The bad, the worse, and the awful.

Eater has published their list of “The Year’s Most Scathing Restaurant Reviews“. Yes, Guy’s American Kitchen is on the list.

Also on the list: two Texas restaurants, Vida Sexy Tex-Mex in Houston and Kinado in Richardson.

The review of Vida is particularly interesting to me. I missed it the first time around, as I generally don’t read the Houston Press. But as I started reading it, I was saying to myself, “Hmmmm. This sounds a lot like a Houston version of Vivo.” (I thought Paul Petersen’s food was excellent when I ate at the Vivo on 620, but I was a little put off by the noise and the singles bar feel of the place. Petersen, as I understand it, has since left Vivo.)

Then I got a little further in:

“The restaurant was conceptualized as a Houston extension of Vivo…”

“But the deal with Vivo chef Paul Petersen fell through…”

And:

In a recent interview with the River Oaks Examiner, Evie Melcher explained her reasons for going ahead with the restaurant despite a lack of experience in the industry: “We thought, ‘How hard can it be?'” Melcher said. “We thought we’d just open it up and it would run itself.”

Dear Evie Melcher: Gordon Ramsey’s on line one, and Robert Irvine’s on line 2. Seriously, that has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve read this year.

As for Kinado, wow.

Service: At best, lackadaisical and careless; at worst, unprofessional. Special requests are graciously acknowledged, then summarily disregarded.