Celebrity food critic Keith Lee cuts highly anticipated Bay Area trip short

(KRON) — Celebrity TikTok food reviewer Keith Lee’s highly anticipated trip to the Bay Area ended earlier than expected, Lee announced Thursday night. He listed unsafe conditions, disappointing food and an allergic reaction as reasons for his sudden departure.

Lee, an MMA fighter turned food critic, has gone to several American cities to try food spots and review them for his 15.6 million followers. He typically opts for “mom-and-pop” places over trendy and upscale restaurants, intending to bring increased attention and business to places that offer quality food and service.

Lee made three videos reviewing places called Double Decker (San Francisco), Chef Green (Oakland) and Mama T’s (Oakland) before posting Thursday night that the Bay Area stop was cut short. Lee listed three reasons for why he left the Bay Area early.

His first reason was that “I truly don’t believe the Bay is a place for tourists right now… the people of the Bay are just focused on surviving.” Lee talked about seeing people living in tents and burned cars, describing it as “shocking, to say the least.”

“As an outsider, I wish the city would step in,” he said. “I don’t know if they have, I don’t know if they’ve been trying, but just from the outside looking in, it don’t seem like it was much city interference.”

The second reason had to do with the food he tried. Lee said he went to six food spots that he opted not to make a video about because he had nothing constructive to say, which was unique to the Bay Area.

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“I’ve always been big on honesty, I’ve always been big on transparency, but I’ve never been big on completely tearing down anybody, and I feel like those six videos were only doing that,” he said.

Lee said the money and resources he invested into the trip would be going to waste if he could not produce content from the spots he visited.

“I want to stress, it is not normal for us to go to restaurants, not like it, and not post it,” he said. “Any other time we’ve ran into this situation, I’ve always had some kind of constructiveness to say. This was just different.”

The third reason, which Lee said is the most important one, is that he was hospitalized after suffering an allergic reaction to something he ate. Lee is allergic to shellfish and said he “blew up like a balloon” due to eating food that was cooked on the same grill as shellfish. He did not name the place that sent him to the hospital.

Lee went on to say that the Bay Area “isn’t the target audience for what we do” because many of the places that were recommended to him already had ample business. He said he tried some of those busy places and did not like the food.

Lee did speak positively about the people he met in the Bay Area.

“The people from the Bay were absolutely amazing, and I’ll never forget the hospitality and the love that y’all showed me,” he said.

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