Now Listen Here Young Lady!

I’m in so much trouble.

She pointed her finger and waggled it at me ferociously “Who the hell do you think you are!” I frowned a sulky frown and pursed my lips and scuffed my feet on the floor beneath me. It was worse than the dressing down I got in Grade 10 Home Economics.

On that sordid occasion Mrs Fatso (really, that was her name!) had been standing behind me just as I felt the need to announce how much I hated her daggy menu for our school formal. “Fatso” I declared “wouldn’t know an exciting menu if it jumped out and bit her dimpled arse”. Oops. Mrs Fatso clipped my right ear (I should have sued) and sent me to the back of the room to read Margaret Fulton and write an essay on the gentle art of menu design. Bloody hell she was harsh!

Look, I’m the first to admit that I know jack shit about menu design (I’ve blanked out that essay’s content) or food science (I failed Home Ec). But I do know what does and doesn’t excite me, I do know what does and doesn’t taste good (to me!), and I’m not afraid to tell. But that doesn’t make me right (or wrong if you disagree with me). It’s just my opinion.

I have a mouth, and sometimes it runs away with me. Worse yet I can type as fast as I think (show off!), so I have a wee tendency to regret my actions from time to time. Should I shut down the HRB, banish myself to a dungeon and not come out until I have learnt to be a silent and penitent shadow of myself?

Nuh!

But, the idea of “Hobart Restaurant Bitch” is to have a bitch, not be a bitch. And I don’t want my big mouth to get in the way of a valid restaurant experience, therefore I do not accept freebies or invitations to ‘review’ (the “invitation” from Henry Jones wasn’t actually an invitation), I do not book tables under Georgie Weston or HRB, and I do not reveal that I’m a “reviewer” (mostly because I’m not a reviewer’s arsehole). See, I have ethics.

So there I was this morning getting a bloody good dressing down, having flashbacks by the boatload and feeling right sorry for myself. “Who the hell do you think you are,” she asked again, finger still waggling, “some bloody expert or something?” Hmmm, maybe she had a point. But like my rebellious teenage self, there I stood, sulky and shitty and wanting to fight back. “Expert? Hey, it’s just my OPINION!”. “Who are you talking to?” my husband asked, startling me so that I jumped and dropped my toothbrush on the floor. I looked back at the mirror, she was still there and now sprayed with toothpaste. Oops.

Call me crazy, but I suspect that, like me, you guys like to eat out occasionally, preferably without having your wallets ripped out through your botty holes or your taste buds bludgeoned to death with the boredom stick. I’m sorry if we don’t see eye-to-eye on all things. But I’m not sorry for expressing my opinion. As a consumer with a voice I can say what the hell I like. But via the HRB you get to say what the hell you like too. And that means all of us hungry little consumers can have a say.

And that’s the point Belvedere … as long as I can face that scary bitch in the mirror tomorrow morning.

GW ;-)