FresnoBeehive.com

You knew the smackdown was coming. When Guy Fieri — the Food Network personality and “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” host — got so popular as to host a network TV game show and open a three-level, 500-seat mega restaurant in Times Square, the backlash was inevitable.

Food snobs, of course, have never really taken Guy all too seriously. There’s the frosted hair, the rock ‘n’ roll attitude, his inner “bro” that he liberally lets escape on our TVs and the fact that he’ll put something called Donkey Sauce on a menu.

So when the New York Times’ Pete Wells unleashed a stinging zero-star of review of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar under the headline, “As not seen on TV,” he was putting into words that a lot of people had been thinking for a few years now. Since last night, it’s zoomed around the web and was even a chatter item on “Good Morning America” today.

Here are a few choice quotes:

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

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In my Friday column in The Bee, I write about how Fresno is long overdue for some love from the Food Network’s hole-in-the-wall celebrator “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”

We’ve never had a local restaurant featured — in fact, the closest (according to Triple D map site Flavortown USA) is in San Jose. San Jose?!? C’mon now. We’ve got some great local treasures that are worthy of Guy Fieri and his silly haircut.

Among the places I’d recommend:

• Rudy Jr.’s Chicken Man
• La Elegante
• Guadalajara
• Mike’s Grill
• B & K Asian Kitchen
• The Chuck Wagon (shouts to Sanger)

But I know there are others worth a sniff from “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” so let’s hear what they are and why. Once we get a good list going, I’ll send it to the show and hopefully we can get one our local treasures some national love.