Foodies: The Culinary Jetset (2014)

In August 2017, I was within three kms of what is touted as the world's best restaurant, Noma, because I was Copenhagen for a few days. In the Philippines, I've had the honour of befriending some of the best chefs in the country because of Madrid Fusión Manila and of the Heirloom Rice Project. In each country I visit, I make sure that I eat at some of its best restaurants, just like Zeughauskeller (Zürich), Rokurinsha (Tokyo), and Bhojohori Manna (Kolkata). However, I typically choose where to eat when I get to the city (or my family does the choosing), rather than planning where to eat before flying in... because on many occasions, the best food are found in holes-in-the-wall and the discovery of something new is always a good feeling. There are hits and misses, of course.
If we take Wikipedia's word, I can be described as a "foodie", someone who seeks new food experiences as a hobby; although I also do eat out because of convenience and hunger. 
While browsing through the documentaries in Netflix, my attention was caught by a documentary called Foodies: The Culinary Jetset, a show that followed a few of these foodies as they intentionally travelled around the world to eat at high-end restaurants, typically following the little red book called the Michelin Guide. I realised, while watching this documentary, that there are people who could take this eating out habit to the next level. 
The foodies featured in the show all have blogs where their followers can read up on their latest culinary adventures. One of these foodies even developed a way of rating food bloggers based on the places they eat at. Naturally, to get high scores, the food bloggers have to eat at more restaurants with more Michelin stars. One of these food bloggers has actually eaten at all of the restaurant that have received three Michelin stars (at the time of the film shoot)! Another foodie went to Scandinavia for two days to eat at quite a few of the Michelin-starred restos in the region. One went into a car park to eat at a seven-seater three-Michelin starred sushi restaurant. What is common among these featured foodies is that they are prepared to splurge personal money and to travel to the most remote places to eat many small portions from world-famous degustation menus. They also typically prefer to do this alone. In the show, they were depicted to travelling solo; and I could somehow understand. I am not interested in going to a high-end restaurant with someone who would stop me from eating, whipping out a dSLR to take macro shots of the food at its most delicious (when it has just arrived from the kitchen). Man's food photo shoots are the exceptions, of course, because he just uses his iPhone and we typically don't have to wait too long. 
That's just sad. So sad. After all, a lot of good memories are linked with eating food with family and friends... as I learned during a talk by a scientist trying to understand the consumer psyche.
The chefs, of course, end up incredulous at how these people who do nothing but criticise their cooking, suddenly have such influential power. A bad review and the customer base could potentially dry up. I understand this too; I've been studying in a kitchen for several months and I learned the type of pressure chefs have to ensure that the food served is delicious, presentable, and safe to eat. One of the foodies had the gall to post a blog stating that a chef's dishes was the worst in the history of restaurants. Of course, the chef was incensed. The foodie's defence? He was using hyperbolic language to get readers' attention. 
In other words, he was exaggerating.
How true are his, and other foodies' critical comments about restaurant service then? He, on record, just put the reliability of his and of others' evaluations in question. I doubt that he has realised this because he allowed that scene to be retained in the documentary's final cut.
And here's another thing: the foodies featured in the documentary just showed how easy it is to suck the joy out of eating in a new restaurant. One of the foodies said that she wasn't there to socialise; she was there to evaluate the chef's food. Each time they are seen eating, there's no smile on their faces; it was plain to see that they're trying to find an appropriate "score" for the dishes they're eating. One of the foodies even said that he's scoring a dish based on how he scored other similar dishes. 
I enjoy eating at good restaurants with good company. I don't think that I will ever be cut out for the culinary jetset lifestyle: eating at high-end restaurants and then thinking about scoring their dishes... I'd be too distracted chatting with the chef (if he checks on his customers) and with the people I'm eating with.