My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 6 Episode 12: "Spice Up Your Life" (SPOILERS) · 4:01pm Jun 11th, 2016
Here we are...almost the halfway point, and last episode before the hiatus.
After I post this recap blog, I have another blog post coming, so watch for it: my ranking of the series to date by season, from best season to worst.
So it turns out that the reason the Cutie Map disappeared for a while is because Starlight broke it. At the beginning of this episode, Twilight and Starlight finally manage to fix it...sort of. It's kind of...broken. Ish. Glitchy? The map has a bit of a rocky reboot sequence.
Anyway, the map sends Pinkie and Rarity on a mission to Canterlot.
Pinkie has...a bit of an odd turn of phrase sometimes. "Friendship problem right between the eyes"?
Our wacky duo heads for Restaurant Row, where Rarity explains the hoof rating system of the gourmet elite, which is decided by Zesty Gourmand. They also quickly learn that Zesty Gourmand's taste in cuisine is...not very tasty. Pinkie decides to pick a restaurant with her nose, and they find, well...a chintzy curry joint.
So we've got Indian ponies. The restaurant owner, Coriander Curry, is a cynic and a pessimist who's frustrated and angry over the lack of business, and his daughter Saffron is angry that he never listens to her ideas. There's some definite stereotypical "stubborn Indian dad and frustrated Indian daughter" stuff going on here. I'm seriously getting flashbacks to Lemonade Mouth.
On top of everything, Zesty Gourmand won't even set hoof in their shop because nopony's bothering to come in to eat.
Pinkie decides this is the problem they were summoned to solve. Pinkie promises to pack the place with ponies, while Rarity vows to bring Zesty Gourmand in to rate the restaurant.
Rarity manages to get Zesty Gourmand to come, but the catch is they need to get the restaurant ready by dinner service, which means Rarity has to work her Gordon Ramsay magic while Pinkie and Saffron go out for supplies.
There's some...disparity in the approaches of the two ponies helping the restaurant. Rarity wants to turn Coriander's restaurant into a carbon copy of all the garbage restaurants in Canterlot that Zesty has rated, while Pinkie has it RIGHT and wants Saffron to be herself and follow her heart.
Quite honestly? I can't believe Rarity of all ponies is advocating assimilation and conformity. It doesn't suit her character OR the lessons she's learned over the course of the series. Rarity is behaving very out of character here.
Anyway, Pinkie and Saffron return to discover Rarity has fucked everything up to please this stupid gourmet and replaced the menu with the same crap all the other three-hoof restaurants have. Saffron is upset and Pinkie is mad. In the middle of the two friends bickering, Zesty Gourmand arrives.
Zesty Gourmand is an obnoxious twat, and the two guests Pinkie managed to rope in want something that doesn't taste like Zesty's three-hoof food. Saffron is trying to cook real food, Pinkie is trying to SERVE real food, and Rarity is trying to screw everything up even worse. Zesty Gourmand reams Rarity out for trying to promote a tacky, rubbish restaurant--which is exactly what she's been doing all over Restaurant Row.
After everything falls apart, Saffron makes her father's spicy flat noodle soup as comfort food. Coriander remembers all the good times the two had cooking together. Rarity finally gets her head out of her ass, and decides to try to turn things around by switching jobs with Pinkie. Rarity goes out into the city to draw a crowd while Pinkie fixes the restaurant and the Curries cook REAL food to win back customers.
Zesty hears the commotion from the Tasty Treat and barges in, bitching everyone out for eating in a place she didn't give her seal of approval. Rarity reads her the riot act, and it turns out all the owners on Restaurant Row HATE Zesty Gourmand's "standards of cuisine". They all rebel and tell her they're all going back to cooking what THEY want to cook. Zesty leaves in a huff.
This...was the worst possible episode to hiatus on, honestly. 
Rarity was badly OOC for half of the episode, the pacing was bad, and I'm honestly not sure this episode even had a point to it at all. Here's hoping the back half of the season is better than the front half, because so far, this season has been largely unimpressive.
Pinkie's half of the song was the best part of the episode, imo.
Ah, Rarity.....always a sucker for a brand label no matter how bad the brand is. It took her most of the episode to realize that she's a THEY too.
This is episode 12, we have one more to go before hitatus.
Hey, I really liked this episode. It was great to see Rarity and Pinkie Pie interact, and we've seen before that Rarity isn't always the best judge of character. She was perfectly willing to kiss up to the Canterlot nobility and lie about her social standing, even if it meant disregarding her friends, and she kept trying to hit on Trenderhoof instead of taking a hint and realizing he wasn't into her.
4015153 Nope. Discovery Family did a press release saying this is when the hiatus starts.
I liked it but I seem to like pretty much every episode. Yes, Rarity was OOC, which actually made me like her even less. The song was really fun though, and the ending surprised me actually. I was expecting them to give Zesty a taste of that noodle soup and her realizing it's actually good, and she may have fucked up. Wasn't expecting her to be treated as a straight up villain.
I enjoyed it, but I feel like this one is going to fall apart upon further analysis.
4015168 12 and 14 eps?
It's just stupid that Zesty only gave those restaurants her seal of approval because they cooked food that only she would like, and not allowing them to stick to what makes them unique. Cinch has some competition.
Is it me, or does that waiter pony have clones of himself? Not the greatest episode.
Honestly, I actually consider this to be the best of the map episodes, not counting the season 5 premiere or finale.
As for the season as a whole, I completely disagree there. I think this was the most impressive string of episodes yet.
4015171 Yup.
4015145 Eeyup. The song was definitely neat.
4015154 Exactly, so you think she'd have learned her lesson by now.
4015153 Hiatus begins immediately. It's stupid to hiatus at 12 episodes, but there it is.
4015183
Thanks for proving my point. Anything you consider the best is pretty much automatically the worst by default.
4015218 Just because I like something you don't like doesn't mean that either one of us is right.
It just means we have differing opinions.
And, sure, we end up having differing opinions a LOT, but I think that's mostly a difference in taste.
4015242 I'm glad you finally understand that. It should make things easier going forward.
Considering that it's to impress/earn the favor of a Big Important Critic, I can fully believe it in this particular instance. In the past, she has been a bit too worried about appearance, status and/or the opinions of those with high status in a particular field. And honestly? That particular character flaw strikes me as too much a part of her to go away completely.
4015248
So... Should I get the popcorn or what?
4015218 I hate a hiatus.
4015248 My my, aren't we awfully sure of ourselves?
Lemonade Mouth was great! I have the whole album on my IPod!
And somewhere, someone is shipping Zesty Gourmand with Abacus Cinch. Weirdly they're smiling while doing it...
It feels like someone came up with the concept and then looked around for characters to hang viewpoints off of. Rarity might have done the conformity thing back in season 2, but she's had three and a half seasons of development since Sweet and Elite. Honestly, the episode played like one big take that against the trendy restaurant scene, which really, how big a deal is that outside of the most extreme urban enclaves?
Notice they didn't even bother to say where the Curries came from? Not only is this season not delivering on the promised travelogue, they seem to be actively avoiding worldbuilding. I guess they just didn't care to come up with a sucontinental horse pun. Hell, they didn't even go the lazy route and have them be transplants from Trottingham.
4015343 I noticed that too. It's weird that for the "Explore Equestria" season, we've never gone farther than Manehattan, which we've gone to twice, and haven't seen any new locations except the Dragonlands yet.
Yeah, Rarity's portrayal wasn't her best especially when decorating. Reminded me of when she tried to help decorate Twilight's castle. And Zesty, it's not a food critic's job to tell others make the food only she wants it to be. Personally she wasn't doing her job right. At least I don't think she was. Aside from that, she and Svengallop are two of my least favorite ponies to date.
4015364 Yeah, I don't know what Zesty Gourmand thinks a food critic is, but it's absolutely not what she is.
4015371 The weight of the irony of her name must have crushed certain important neurological features. I mean, here's a mare who hates large portions and bright, distinctive flavors carrying a name like Zesty Gourmand. I'm surprised the didn't give her a reflexive cringe like Major Darling of Blackadder Goes Forth every time someone says her name. And I'm pretty sure the warning about thin cooks goes for food critics as well... she's basically a horse-skull on a trundle.
At least Zephyr Breeze was actually a luftmensch, albeit not the sort you'd want to hang out with
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I liked it...buuut not exactly first half finale material. At least, it doesn't exactly compare to the chaos that was last year's
...I wanted Gordon Ramsay to talk.
At least say how the food from Zesty's approved restaurants are RAAAAWWW...?
Hey Rarity you remember "Our Town"?
Making everything equal was terrible.............again
4015178 It actually makes sense though. Zesti likes small bland food, with a very specific decor. She's pretty honest and straightforward about this. If you give her what she wants, she will give you her rating, which is just a shorthand for saying "Zesti approves of this place." She clearly doesn't like strongly-flavored food, so it would be disingenuous of her to give a good rating to a place that doesn't match her own criteria.
It's not really her fault if everyone else in Canterlot claims to agree with her taste, forcing the restaurants to fall in line, even if they all don't.
4015444 Yup.
I've always been hesitant on calling somepony "out of character." That's too quick a judgment.
For starters, Rarity might be an artist, but she is also a businessmare. Had the events of this epiaode occured in Seasons 1 or 2, I can imagine her trying to let her imagination go wild. But time has passed, and enough has tempered her into a different shape.
Think of it like this. Most successful artists may start out as artists, the people who make magic happen for the hell of it. But when they achieve success, gradually, they develop a more business-oriented mindset. So with Rarity, she was merely aiming to garner good business by doing what the other restaurants do.
4015734 I actually kinda relate to Zesty in that regard; I like some of my foods plain. Pancakes, waffles, hotdogs, and a couple other things.
Ah yes, conformity will set you free, now where have I heard that one before?
4015283 They're both control freaks.
4015734
Except it is, because Canterlot bends over backwards to cater to her whims, and anyone who doesn't fall in line is, as we witnessed, verbally bullied and battered. And God only knows why anyone ever listened to her in the first place. Still, anyone who has the power to cause that much change with just their word alone also has the responsibility to use that power judiciously, and Zesty doesn't.
Of course, the restauranteurs of Canterlot are also to blame, because once you give a person's words power, it's your own fault if they beat you to death with them.
His name's Coriander Cumin. Not curry. Cumin. It's a spice.
It makes the undead go pop.
4016242
Which is the rest of Canterlot's fault.
I think "verbally bullied and battered" is a bit strong for "I think this restaurant is uncouth and It hurts my reputation." At the end she whines that people who used to share her food preferences have en masse changed their preferences all of a sudden, but at no point does she bully or batter anyone. All she does is clearly and unambiguously state her preferences, and tell everyone exactly who does and does not meet those preferences. I can't think of anything else I'd ask of a critic, though if I found myself not interested in that critic's particular tastes anymore, I'd try something else.
You yourself have reviewed comics and anime right here on this blog, right? Don't you write about how some anime series and comics issues do things right (according to your preferences, because every human being uses their preferences to judge things) and others do them wrong (according to your preferences) and how the latter could improve themselves? That's a key part of being a critic, and it's a vital role in our society to help people make choices in what type of culture they want to consume. Now, if the authors of some of the worst dreck you'e ever reviewed read your posts, would any of them complain that you had hurt their feelings? Maybe, because art is tough. Doesn't mean it's not necessary though.
Well, they're partly to blame, but mainly it's the customers who are to blame, because they decided whether or not to go into restaurants based on whether or not Zesti approved of them. If they were dumb enough to eat food she liked by they didn't over and over again, despite knowing exactly what was going on, that's their fault.
4016287 That was a derp on my part. I was thinking about curry.
4016311 Sorry, but your argument comparing me to Zesty Gourmand holds no merit because Zesty Gourmand isn't a true critic. She's a harpy. She tells everyone "This is what you must cook or else", and they cook that...or else. Oh, and also the fact that I'm not a professional critic (or a professional ANYTHING). So...yeah.
4016349 Or else.... what? She'll say she doesn't like their restaurant and that people who follow Zesti because they like the food she likes shouldn't eat at that restaurant? If you were Zesti Gourmand, then in this scenario "Tasty Treats" would be IDW comics drawn by Jay Fogsitt or something. There are Fogsitt defenders out there who say he just has a "unique and different" art style that other people can appreciate, but I've always found his work lazy and childish, and I love reading your reviews of his work, because I know you're going to rip him one.
And you may not be a PAID critic, but you review stuff like twice a week on this blog, and you've been doing it for years, man. That's practically professional! You should definitely be proud of it, is all I'm saying. I'm being serious here, I looked back at some of your previous blogs to write this comment, you're coming on like 2,000 blogs. That's a pretty impressive milestone.
4016379 Hmm. Well, all that about me and my reviews aside, the issue present in this episode, and the problem I and many others have with Zesty Gourmand, is that she's basically a terrible food critic, and yet nobody is willing to admit that, so they let her walk all over them and change their restaurants to suit her whims in order to earn her stamp. Then other ponies buy into that "Zesty Gourmand's three-hoof rating means this place is good, so if it doesn't have it, it's no good" thing, and the legitimate restaurants trying to serve real food lose business because of this one critic with an overinflated sense of self-worth who, for whatever reason, has become the gold standard in Canterlot.
Therein lies the problem: it isn't the role of a critic to force an entire industry to change. It's the role of a critic to inform, learnedly, of the quality of a product or service, as rendered by the establishment.
Movie critics don't go around saying "every movie must be exactly like this Academy Award-winning film nobody actually liked or else they won't get a good review". Restaurant critics don't go around saying "This place doesn't serve a single very specific dish that's unpalatable to almost every patron, so it isn't worth eating at." Critics don't work that way, and any critic who tried to work that way would not find gainful employment with any publication or service. And yet, here we have Zesty Gourmand, who IS the Canterlot restaurant scene (or was), and...she's as much a true restaurant critic as I am a Filipino schoolgirl with D-cup breasts.
THAT is the problem. Also, the tantrum she threw at the end seems to indicate that she expects everyone to cater to her whims--and why shouldn't she, when they all apparently have?
There's admittedly a bit of inductive reasoning on my part as to the "she bullies them into submission" part, but she strikes me as having been based in part on Anton Ego, whose very modus was doing PRECISELY that, which is what made him such a huge point of conflict in Ratatouille.
4016398
See to me this is key. If Zesti has become the gold standard in a huge cosmopolitan city, it stands to reason there must be at least some ponies who actually like the same bland, small portions she does. Even if she's a celebrity now, when she wrote her first review people wouldn't have listened to her and read her second one unless they agreed with her opinions after they had tasted the food themselves.
I think we were seeing a slightly different value in the 3 stars. You're right there are critics who kind of judge on a broad based level of quality to render whether there something is good or bad. I was comparing it more to the Michelin star system in France, which used to give out 1 to 3 stars to restaurants. The only way to earn all 3 stars was to have a very specific type of traditional elaborate french cooking in the restaurant. A lot of restaurants hated this system, because they felt pressured to conform to get a good rating from Michelin. But you know who loved it? Travelers, because they would know exactly what to expect whenever they stopped at a restaurant. It's a similar concept to fast food or brands in general: the 3 stars may not be for everyone, but you know exactly what you're going to get, no surprises.
Now, just like in this episode, lots of people disdained the Michelin system because they wanted to try out different things. And that's great! That lets people who want the comfort of the familiar rely on Michelin's guidelines, and those who want to dine more adventurously to make their own choices. Over time the Michelin system was modified as diners as a whole became less focused on comfort and predictability, and more focused on trying diverse and adventurous food. But that doesn't mean that the system never had value for people who chose to rely on it.
I agree, her melt-down at the end was unprofessional, and rather sad. A critic who finds many of her peers in the industry have, in a single night done a 180 in their preferences would likely find it difficult to process, but clearly Zesti has let her fame go to her head and fed an entitlement complex, no question.
Ah, I've never seen Ratatouille, so we might be approaching the character from different reference points. Thanks for giving me a heads up though.
4016434
4016398
Whatever else, there's one point at which one can see Zesty's worth as a food critic:
When she refused to even try the food served at the restaurant in question. Would she have liked it? Maybe not, but she won't know unless she gives it a taste.
I expect a professional critic to at least give something a try before praising or dismissing it. She refused, and by doing so revealed her true colours.
4021924 She considers herself a restaurant critic, not a food critic, and she seems to think the decor is just as important as the food, and she had already judged them just by walking in.
4021943
Her claim was to be able to tell ponies what was good or bad food. That she prejudges the food based on the décor or the number of costumers(!) goes to show how worthless she is as a food critic.
4021972 For some people/ponies, the entire dining experience matters, including the color of the walls. That's why you see restaurant critics usually call themselves that or "dining critics" rather than just food critics. Just like some people like strong flavors and others like subtle flavors, some people only care about the taste of the food, and other people care about things like how the restaurant looks or what the waiters wear as part of their dining experience.
People who disagree with Zesti and only care about the food should have been ignoring her three hooves all along, whereas people who demand the specific decor Zesti prefers wouldn't want to eat at a place that looks like Tasty Treats, that's the value she adds as a food critic. The problem arises when people who don't like Zesti's taste preferences or emphasis on decor follow her recommendations anyway, but that's their choice.
4022030
Her value as a critic would be explaining why she thinks something is superior to something else in a way that doesn't come down to "My tastes are better than yours".
Even if you give her every benefit of the doubt—which she frankly doesn't deserve, but let's do so anyway—then she should have still tasted the food before saying it's bad. She judged food that she never tasted.
Go over her dialogue again. She's primarily in the business of judging food.
And as soon as ponies didn't, she barged in to berate them for not following her tastes. That was her choice, as well as another sign she's a worthless as a critic since she can't let her criticism stand on its own.
4022064 Not really, some critics are like brands, their seal of approval lets you know exactly what to expect on the thing they review. They don't actually have to explain it, they just have to be consistent so you know exactly what you will get when you see those 3 hooves. That's adding real value for diners who want to eat basically the same thing over and over again, which is apparently true for a lot of diners in Canterlot. A lot of critics and travel guides used to operate like this before fast foods and franchises made them obsolete.
Also keep in mind apparently she has a very sensitive palette and only likes subtle flavors, and her face (including her mouth) got covered in spicy soup, so I'd say she has a pretty well-informed opinion on whether the food matches her strict set of preferences or not.
That's doesn't mean she's worthless as a critic, it means she's an insecure jerk. There's a difference between saying she does a good job and she's a good person, obviously she is not.
4022064
4022179 If you two are going to keep arguing circles around each other, take it to PMs, please. I'd rather not have my notifications spammed up by a circular argument.