Brad A. Johnson, the OC Register's New Restaurant Critic

Brad A. Johnson — the self-described "best food critic in America and worldwide" — is heading over to the Orange County Register to be the newspaper's new restaurant critic. Originally rumored by the OC Weekly and then confirmed by Fishbowl LA, Johnson will start at the paper November 12. His beat will presumably be the Greater Los Angeles Area.

Johnson won a James Beard Award back in 2008 (PDF) for his restaurant reviews while at Angeleno magazine. He also shed his anonymity to be a judge on the GSN (formerly the Game Show Network) series Beat the Chefs. Recently critics have been outing themselves to take on more public roles. The now unanonymous Houston Chronicle restaurant critic Alison Cook attended a public event at the urging of her editors, telling told Eater Houston that "my newspaper wants and needs me to be more visible."

Back in July when the show was announced, Johnson tweeted: "OK, well, cat's out of the bag! Anonymity will soon be dead. This show is gonna rock..." It is unclear if the show was picked up for another season, but one thing is crystal clear: Brad A. Johnson sure likes bow ties. Is there video? Yes, there's video:

Video: Brad A. Johnson on Beat the Chefs, 1

Video: Brad A. Johnson on Beat the Chefs, 2

Also don't miss his blog post about Beat the Chefs in which he proclaims it to be the "best new TV cooking show" and clarifies some misconceptions: "When the show was first announced last month, a couple of pea-brained bloggers flippantly compared Beat The Chefs with Bobby Flay's Throwdown on the Food Network. They were idiots." Sassy.

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