I was struck this week by a Twitter pic which showed two passengers sitting opposite each other on a train, with a full cakestand on the table between them.

Neither was actually savouring the dainties on the plates, however: they were both too busy staring through the long lenses on their cameras and taking photographs instead.

Perhaps the pictures were intended as personal memories of a meaningful trip – it certainly doesn't look like the 07.16 to Whifflet – but I'd put money on a more likely scenario: that they were destined to be swiftly uploaded to the blogosphere by two subscribers to a very modern phenomenon.

The number of food bloggers and tweeters is growing as fast and as wide as a gourmet's waistband. They are mostly amateur and well-meaning foodies who, according to the London-based blog The Critical Couple, are "enjoying a hobby, trying hard to write well and giving pleasure to their readership".

Bloggers' unedited views of what they have eaten are accompanied by often sumptuous photographs, and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Blogging has meant the term "peer reviewed" has leapt from academia into the bright new democratic world of citizen crit.

However, there is hostility from within and outwith the industry. In New York, for example, some chefs have banned photography on their premises because of the disruption to other diners caused by flashbulbs and tripods; some patrons ask to be moved because their table is too dark for photography; and some even record the front-of-house staff's description of food to compare it with what they actually eat. Moreover, there's concern from some chefs that their carefully constructed dishes are being misrepresented by amateur snappers.

London chef Tom Aikens is reported to have expressed concern that some pictures "don't do the food justice". But there's also suspicion from chefs that bloggers are self-appointed food police with nothing else to do but go out to "get" them.

True, taking photographs of dishes on a restaurant table does throw up challenges: if it's dinner the lighting is tricky, and you're having to capture the dish in close-up. It's unlikely you'll get an accurate visual representation of a chef's creation without a tripod, lights and a professional camera.

But with smartphone apps such as Instagram and Hipstamatic, with a range of food-specific lenses, these challenges are being brilliantly overcome for those who prefer not to be noticed. Edinburgh blogger Hilary Sturzaker of mymonkfish.com uses two smartphones; one for its spotlight and the other for photos. She doesn't criticise, blogging only about food she likes. As most bloggers and tweeters don't ask for the chef's permission, speed and discretion are key.

One professional food photographer told me he recently spent seven hours trying to get a corned beef sandwich to look good enough to eat. He pointed out that there's a huge difference between what looks right for service and what looks right in a photograph, and that the chefs he works with are often surprised when viewing photographs of their food on the laptop alongside the plate of food. "The impact is especially forceful when you frame the plate and take out all the background objects. Even with Michelin-starred food I can spend hours moving things around on the plate to get it to look just right for the printed page."

But does it really matter if a hand-dived scallop bathed in a lobster foam doesn't look as sharp as it could be? Probably not to those hooked on real-time reports from the restaurant floor.

Nor does it matter to them if the opinions are not those of a member of the Guild of Food Writers. A frequently held view espoused by UK food blogs is that readers are more inclined to swallow a blogger's opinion than a professional's when deciding where to eat.

So far, food bloggers in Scotland have been astonishingly benign. Chefs say they accept there's nothing they can do about them anyway. Rather than make a fuss, they prefer not to censor – mindful perhaps of the unedifying experience of Claude Bosi of the two-starred Hibiscus restaurant in London's Mayfair, who challenged a blogger who'd given him three stars out of five on TripAdvisor. Their online spat went viral; Bosi ended up with egg on his face and the blogger with thousands of new followers.

Andrew Fairlie, who got a sniffy review on The Critical Couple, says "there's a camera at every second table every night" at his two-star Gleneagles restaurant, but that he's resigned to it.

"Some bloggers set out to be food police and it's quite sad because they're just out to get a reaction," he says. "Others are so anal about it they take all the enjoyment out of the dining experience.

"I don't engage with them, but I would say we take our food very seriously and I'd prefer a customer to tell me to my face if something was wrong so that we had a chance to do something about it rather than have an anonymous opinion broadcast to the world."

All of which puts the phrase "word of mouth" in a different light.

cate.devine@theherald.co.uk

Twitter: @catedvinewriter