This week's Newsweek cover story is titled “The 101 Best Places to Eat In the World.” The restaurants were chosen by well-known chefs. You can see the list on the Daily Beast, Newsweek's partner website.

There are a couple of problems with the issue, however, one of them being the cover image, which, in all its asparagus-porn glory, appears to have already been used in 2008 by Observer Food Monthly, among others.

The other problem is the North America section, which is, shall we say, a tad New York-centric? Which is fine; New York is a great place to eat. I wouldn't even mind the fact that, out of North America's 14 entries, New York took a full six spots, because those spots were obviously fairly well thought-out. Even in San Francisco, at least the spots chosen were one fantastic hard-hitter (Coi) and one less obvious spot (SPQR).

But in L.A., of all the places in L.A. to eat, if you could only eat at ONE, we get … Farmshop? Really?

I've got absolutely nothing against Farmshop. And if this were a list of the 101 Best Places to Eat in America, and some other spots were covered in L.A. — or even if Farmshop were included on this worldwide list but L.A. had a couple more entries — I probably wouldn't blink.

But this is 101 places in the world, and it's not just another dumb list on another dumb blog, it's the cover story of a serious newsmagazine. With all the amazing food L.A. has to offer, both upscale and ethnic (and upscale ethnic), the fact that this little farm-to-table bistro-market hybrid is our only shout-out would be offensive if it weren't so obviously just plain lazy. So don't take this as a dig at Farmshop. Take it as what it is — a dig at Newsweek.

Lazy, Newsweek, lazy. Lazy cover story (I love food and all, but is there really so little happening in the world that you need to send out an email to a bunch of chefs and just take whatever comes back as your cover story?), lazy cover image, lazy Los Angeles research.

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