Ah, food.
Our bodies require it, our dates mandate that we go to restaurants to purchase it and our moms are great at cooking it.
How do you determine the good food from the bad and the just plain ugly? What’s to keep you from planning an intricate night out on the town, only to have your intentions foiled by some sub-par pizza or nausea-inducing dinner option? Who can tell you where to go for the best kavkalash on a late Friday night, or how to avoid awful eggplant all weekend long?
Food critics, that’s who.
These intrepid culinary cowboys get paid to dish out the dirt on eateries all around town. Sounds like a pretty cushy gig, huh?
Don’t be fooled by appearances, though-just like taking out the trash, it’s an undeniably tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. Subjecting their innards to all kinds of unforeseeable horrors, with no concern for themselves, food critics’ bowels are perpetually in peril.
Perhaps that’s a bit hyperbolic, but being a food critic does require a certain degree of palette-awareness, cultural-savvy and intestinal fortitude.
Enter Drew Tabke and Colin Edwards.
Being the altruistic writers that they are, the intrepid duo volunteered-at great risk to their gastrointestinal well-being-to step up to the food-reviewing plate, in hopes of broadening the U’s greater culinary horizons. They are brave men, to say the least.
Thus, the A&E Food Column is born. Meant to offer insight into local, inexpensive, college-oriented eateries, Tabke and Edwards’ column will run every Friday for the duration of the school year, offering a weekend heads-up as to all the best/worst places to grab some grub, just in time for your hot Friday night dates.
As a matter of introduction, Edwards comes from a genuine culinary background, having been a sous-chef in various capacities in the past, and his razor-sharp sense of texture and taste cut through even the most complicated of dishes.
Tabke, on the other hand, is not a chef, but does possess taste buds, and argues that he “eats all the time.” Sounds convincing, no? In addition to Tabke’s otherworldly qualifications for this position, he also maintains an intuitive grasp of college students’ tastes and tendencies, and therefore is an informal and necessary compliment to Edwards’ professional leanings. Between the two of them, no enchilada will go uneaten, no gyro overlooked or the quality of any burger misdiagnosed.
In an attempt to find students appetizing restaurants, Tabke and Edwards have decided to factor in a couple standards to follow: price, proximity, popularity and quality. With these key ingredients in mind, the pair hopes to bring a greater knowledge of where to go blow some cash when you are starving and broke.
So, here before you, beloved reader is the special introduction to the tastes and styles of Tabke and Edwards. The following handful of reviews and comparisons are meant to edify and provide insight into the world of low-budget fine dining.
So, let the mouth-watering commence. Bon appetit!