what he writes, so that this kind of "misunderstanding" doesn't make him look foolish.
