Assignment Description
: This is a two part writing assignment in which you will conduct a
critical reading of a food or restaurant review, and then write food review of your own. Food
reviews are a unique type of argumentative writing with specific strategies, values, and modes of
persuasion. Your job in this assignment is to identify some characteristics of food writing, and
then practice them in your own review.
Critical Reading of Food Writing (1-2 pgs)
: Find an example of a food or restaurant review
that interests you (resources are posted on Canvas) and perform a critical reading of it. Begin
with a brief summary of the review: What is being reviewed? Is the review positive or negative?
How can you tell? Then engage the article critically: What values about food does the author
seem to have? How does the author frame the food in question? What information about the food
is emphasized and what is left out? How does the tone and style of the writing contribute to the
overall argument of the article? In order to fully respond to these questions, it will be necessary
to quote portions of the review.
Food Review (2-3 pgs)
: Choose a restaurant or food product and write review of it. Model
your review after the strengths of the review you read for the critical portion of this assignment,
and try to avoid its weaknesses. Describe the food or restaurant in detail and offer an evaluation.
Your review should also include some critical interrogations that wouldn’t typically appear in a
food review. In other words, what social questions does your food or restaurant raise? How is the
food you’re reviewing usually represented in society? What questions of production, access, and
consumption does your food or restaurant raise? Although you are not responsible for outside
research, your food review should demonstrate a deeper level of critical engagement than a basic
evaluation of flavor.





