A Dummies for Dummies Guide to Food Blogging

Come every June-July, I'll be surfing the net for Japanese fine dining (or at least edible Japanese cuisine) to take my dad out on his birthday. Why? Because every year he insists on eating salmon cooked ala Japanese style. I've told him that all he has to do is grill a piece of salmon served with rice but he says otherwise. As most of you know, most Malaysian websites are very uninformative. Especially the officials ones. Restaurant websites without menus, hotel websites without access maps and the most common of all "Site not found/Error 404/Site offline". Hence, I have to rely on food blogs posted by the common peasants who have tasted a slice of luxury in their life and insist on blogging about it. Ok, not all of them are peasants.

So back to the topic of food blogging. Let me be specific, MALAYSIAN food blogging. It annoys the sh*t outta me. I understand the need of you to sound intelligent like a real writer, but right-clicking on thesaurus is NOT the solution. Also, tYpinG liKe thIs is so not professional. We have all learn kata nama am and kata nama khas in grade school, have we not?

Second, photography. You want to look professional. Invest in a goddamn SLR cam or at least a camera with acceptable quality. And read up on lighting for the love of god. Auto flash is not the solution to life. The most important factor in food photography is color, not that white spot of flash in it. And a BIG NO to blue or purple lighting. If you've studied color, you'd know that blue and purple makes food very unappetizing. If the place is dark, get a mini tripod. If my 58 year old dad knows what it is, so do you.

Third: subject of photography. I am not interested in how pretty the soy sauce or vinegar bottles are. Or the entrance of the restroom. Unless the restroom resembles anything like Hooters', feel free to shoot away. The reason why anyone would be reading your blog is because they're looking for recommendation on a good place to eat. Not how cute you think the sauce plates are. And choose a proper angle to shoot your pictures. The last thing someone wants to see is a plate of beef salad with the beef portion cropped off.

Fourth, keep to the topic! Yes, we know there are lots of things going on in your life. Your partner isn't the most faithful person you thought him/her to be. But that's life. Leave topics like that in your personal blog. As I said before, I'm only reading your blog for food.

Fifth: babies are cute. Little girls and boys are cute. Puppies are cute. Food is not cute. Food is either delicious or crappy or anything that can describe the human taste-buds. Yes, the shape of the food may be cute, but all I want to know if it's edible or not. Only Japanese can legally use "cute" to describe anything. It's their culture.

Sixth, information. You wrote 10 paragraphs on how mouth watering the food is. How dining there gave you a life changing experience. Now you have me convinced and I really want to go there too. Then I realize I'm at a dead end. I have no freakin' idea where to go because you didn't provide an address or a slightest hint where in this country is this restaurant located. Or in another case that you have me convinced, I walk in and after showed to my table and gotten all comfy, I flip the appetizer menu to realize everything is in 3 digits. So yes, location and price is very helpful for our wallets.

Before writing this, I was discussing it with the sister. I expressed my concern of how I'd my blog will be bombed by angry food bloggers after reading this post. Her reply: "Hahahaha with what? Roti bom?"