Leslie Brenner writes in today's LA Times that the first Michelin Guide to the city's restaurants is "amateurish, confusing and barely credible." Brenner, the editor of the LA Times' food section, recalls how Michelin flubbed its New York and San Francisco guides and sums up: "What a clueless way to take over the world."

Yes, here's another example of the lethal result of globalism. Just as everyone else wants to go local, Michelin has gone global. Michelin was the brand name for great French food, its inspectors were hardwired to understand the philosophy and le gloire of French food. Foodies could rely on the star system, saved up for the three-star meal by a Rebuchon or Savoy. Even a one star was a reliable treat. So why has Michelin thrown away its reputation?

The dismal answer is that it's succumbed the zeitgeist of the age - global jealousy. Michelin boosted tourism, it glorified French food and made food a tourist destination. France is the top world tourist destination. And Michelin was cruelly exclusive. Other countries wanted a piece of the action. Why can't our restaurants be rated too? True, our cuisines are different, PC for inferior, but even so in the name of global harmony er trade, everyone should be included. Why can't there be a UN subcomittee on global resto equality? Even the French began knocking Michelin as too elite. In 2004, a rogue Michelin inspector claimed that a third of France's three-star restaurants were untouchable, they could never lose a star. Demoralization set in among the three-star set, three top chefs renouncing their stars.

Global Michelin is warm brown fuzzy - no more fearsomely expert inspectors. In LA, Brenner writes " What shocked me was that the book that purports to be the bible of fine dining is so poorly researched and lamely written that the ratings have no credibility. The terse European guides simply provide symbols and list signature dishes, but the L.A. edition's entries read like little puff pieces. At Giorgio Baldi, the chef "pulls out all the stops. . . . A whole roasted lobster . . . is a case study in rustic perfection." Here's Royale: "This fancy setting raises expectations that are not disappointed."

More warm brown fuzzy. Headlines screamed earlier in the week that Tokyo was now the world's culinary capital -- why Michelin's first Japanese guide had bestowed stars on EVERY ONE of the 150 restaurants in the city! Eight were given three stars.

London, by comparison, has one three-star restaurant, while Paris has 10 and New York just three.

Perhaps, muses the Financial Times, Michelin is playing to Japan's "advanced sense of etiquette, which goes to great lengths to avoid giving offence."

A fine way to reward gourmets who have for so long believed in Michelin's ability to pick the best.

Michel De Grandi, a long-time observer of Japan’s restaurant scene and Tokyo correspondent for Les Echos, the FT’s sister paper nails it: ”It seems a very strange policy to hand out stars to everyone – perhaps it’s for commercial reasons, to reach as many people as possible, but it’s somehow disappointing.”

There are chefs who committed suicide because they lost a star, he notes, ”and now, they give stars here to everyone?” Poor Serge Loiseau of the three-star Le Cote D'Or. He committed suicide in 2003 when he feared the loss of one of his three stars. If only he'd waited.....