I've been a follower of the Food and Wine section of the New York Times since I was in 7th grade, and as  food lover myself, I have a few bones to pick with Sam Sifton.

Its very interesting how someone can take a perfectly good restaurant experience, and turn it into a day a church. Every couple of sentences, between his praises and songs, I feel myself falling asleep. His stories are hopelessly dull and uninspired, and I leave myself wondering, where the hell is Frank Bruni?

I understand the motivation between trying to distinguish yourself from Frank Bruni, but in the process, you are alienating any clientele that he managed to bring in with his thoughfully crafted food adventures. If his restaurant trips were safaris, your stories are strolls down main street.  

In many ways, I'm happy Sam Sifton isn't over compensating to try and fill Bruni's shoes, and for that, he should be commended. At the same time, he is sucking life out of the story. For a $150,000 dollar food budget, every restaurant I ate at would be accompanied by fireworks, or hand grenades, sunshine and clouds, and metal spears. Can we up the ante? This is the New York Times for God's sake! Please give me something interesting, or at least provocative, otherwise I'm cancelling my subscription.

Gees. Please, someone, give this guy a drink! I want to be kept awake after his restaurant reviews; pretty soon, I might just stay home and cook for myself.