Never want to eat out again?

Well, I am glad they did mention George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris. Since the author here has taken a big chunk of that in his writings.
The plight of the author in this article, good god. He could have simply gone back to England for a job. It’s close. No reason to be so down and out when England/home, is right there.
Still, dystopia sells.

As far as eating out goes, we are down to eating out ONLY when overseas. Covid had suppressed our dining out and now inflation is in the way. Easy to create and cook your own meals that easily surpass eating out, in quality and price.
I guess I will be eating in Paris if I go there again.

Clickbait. I can't get that 5 minutes of my life back. And then I saw it was a Daily Mail. Pretty sure that rates around the Natl Enquirer for reliabiliy.

The location of the review isn't relevant, the book is the book. Some will be interested, most will yawn. It's just a fresher update of one of the oldest stories in the world, don't look in the kitchen when you're eating out. Bourdain's book is probably the best take on this.

It's clickbait indeed, but more than that it's also yet another exercise in English anti-French prejudice that mostly ends up exhibiting the abiding English ignorance of cooking. The bounces-off-me-and-sticks-to-you juvenile merry-go-round of accusing the French of starting the catfight by being condescending about English taste in wine is borderline psychotic, imho.

Reading this article I had the impression of re-reading "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo, but without any talent. I regretted that he did not mention the rats running between the legs of customers and the employees locked up and beaten to death in the cellars, at least that would have made me smile.

Likely, this thread would have been better located in the Recommended books forum. But even then, I think it leans more towards fiction.

If that article makes your stomach turn, better not go to almost anyplace in South America. I’ve eaten in places there that I’d never enter here in the U.S. (and the food has always been good.)

Jaime, I have a central american friend who likes to joke that in order for a dish to be 'authentically Mexican' there had to be chickens pecking around on the ground within 5 meters of where it was being cooked. Ha.

Fancy that, attacking anti-French prejudice with ridiculous and nasty anti-English sentiment.

So the luckless waiter is trying to make a buck by manufacturing stories. There's plenty of that going around recently, and it seems to work: the journalist at the Mail was certainly taken in by it.