Today, Adam Longo shows us what the
dream job of foodie looks like.
Here is the story of Crystal Fernandez.
It's a really good thing that
I'm wearing a mask right now,
but you can't see me foaming at
the mouth underneath 'cause all
of this looks incredible. My gosh.
Have you ever seen a potato look like that?
We are in Hillcrest Heights, MD.
Today, Prince Georges County at
the Southern Peach Barbecue and
soul food with Crystal Fernandez.
She is the new food critic
for the Washington City paper.
This is what you're supposed
to see when you get back.
You see that that's supposed to be on it.
That's important food critic with A
twist. You're not.
You're not rolling up going.
Oh, the risotto is under salted,
or this specific card is from
California, not Washington.
What's this? What's the specific
twist on how you're doing your job?
Yes, so my specific twist for
the Washington city paper.
I'm not checking out
restaurants where you dine in.
I am strictly focusing on take out
that Old Bay on there too.
Yes, a lot of people are
looking for places that are
to go a lot of people are still in our
comfortable with dining in restaurants with
Mac and cheese. Talk to me about
this place where we are today.
How do you typically do a review?
What are we going to do
while we're here?
OK, so you do what I like to do.
I'll scan them eating routine.
If there's anything that stands out to me,
what I would personally order and then
I'll also ask the staff, like, hey,
what is your top selling item? Let's
let's get into it. So as we look
up here at the menu. What are you?
What are you thinking for today?
For fried chicken platter collard greens?
Because health is wealth.
The candied yams, Peach cobbler,
egg roll is something that I need
in my life. The loaded potato.
They'll do the steaks with shrimp, the
pool percent with coleslaw.
You just ordered an entire buffet here.
I know I literally yeah,
that's that's difficult, yes, but
now there's an amount of stealth that
has to be involved with this job,
right? You don't walk through
the door and announce yourself.
I'm the food critic, I'm here,
give me all the food so I would
love to do that. Well, I definitely
like to just to make the
experience more authentic.
I rarely tell them that I'm showing them.
This has to be. I mean, even though
it's fun to take pictures of food,
it has to be one of the most difficult
parts because you're taking all
these pictures and you're like,
damn, I just want to eat this.
Only trained myself to just get over it.
Vegan item over.
Cauliflower sweet chili. Thank you.
This is what we call the food aesthetic.
I never I never knew I needed
this thing out like so just now.
Sweet chilli cauliflower.
Are you kidding me?
I've never seen anything
like that in my life.
No, this this is how much my cat weighs
this is this is a serious. Cookie.
I know I have some food.
On my face, but whatever.
Oh, when she finally took her mask off,
it was like seeing Peter Parker
for the first time. This Spiderman
I was like oh you had the mask.
No, don't take off the mask.
First question. Did you
have the Peach color aggro?
I brought home two of them
OK and they were incredible.
Absolutely divine.
They were just as good as they look.
Listen about this.
Her being a food critic.
I mean what took so long right
to have a food critic like
this who isn't reviewing 5 star
restaurants in seven course meals?
Right, we've been counting on
Google Star reviews and bootleg,
you know, Yelp reviews.
And now we've got somebody
who's actually in the culinary
field out there doing this.
At restaurants that you know you
might just drive by every day
and not even think twice about
these little hole in the wall.
Places that are just getting discovered.
And people are very opinionated
about their carry out.
So clearly there is a not
only a huge market for this,
but a lot of people that have a lot
of opinions about this kind of stuff,
so it makes sense that DC
would in fact have this so.
I'm looking forward to this.
The other thing that popped out to me.
You had her taking the pictures,
which would have been weird
anytime in human history up until,
like three years ago.
Now it's just just what people do,
so that doesn't out you at all.
Well, it it out, Sir at the end.
Which is cool because like the
food has already been prepared,
so there's nothing that we can
really be messed with at that point.
But it's at that point when she starts
taking pictures in the restaurant,
people start asking, hey, who are you?
What are you doing then?
She explains a food critic
from Washington City paper,
and then she's able to engage
in conversation with the staff.
And sometimes the ownership
at the restaurant.
And finds out these little nuanced
things about the restaurant which
actually make their way into the article.
We cannot end this segment though Reese
without talking about that loaded potato.
You saw that in there.
It weighs 7 pounds.
It's 15 bucks. They delivered it.
You couldn't even see the potato.
It's covered in steak and shrimp
and veggies and cheese and
all sorts of beautiful stuff.
She said that after she posted this
review and it went live the next day,
the restaurant sold like 33 of them.
Everyone was like,
I gotta have it.
That is incredible.
Well, shout out to her.
And also clearly that carryout
is doing incredible work,
so we have the five Star
Fine dining reviewer's.
Yeah, we have the carryout reviewers
the only thing left fast food,
baby get at me get at me.
Remember that story about that one woman who
raided the Olive Garden in North Dakota,
and her thing went viral?
Yeah, something along those lines.
By the way, a link to crystals
review of Southern Peach.
It's up on my Twitter page and
at wsa9.com right now, listen,
we got this story from actually
from our producer Julio.
So shout out to her for
bringing this to our attention.
But listen, we want your story tips as well.
Stories that you typically would
not see on a local newscast.
We want to bring him to you hit
me up on social media and email
me a long ago wsa9.com.