Our Featured Instagrammer Is An Honest Gnome Who Will Tell You If The Food Sucks
Cheeky little @omnomgnome reviews restaurants in the Klang Valley and finds some time for an IGOTW interview with SAYS this week!
Gnomes are popular garden ornaments in 'ang moh' countries, with a signature look of pointy red hats and fluffy white beards. Ornamental gnomes are believed to ward off bad luck.
While common gnomes are bound to their duty as slaves to garden soil, one 'Malaysian' gnome decided to go against the grain
Equipped with a sharp tongue and a huge appetite for good food, this gnome embarks on a journey of food discovery as a food critic on his own Instagram profile @Omnomgnome
He even ditched the standard red pointy hat for a green one. What a hipster.
It's amazing how a little guy like Omnomgnome finds his way across the Klang Valley into kitchens and diners...
"Make me my favourite croissant, my minions!"
We managed to talk to the gnome himself over the weekend and learnt a few things about this always-hungry woodland creature. Excuse our excitement, it's our first time talking to a gnome after all. :D
SAYS: Instead of a life as a gardener, you became a food critic! Why?
Omnom: I was out for a lunch meeting one day (yes, gnomes have meetings too) and we were at a restaurant I've never been to before which served really pretty food! So I whipped out my phone to took a picture and my boss went, "We should turn this into a new project" and voilà! Omnomgnome was born. Kind of. The 'deeper' answer to that is that I'm really picky with food so I realised that a lot of food reviews we get online are either neutral or positive. I mean, surely a human being with Internet has eaten something horrible before, right? No?
Are you harsh with your critiques? Have you punched a chef before? Because your Insta profile said you might, if the food sucks...
It's the whole package. I always ask people, if a restaurant served the best food you've ever had but the service is appalling, would you go back? I wouldn't! I would even think twice about queuing for food. Because I've done it several times and I was disappointed each time, partly due to the possibility that my stomach has digested itself while waiting to be fed. Hunger waits for no man (or gnome).
My grading system is based on keeping it simple. Sometimes people aren't interested in reading all the words so they can skip right ahead to the thumbs up or down or a punch for the chef. (For the record, I've never punched a chef. I'm a law-abiding, non-violent gnome, promise!)
Do restaurants ask you to review their food? Or do you show up unexpected?
I do get invited but I prefer going incognito. Avoiding human detection is my specialty because well, look at my size. Wait. You can't see me, cos I'm a tiny ninja! Wachaa! My aim is to get exactly what regular customers would experience. You can't get that if you're invited, because restaurants/cafes would obviously try to present their very best in the hopes that you'll write something nice. I'm a nice gnome, but I'm also a very objective and honest gnome.
More photos of Omnom posing with glorious food
Help us find the next Instagrammer that we should feature! Feel free to tweet us or drop us a message on our Facebook page.