Ahh... one of the classic media stunts (and a personal fave of mine), getting a reviewer who already dislikes someone to review their latest work. Today's example courtesy of the NYTimes. I just watched Feasting on Asphalt earlier tonight. It was fun. Not Alton Brown's best work, perhaps, but fun. But then, if I'm reading the reviewer right, he doesn't have any best work. It's clear that not only doesn't she much care for Brown, but she completely fails to get the road food movement (which isn't a movement anyway). Oh, where to begin... I cannot take seriously anyone who snarks at road food but doesn't mention either Calvin Trillin or Jane and Michael Stern. She makes it sound like road food was invented by the same guys that came up with the Slim Jim commercials. Her straw-man arguments about road food v. French food are, well, just that. Fake assertions that no one ever made, laid out so she can dismiss them, witheringly. What Trillin and the Sterns and AB (and, frankly, any sensible person) understand, but Virginia Heffernan apparently cannot, is that it's not a question of whether the roast chicken at Bouchon is better than the barbecue chicken at Keaton's. They're not trying to do the same things. But both are insanely successful at being great at what they do. The attitude that only haute cuisine can be great implies that only the rich have a right to eat great food, therefore it doesn't matter what anyone else eats so we might as well pave all those barbecue pits and send everyone to McDonald's. 1-2-F-U, Ms. H. Anyway, real New Yorkers know and love road food. They're down in Chinatown or out in Queens looking for good rogan josh or waiting in line at the Shake Shack.