S. Irene Virbila's Review of Blue Coral, a Restaurant

Restaurants in large markets, those catering to the most sensitive critics, are defined nearly as much by location and aesthetic as they are by the food they serve. Assuming that as truth, the first paragraph of Virbila’s review seems pretty damning. It places Blue Coral “past Macy’s, past Neiman Marcus, past all the usual anchors of every upscale shopping center in the country.” Of course, this might not detract from the experience for Virbila, who combines awkward rapping-with-the-teens talk with couture pretension, not unlike a particularly chic mall. Alongside passing references to ‘Louboutins’ (shoes?), we get Virbila’s assessment of Blue Coral’s bar: “Cool. Definitely cool.”

The food doesn’t enter the picture until the eighth of twelve paragraphs. Yellowtail sashimi with blood orange juice and slices of “freaking hot Serrano chile” yields little by way of descriptive help. It “makes a bold – and delicious – statement.” The writing is amateurish, embarrassingly so. She tells us that “the wine list merits some studying,” but that misses the point that she ought to be judging the quality of that list for us. Her description of the waiters as “perky and clueless” is lazy and hypocritical – at least she ought to use a different conjunction so that we know if she thinks being perky is a fault.

The writing is consistently lousy (not, you’ll note, consistent andlousy), as in this typical sentence: “Main courses read as very up-to-date, but some are too tricked up and/or tricky to execute.” Even though she begins the review by describing her frustrations about valet parking at a restaurant in a shopping center, she doesn’t ever return to that theme.

I’m a fan of good reviews of bad restaurants because the best ones will make me root for the critic and empathize with her suffering. Virbila’s write-up of Blue Coral, however, is so flippant that I found myself doubting its accuracy and thinking that, if I ever have the occasion to visit Newport Beach, CA, I might dine at Blue Coral out of spite.

Original Review