93 Plates F.A.Q.

What does 93 Plates mean?

I will eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at 93 separate New York City eateries from New Year’s Morning to the evening of January thirty-first.

Thirty-one days, three meals a day = 93 Plates.

Why are you doing it?

Why not?

Seriously.

Ok; I’ll be blogging, photographing, shooting videos, and tweeting the foodie experience of a lifetime to promote the city’s best restaurants and take in the full flavor of New York. I have a publicist, and I’ll be accompanied by many prolific food writers, bloggers, and chefs along the way; each will have something to share with me about the nuances of the city’s food scene.

Are you getting paid for this?

Not yet, but I am eating for free. I can’t afford to do this alone.

The restaurants are comping your meals?

Yeah.

So you’re a food critic who gets paid to review restaurants by the restaurants you are reviewing? Sounds fishy.

I never said I was a food critic, and they’re not so much reviews as they are recommendations. There are enough great restaurants in New York City that I will never be going to a place with subpar food or service (I could really care less about decor). In DC and Boston, I disclosed that I was comped the whole time.

OK, so let’s say I’m a restaurant owner and I want to be featured in 93 Plates; you guarantee me a good review?

Like I said, I’m not going to any restaurants that are rated poorly; if you want to be included and your Zagat/Yelp/Citysearch/Google rating is terrible or people on Chowhound are not super excited, I’m not interested in visiting your place. I’m only featuring the best restaurants in the city.

You didn’t really answer my question.

If you have a good product, good service, and you’re proud of it, I don’t see how I could give you bad review. If you have a average product, average service, and your restaurant needs some publicity, this probably isn’t the right avenue for you.

OK, so I take pride in my product, our staff is fantastic, and couldn’t everyone could use a little kick in this economy? What’s in it for me?

I’ll include links to your website, talk about you in interviews with the media, and cross-pollinate with other food bloggers and writers in the city. I had lunch at Jean Georges with Steve @Waiter Rant so you can see how the page will look when it’s done here. I wrote that between lunch and dinner because I wanted to give you a feel of how it the write-ups will actually look – there will be more pictures of the food in the actual write ups.

Sounds like it’s worth an entrée or two. Where do I sign up?

If you’re interested in participating, call me at (949) 4-FOODIE (neat, huh? 436-6343) or e-mail me at Hagan ( @ ) wanderingfoodie ( . ) com.