Healdsburg’s Bistro Ralph will soon transition to Ralph’s Martini House.

We’ve seen the menu, which focuses on smaller plates and lots of seafood. Yes the chicken livers, fries and chicken Paillard are still on the menu, but we’re jonesing for dishes like hand-chopped ahi tartare, sweetbreads with brown butter, foie gras with nectaries, pork tamales, cauliflower steak with salsa roja and animal sundae with vanilla gelato, caramel, chocolate, espresso, toffee and whipped cream.

“It’s more modern and more relaxed,” said owner Ralph Tingle. “That’s the way we’re dining now and we have to be competitive,” he said. To boot, the restaurant will feature a full bar, rather than just the classic martinis they’ve served for 23 years.

With a few odds and ends to still finish on the revamped restaurant, Tingle said they’re still in *very* soft launch mode, but will have a grand opening by late August 2015.

Ralph’s Martini House, 109 Plaza St., Healdsburg, (707) 433-1380.

Charcuterie to become Persimmon?

Lots of buzzing around the Healdsburg Square as details about the new Southeast Asian fusion restaurant, Persimmon, comes into focus.

Executive Chef Danny Mai, formerly of the Sheraton Tolay, is still working on the menu, but told BiteClub that it will definitely include a few Vietnamese staples. “Of course I’ll have pho on the menu. If it’s not there, people will laugh me out of town,” he said, adding that banh mi sandwiches with house made pate and “soulful” dumplings are in the works. Mai, who was a Vietnamese refugee, has embraced a variety of cooking styles throughout his career, including a stop at La Folie in SF, and most recently…Mexican.

The kicker to this story is that Healdsburg’s Oaxacan culinary giants, the Diaz family (Agave, El Farolito and Casa Del Mole) are the financial backers of Persimmon.

“The only way we can grow is to diversify our cuisine. There are so many Mexican restaurants already, and we want to do something different,” said Octavio Diaz, of Agave.

Until the restaurant opens this fall, Mai is doing menu consulting for the Diaz family restaurants which, he said with a laugh, often makes for some curious looks when he steps out of the kitchen. “They’re like, wait, are you the chef here?” he giggled over the phone.

Charcuterie closed in early 2015 after more than a decade on the square.

Reuben sandwich-flavored potato chips? Yes you can.

The top four user-submitted flavors to the Lay’s Do Us a Flavor potato chip challenge— New York Rueben, Southern Biscuits and Gravy, Greektown Gyro and West Coast Truffle Fries — have hit grocery store shelves.

The whole thing is, of course, a huge marketing ploy because not many people would *actually* want to eat a bag of potato chips flavored like sausage and cream sauce (blech), but they’re fun as heck to try.

After sampling, and um sampling and sampling (for the sake of research!), my winner is definitely the Reuben, which the flavor scientists have managed to hit dead on with the essence of pastrami, Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut, cheese and rye bread. How they do it, I would love to know (does someone say, “Hmmmm, needs more Thousand Island”?).

Coming in second are the ridged truffle fries (okay), followed by biscuits and gravy (mostly tasting of sage), and finally Gyro, tasting mostly of an odd cucumber essence. One lucky entrant, however, will win $1million for their suggested flavor.

Down to brass tacks: None of them are all that spectacular but somehow you can’t stop eating them. And therein lies the mystery.

Want to vote for your favorite Lay’s Do Us A Flavor flavor?

You may have to hit a few grocers (I found mine at Lucky’s and Safeway) to get the complete set, which will sell on Ebay for about $2.50 cents more than you paid for it once they disappear off the shelves.

I have a love-hate relationship with food criticism.

At its best, it can be transformative, entertaining and highly useful (Jonathan Gold is a god, and Pete Wells’ review of Guy’s NYC resto is a classic). At its worst, it can be clueless, pedantic and plain old wrong (and trust me, food critics do not have an endless gravy train).

But an age of Twitter, Yelp, Facebook, Tablehopper, Chowhound, Zagat, Foodspotting, etc., official reviews tend to be, well, kinda after the fact and pretty out-of-touch. Not that crowd-sourced reviews are all that brilliant, but you at least get a good sense of the place. And sometimes get far better information from people who’ve asked the right questions and ordered some of the best dishes.

My beef with critics? They’re missing the STORY of the chef, the food, the ideas behind the food, the inspirations and the successes and failures. They’re simply documenting a couple of meals. Very subjectively. Which to me, feels useless.

Case in point…

This week, Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about Harvest Table, a new St. Helena restaurant by Charlie Palmer.

Here’s part of the review…

“However, a few items, while good, seem to come out of left field. Pan-roasted shrimp and grits ($14) with slices of andouille sausage and bits of bacon would do New Orleans proud, but seemed like an unlikely contrast to such dishes as foie gras torchon ($26) with rhubarb and pistachio.”

I also recently wrote about the restaurant, and after talking to Charlie and to Mezick, found out this little gem…

“Most recently hailing from the acclaimed 1833 Restaurant in Monterey, Mezick said Palmer had only one request when it came to the Harvest Table menu: Shrimp and grits.

Raised in Virginia, Mezick’s roots are in Southern cooking, and this signature dish ($14) was a perfect fit for Palmer’s Progressive American style of cuisine. Made with Anson Mills grits (a Southern institution for stone-ground heirloom grains), shrimp, bacon, Andouille sausage, cheddar cheese and a secret blend of Mezick’s favorite herbs and spices, it’s heartbreakingly good.”

Hmmm. That doesn’t sound out of left field. In fact, if you had only read Bauer’s review, you might avoid it altogether. Which would be tragic since it’s one of the best dishes on the menu.

SO here’s the takeaway: Read food critics with a grain of salt. They aren’t omnipotent, and sometimes they get it really, really wrong by not knowing the story behind the food.

What’s your take? Do you read critical food reviews? And are they all that useful anymore?

[Caveat] Bauer knows food, and is one of the hardest working guys in the biz, and his reviews can easily make or break a restaurant — which I am certain he knows. He does not take his job lightly. He probably also doesn’t spell the chef’s name incorrectly (which I did through my story), use improper grammar or have spelling mistakes all over his work (like I do). As a food writer (I am NOT a critic, but I also pay for my meals as a general rule), I’m very fallible. So I’m not here to cast aspersions on someone I respect immensely. I’m just questioning how useful they really are to readers anymore.]