TheZvi rounds up a Twitter discussion prompted by Paul Graham about the best ways to source restaurant recommendations.
Twitter’s StripMallGuy says they actually use Yelp reviews in their business to screen tenants and to underwrite properties they’re purchasing (“if a restaurant is three stars or less, it’s just not going to be good and 4 1/2 stars means very high chance will be great”).
But that gets at what do people broadly think about the restaurant and therefore will it have problems generating business and therefore making rent – but people broadly aren’t good judges of food and the average taste may not approximate your own. That doesn’t mean Yelp reviews aren’t useful.
- Gas app founder Nikita Bier says “if an establishment has >4 stars and their profile says “unclaimed,” it means 6 stars.” It’s the opposite of an owner posting fake reviews, and indeed they aren’t even doing marketing.
I only eat at Chinese restaurants with 3.5 stars on Yelp pic.twitter.com/nwKjeI9bcd
— Freddie Wong (@fwong) September 13, 2022
- What you’re looking for broadly in reviews are consistent themes. Whether Google reviews, Yelp, or Tripadvisor and just like for hotels you want specific complaints. Someone complains about the Ritz-Carlton Central Park having high room service prices? Yeah, ok. You can discount that one star review. Someone complains about mold and chipping paint, and it’s a one-off, maybe it’s from a competitor. But you see that same issue over and over you increase your estimation that it’s real.
- So sort through the worst reviews and see if the things being complained about are consistent, and whether they’re things you care about? Give me a place with hand pulled noodles where the chef is slamming them against the (maybe not totally clean) wall any day.
- Remember, you can’t just go off of ratings and pick the best even if the ratings are sincerely offered (people have bad taste) but more likely the reviews are goosed anyway. Goosed reviews are too positive, especially considering that there are likely a disproportionate number of low scores.
Kimbal Musk (Elon Musk’s brother), himself a restauranteur, offers,
Use OpenTable for reviews by regulars. Use Google for reviews by tourists. Both perspectives are solid for guidance.
Amalgamating ‘locals’ and ‘tourists’ regardless of taste isn’t my personal go-to. Why is OpenRice in Asia generally better and more reliable than U.S. review sites? And I don’t trust blogs and magazines. Most writers,
- Haven’t been to many of the places they’re writing about. That’s almost universally true with “best” lists whether it’s best restaurants in a given city, or best of a type of cuisine. They’re copying, pasting, and rewriting what others have said on the internet (or what’s been fed to them by a PR firm).
- Have bad taste or at least lack context for what they’re eating. Just because they’re impressed with something doesn’t mean you will be.
- May not have the typical experience, because it’s being tailored to them for the review.
Still, I do find Eater‘s “Essential” lists for a city to be generally good, even if I wouldn’t agree in every particular. And generally speaking The Infatuation is still far above-average.
One tool I had never heard of is the which takes restaurant rankings from people you know to offer recommendations to you. And it solves for ratings inflation by forcing rank-ordering of restaurants.
In general I think my framework comes from traveling a lot.
- Avoid tourist areas. I spend a lot of time in airports. They have high rents and have to please a lot of people (lowest common denominator) including at breakfast for brands that wouldn’t ever be open for breakfast. And they’re almost all bad.
The same is true of major tourist spots. Like airports, there’s a steady stream of new customers for even the worst restaurants. Prices are high and the focus isn’t quality.
- Seek out strip malls or other lower-priced areas that offer low barriers to entry. If there’s a Mexican place in a gas station you want to try the soup there. Lower rents mean they don’t need to focus on mass market.
- For ethnic foods, follow the locals. Right off the entrance to Hyatt Lost Pines is a spot called Carnitas El Guero. Everyone inside is Spanish and not a lot of English is spoken. There’s a booth for sending money south. The value in a place like this is that there are knowledgeable clientele. They know the difference in the dishes being served.
Where communities of discerning customers are found, the places they frequent will tend to be better. By contrast, when only one restaurant in an area serves a particular kind of food it isn’t usually great. You don’t have customers familiar enough with it to demand it. There isn’t competition driving quality. And supply chains aren’t as well developed. Try ethnic grocery stores with food counters!
- Avoid trendy. Restaurants with staying power, especially those that vary their menu (showing continued creativity) are usually better than flashy newcomers. Celebrity chef restaurants may be good when the chef is there but as soon as they move onto the next project quality declines. And hot new places become stale quickly.
But the best thing you can do is ask somebody for specific recommendations – provided that person (1) is passionate about food, (2) has similar tastes to you, and (3) guards their own reputation. Those people are gold.
I only recommend places that I know the person I’m suggesting to will love, or at least I will caveat appropriately. And my recommendations change, because restaurants change! A chef or front of the house manager leaves, they change locations or open up another location which can be a distraction. Ownership changes, too! So the best is contingent and that’s knowledge which needs to be constantly updated. You should have a recency bias in considering reviews, even for long-standing establishments.
By the way, if you find yourself in Northern Virginia you should still go to Elephant Jumps for Thai food.
And if you come to Austin, get yourself to Interstellar Barbecue.
In both cases as with all restaurants it doesn’t just matter where you go but also what you get! At Elephant Jumps order off the specials board or from the ‘authentic’ menu. At Interstellar, even though Central Texas barbecue is all about brisket (and theirs is excellent), the peach tea glazed pork belly will change your life.
Ask for specific dish recommendations, too. And don’t ever ask “what should I have” of a server who doesn’t know you. They will tell you what is popular, and you do not want to know this! You want to know what is best! What are they most proud of?
“For ethnic foods , follow the locals” … ?
Ha ! Especially when it comes to Poor Sanitation or Disease Infestations , which are parts and parcels of some local cultures ?
When in the Congo , why go to a European doctor , when the majority of locals go to the witch doctor ?
I miss the early days of Zagat, which was pretty dependable.
When you see a restaurant abroad full of Americans, its generally a good idea to avoid it.
OK, you have been recommending EJ for years now. I have two doctor appointments at Schar next week and they bookend lunchtime. I will finally get there.
Gary, your posts on ethnic restaurants is risible. I’m ok with you recommending BBQ in Austin. I’ll take your advice on Jewish places in NYC. But as a member of one of these ethnic groups whose restaurants you have recommend, it’s wildly obvious you’re the token whitey who has fallen for the joke that you’re never going to be privy to because you’re not a member of that ethnic group.
Your advice would be slightly more palatable if your wife was Mexican or Asian but she is not.
I prefer street food in Thailand to sit down restaurant food. I got typhoid fever (per the hospital clinic that I went to) from a sit down restaurant in upcountry Thailand on my first trip there (fortunately near the end of my trip). After that I learned how to get food without getting sick. Pick a street vendor selling freshly cooked hot food that has a lot of locals there. The locals will not go to a vendor the that does not sell tasty food. They will also not go to a vendor that sells food that causes them to get sick. Watch how the vendor handles the food. Good vendors will handle it in a way to keep it from getting contaminated. I tend to stay away from vegetables that are not cooked or pickled.
I’ve had great luck asking at local wine shops. Usually local, know good food. I agree, OpenTable is mostly reliable. Eater, not so much, they have odd tastes. If I have time I look to see what they recommend where I live to get an idea of their slant.
@jns: Spot on! Particularly look for street vendors where mothers are feeding their kids. No mother will take her kids to eat at a place with even rumors of food contamination.
@jns and @InLA – or just go to a country like Hong Kong or Singapore with incredible night markets and hawker centers but also have very strict food quality and infection guidelines (along with frequent checks). IMHO they put the FDA to shame and I have never had a problem eating anything I want in either country. Others like India, Mexico, etc you have to be a whole lot more careful.
@Retired Gambler … In HK and SIN you also need to contend with worms in seafood , clams , catfish . or shrimp . In HK and SIN I only ever eat well-done food from trustworthy hotels .
You are spot on regarding India , Mexico , etc .
Japan or Western Europe are the best , but never raw uncooked fish .
Gary, you keep using the term ‘ethnic foods’. What are some examples of foods that aren’t ethnic foods? Don’t we all belong to, at least one ethnic group?
> Everyone inside is Spanish and not a lot of English is spoken.
So which will we find: Asturian, Galician, Andalucian, or…? With words like carnitas, a booth for sending money South, I suppose you meant Mexican, not Spanish. If they were from one of rednecks, I can simply solidify my stereotype with yet another (uneducated) example, but you’re someone who’s been to dozens of countries. Come on, you can do better than that.
@ Jns
>I tend to stay away from vegetables that are not cooked or pickled.
That’s a general advice for travelers heading to developing countries, but I don’t know how you can fully enjoy Vietnamese food without raw vegetables. They eat a massive amount of raw vegetables. I followed locals’ lead, I don’t recall having any stomach problems more than twice during my one month stay.
I only travel for fun and select hotels with many options in walking distance. Thus, I’ve already checked out a place that I later select. I find using my “feel” of a place leads me to regularly good choices. Of course, I have no way of knowing the quality of places I rejected. Also, you can often tell the trustworthiness of a review as the untrustworthy give strong hints. The menu tells me a lot. So, for example, I never go to a place that describes itself as Tex-Mex.
@Maverik, I have been to Vietnam for a week so I know what incredible tasting food is available there. Fortunately, I took along a brother-in-law who kept me from getting sick from the wrong food. We had a lot of fun, with the locals not knowing he spoke Vietnamese, so he could tell me in Thai what others were saying in Vietnamese and I could tell him in Thai what others were saying in English. If you have people looking out for you and you are good at determining what vegetables have been cleaned and handled correctly, you should ok with the vegetables but I would consider getting sick twice from food in a month a fail as I commonly go months on end in Cambodia without getting sick. This is with eating fermented crabs at most meals.
My expat thai friends average about 2 emergency visits a year from eating street. They have lived there for almost 30 years. Every vendor is different and you must judge your personal risks. ( same goes in the states ) . And whilst visiting MEX I got salmonella from Sheraton breakfast eggs along with at least 20+ other guests (not counting the guests that ate breakfast and checked out ). Wherever you are these things can happen. Even at home.
While I’m not above eating street food that I see before it’s cooked and how it’s cooked, those that say it’s safe in Bangkok are missing a key thing – no place to go to the bathtoom, no place to wash hands.
Singapore hawker centers are another story. High levels of sanitation.
@ beachfan. I have seen vendors at Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok rinsing utensils in what would normally be called a gutter. No immediate access to running water is always a red flag for me. My expat friends often roll the dice because often you get delicious without the sick.
@Beachfan, having a place to wash up in Thailand is not necessarily a sign of good hygiene. One time I was with friends that went to the food court in a large building that had electronics vendors in Pattaya. Not street food and places to wash as well as bathrooms were available. We arrived just as the food court was opening so not a lot of choices. My friends settled on a vendor that was just opening up and was bringing in some food from off site. I looked at how they were handling the food and said that I wasn’t hungry several times after being asked. There was nothing specific I could tell my friends about how they were handling the food. When we left I got food elsewhere. Both of them were sick for several days and I was fine. In case you are wondering, one of the friends was Thai. The other was an expat American who lived in Thailand.
@Maryland, I can well believe what you are describing. Pick your vendors well. Change what you are getting, even if you have a hankering for specific food, if you are not satisfied with what you are seeing. There are usually plenty of choices. Getting sick is no fun.
Grape Nuts . . . when anything else just won’t do
But Gary, what if someone puts their bare feet on the wall the chef is slamming their noodles against?
Street food is risky anywhere. I’ve gotten good and bad street food from all sorts of places. I’ll never forget seeing a lady grilling rats on open charcoal (just dumped on the sidewalk) in Mexico City. Squid in little pots of oil along the street in Hong Kong always looks interesting. I love funnel cakes at fairs in the US and tourist crepes in Paris but those aren’t always that clean either.
There is a risk in anything you do. That Mexican food place in the gas station might be great but go use the restroom first and THEN order based on how clean it is. That tip also applies to gas station cajun food in Louisiana.
@DaninMCI, I’ve had barbecued rat before in northeastern Thailand at my relative’s house. While I would never get cooked rats from a street vendor due to their ability to have trash in their flesh if they came from somewhere near houses and people and not knowing where they came from, the ones I had were from rice fields far from houses. My relatives went out at night with headlamps to catch them. Their diet would mostly consist of rice at the time they were caught but they are omnivores so they have a varied diet depending on the time of year. The flavor wasn’t like barbequed beef or barbecued chicken, I suppose rather more like barbecued duck. I did not get sick after eating them nor did my relatives.