A couple weeks afterward, my cell phone rang. “Um, Ken, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, I’ve had to close the restaurant. We weren’t doing the numbers we had projected, and…”


“Oh, (nasty expletive!)” I said to myself. If my editor had already begun the printing process, I was royally screwed. Visions of a published review on a dead space scrolled through my mind. Why, I’d be a journal- istic embarrassment! I could just see the smarmy on- line trolls and haters tearing the magazine apart!


Fortunately, the mag hadn’t gone to print, so my [very understanding] editor gave me an out: I had five days to multiple-visit someplace altogether different, interview the GM, write up the piece, and submit.


So, if you had picked up the February 2019 issue of Main Line Today (MLT) and read my review on Eddie V’s Seafood & Steaks in King of Prussia, know that it was a bumped-ahead, lightning-fast fill-in.


I learned two things from that unexpected rug-pulling incident: 1. Always have a back-up plan, and, 2. Maybe a “byob steakhouse” isn’t the best reviewer’s material after all.


This editorial quagmire was but one in a slew of snubs, faux pas, and even the occasional intestinal malady that I’ve suffered from my craft in my years reporting for MLT, Philadelphia Style, Mid-Atlantic Events Magazine, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Sure, people are always telling me how fun and glamorous my restaurant reviewer’s side gig sounds to them, but that sort of mindset goes down the toilet, literally, when you’ve just ingested a suspect salmon wrap for lunch earlier that day.


Yes, I’ve had my share of food poisonings, stricken down by items coming from - believe it or not - some of the best chefs in the business. It’s been rare, yet it has happened - the 2:00 am tummy gurgle that quickly devolves into, well, you know the rest…


The one case of food poisoning I’ll never forget - that baaad salmon wrap situation - occurred in 2014. At the time, I was able to accept my temporary-sickly state, but I couldn’t abide by the chef denying his food had anything to do with my illness when I called to tell him about my fishy fate, since he “inspects every piece of fish personally.” Instead of apologizing, let alone invit- ing me back in for a re-try, he told me matter-of-factly that I must have contracted said salmon-y salmonella


Mid-Atlantic­EvEnts Magazine 77


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