LA Times anonymous food critic outed by furious restaurateur

The leading food critic for the Los Angeles Times, anonymous for 16 years, was thrown out of one of LA’s best-known Vietnamese eateries when she was recognised by the owner.

The perks of the job may be sampling great as well as ghastly dishes for free, but the downsides became obvious to Irene Virbila, the LA Times secret eater, when she was recognised and physically removed from one of Film City’s smarter late-night joints, the Vietnamese eatery Red Medicine. To make matters worse, owner Noah Ellis outed her on his website with a warning to all LA restaurants to follow his example.

On a regular visit to the Beverly Hills Red Medicine, Verbila was using her normal MO of booking, ordering, eating and paying under an assumed name, then writing  her review. Slightly annoyed at having to wait 40 minutes for a table, her night was further ruined when a camera was shoved in her face, a photo was taken and she was unceremoniously thrown out after being left in no doubt about Mr Ellis’s opinion
of her reviews.

It has to be admitted her reviews were more than occasionally too far over the borders of ‘tell it like it is’. Comments such as ‘the combination is so misguided it’s mind-boggling’ and ‘the crab salad is just awful’, as well as ‘ the texture of wet sawdust’, don’t win you many friends in the highly competitive LA. restaurant sector. Virbila, however, doesn’t seem especially disturbed by the incident. . 

The LA Times, of course, carried the story and Virbila is keeping her job, if not her anonymity. She is quoted as saying she always thought at some point she’d fall foul of a blogger who would identify her, but the surprise was having a camera pushed in her face.