Why dish about eating in Providence?

So apparently, the Providence Journal has a restaurant review policy - they don't run negative reviews. Why? Advertising revenue. The Journal gains, the customer loses.

Why not just read Chowhound, then? Well, I've had two kinds of Chowhound-RI experiences. Either I end up feeling like Calvin Trillin getting a recommendation from a city council representative for the best French restaurant in a small town when what he really wants to eat is fried chicken, or I have to read yet another ill-informed critique of "fake" (American) Chinese food - the kind written by somebody claiming to know what "authentic" Chinese food is like, and who therefore has to establish his (it's usually a man) credentials by claiming, erroneously, that there's no such thing as chop suey in China.

I don't need that kind of insider information. All I want to know, really, is: am I going to want to go back?

So Wendy, an actor friend of Red's from New York came to Providence this weekend. We took her to Nick's (I want to go back) on Saturday, and then decided to go, finally, to CAV, today. Maybe we missed the boat on CAV, but I don't want to go back, at least not for brunch. My crab cake, crusted in pistachios, with a sriracha aioli (yes), was perfectly tasty. So was the grilled portuguese sweetbread and the poached egg accompanying it. But I just can't imagine I'll ever want to eat it again. It's just not the kind of dish that will ever taste better, although it could surely taste worse. Red's omelet was so small we speculated that it might have been made with one egg. Plus the goat cheese wrapped inside was grainy, and the grilled french bread that filled out the plate had the consistency of toasted wonder bread, which is delicious if it's what you wanted. Wendy's eggs mysteriously lacked one of the key ingredients listed on the menu, which the waiter acknowledged, after we asked, but without really explaining why - actually, his explanation was: yes, the chef seems to have forgotten to include that (?). The waiter was certainly gracious - he gave us a complimentary Tiramisu - but if you're going to adopt the list-every-single ingredient-included-in-each-dish approach to writing the menu, the approach evidently in favor at CAV, then please put all the ingredients in the dish.

Brunch is not supposed to be the meal by which a restaurant is judged - at least according to Anthony Bourdin - since it's rarely cooked by the restaurant's head chef. But if a restaurant can't serve a good bruch - Nick's sure can - then it probably shouldn't be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 3pm. Plus, I'd already bought all the ingredients for dinner on Saturday night - Sugo di Quaglie per I tajarin (loosely, fresh pasta with quail sauce) - which I'd been craving for days, and which, despite it being one of the most delicious pasta dishes ever conceived, I couldn't be sure to find on any menu in town this weekend.

Plus, I like brunch, and that's why I'll go back to Nick's. Admittedly, Nick's is mostly a bruch/lunch spot. But where else will I be able to get my poached eggs over venison chili (this week), cassoulet (two weeks ago), or blue cheese polenta (two months ago)? Wendy got hers over the potato cakes, which were, in a word, SUBLIME, the kind of dish that makes you say: all food should taste this good.