Yesterday must have been something of a roller coaster for Paola and Jeremy Goldberg, the young proprietors of
Route 9, a humble neighborhood restaurant that opened up in Coral Gables almost exactly two months ago. The Goldbergs, who met while at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York (hence the name of the restaurant, for the area's main thoroughfare) woke up to find a fairly glowing,
three-star review from Victoria Pesce-Elliott in the Miami Herald (full version
now available here). She described Route 9 as "a cozy and endearing spot," and that the Goldbergs' "greatest talent seems to be creating a welcoming environment with good food and drinks at a reasonable price." So far, so good.
Then, the
Miami New Times posted its review (
yes, I know: you will get a "Page Not Found" message when you click on that link. We'll get to that. Here, try the cached version a revised version now appears on the site with the statement "This story was removed from the Internet overnight while several factual errors were corrected. We apologize for the inconvenience."), which was not nearly so kind. Though New Times' restaurant critic, Lee Klein (?) (just wait), starts off with the "sweet, old-fashioned story" behind Route 9 and its owners, things quickly go downhill from there. The menu "could have been written in the year the Goldbergs graduated from the CIA" - 1991, according to the review. And just about every dish has some flaw: the chicken wings should have been described as spicy, the poblano peppers stuffed with smoked marlin could have used another component, some of the meatballs were uncooked, the tomato soup tasted like Campbell's. The fish tacos were too expensive, the vegetable accompaniments to the entrées ranged from "meh" to "awful," the pasta was too thick. The menu should have had quotes around "pie" for the banana cream pie because of the sloppy presentation.
[1]
No restaurateur likes a negative review. But upon reading it, the Goldbergs thought something wasn't right. Among other things, the facts. You can look at the picture of Jeremy and Paola that accompanies the review and pretty quickly conclude that it's fairly unlikely they graduated from the CIA in 1991. As Goldberg told the
Random Pixels blog: "
I was 9 years old in 1991."
[2] The menu couldn't put quote marks around "pie" because - well, because the pie isn't even on the printed menu, it's a verbal special.
There was something else too: Jeremy Goldberg had his doubts that Lee Klein had even visited the restaurant. Why? Well, it's a small restaurant (about 40 seats), Jeremy is pretty much always working front of house, and it probably wouldn't be too difficult to recall a repeat customer who had ordered the items mentioned in the review. And, in fact, Goldberg eventually did recall a recent customer who had ordered many of those items, and was, as Jeremy described it to Random Pixels, "a difficult table." But it wasn't Lee Klein. Rather, it was
Klime Kovaceski, formerly the chef at Crystal Café in Miami Beach, and recently tapped to be the chef at the about-to-open
Trio on the Bay. Goldberg suspected that Kovaceski either wrote the review, or provided the information to Lee Klein from which he wrote it. Sound crazy?
Goldberg called New Times' editor, Chuck Strouse, with his suspicions. (You can get something of a real-time account from Route 9's
twitter feed). After calling, he said that Strouse was "
investigating major inconsistencies" with the article. A few hours later Goldberg tweeted:
Chuck Strouse, editor New Times is stand up. Killing the New Times story for first time in 13 years based on Lee Klein lack of credibility.
And indeed, shortly thereafter, the review was pulled from the New Times website. Strouse told
Eater Miami, "
Story had some error. Will be reposted tomorrow."
So far that hasn't happened. Strouse also told me last night that he would be commenting on the review that was pulled, and why it was pulled, today. So far that hasn't happened either. (See update below.)
(continued ...)
