Former Asheville food critic Hanna Raskin introduces herself to her new Dallas audience

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Hanna Raskin, the award-winning and now former food writer at the Mountain Xpress (and many other publications), introduces herself in a column on the Dallas Observer’s food blog, City of Ate. Hanna just moved to Dallas to take the plum job.

Hi, I’m Hanna, and I’ll be your restaurant critic.

Sorry to have kept you waiting. I got caught in the weeds back in Asheville, where I was obligated to file a few last barbecue columns and produce a bike fashion show before I could head down the mountain.

But you’re not interested in excuses: You clicked your way here in search of a rewarding reading experience, which is what I hope to help provide.

So what can I get you folks? Are you craving more restaurant news, recipes or reviews? Which restaurants would you like to see reviewed? What can City of Ate do for you?

I’m very glad to have you join us (and pretty excited to be here myself.) If there’s ever anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll be back in a moment with a first blog post for you: Enjoy.

Hanna’s post has already received several responses, including this apparently snide one:

With you being new to town I’ll tell you what I, and probably many other people in this city want in a restraint reviewer. Please only focus your reviews on nice places with good home cooked food, like Cracker Barrel. In fact I would like for you to review every Cracker Barrel in the Metroplex (you’ll learn what that means). And only say nice things about them since they promote good values; not like that awful TGI Friday’s (there is a swear word in their name!). Just tell us who has the best iced tea (and where the servers know how to re-fill them), who has the best meatloaf, and who has the lemon meringue pie (hint: the higher the meringue the better!). And please, no reviews of places that serve weird ethnic food like pizza, tacos, or BBQ (whatever that is).

Follow my advice and you’ll do a peach of a job!

Looks like Hanna will be off and running. Good luck, Hanna!