I’m getting flashbacks from this one…
Back in the early days of Yelp — it might not even have been called Yelp yet, or maybe it was just something Yelplike –nine of us were wandering around looking for someplace to eat. My brother checked his phone and said “There’s a Chinese restaurant couple of blocks form here.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
“Well, it has bad reviews.”
“Then let’s skip it.”
“Let’s give it a chance,” he says, using classic Sergio Bermudez logic.
We hit Satan’s Trifecta: unbelievably bad food, rude and terrible service, and the place wasn’t very clean.
(But my sister-in-law insisted we leave a big tip, because that’s who she is)
Comics I Don't Understand 
I just use Yelp for the pictures.
What about the fourth fectum – the portions were too small?
I am guessing that in the cartoon strip (which I realise is not a CIDU) the server is wailing that there are FOUR whole people to deal with at once. A few years ago during a school reunion in York eighteen of us left the pub and went to an Italian restaurant chain (Ask Italia, as it happens) and, without much hope in our hearts, asked for “A table for 18 please”, and were much surprised to greeted with a “yes, certainly” (though they were sort of lying as we had to be split over two collections of pushed-together tables, though still next door to each other).
It’s a nice big space in 300-yo Grand Assembly rooms. (Hmm, I have a feeling I have related this story here before, in which case, sorry).
I find Yelp of minimal usefulness. It won’t let me read beyond the first few lines of a review without installing the app on my phone and that is not happening. Also, I find most of the reviews questionable.
I don’t claim to be a culinary expert, but I like good food and I’ve been around and many of the reviews seem to be from people who are ignorant or have an axe to grind. For example, I used to live near a small Thai restaurant. It was good food, well prepared. Keep in mind that I lived in Asia for 11 years, so I have some experience with such things. Yet there were a good number of reviews complaining about the food, saying some other restaurant or another was better and yadda yadda. Sure, everyone likes what they like, but giving lousy reviews to decent places, as I often see happens, means I don’t put much stock in it. Plus, I’ve seen Yelp remove reviews (well, mark them as not relevant) for places that actually are bad, presumably because the proprietor paid them. They have a history of that.
Getting a recommendation for a place from a friend you trust is great. Relying on a hundred poo-flinging monkeys, not so much.
On a related note, I’m distressed by people treating discussions of restaurants as some kind of competition. Everyone has to argue that such-and-such is “THE BEST!” I don’t care what’s the best. As long as it’s good, that’s good enough. Even if it’s just okay, well, gives me some perspective, so appreciate the good ones. This guy has a good take on that:
Anything I don’t have to cook (other than pop into the microwave) tastes good to me. “Some live to eat; some eat to live.’ I’m in the latter group. Which is why I don’t read reviews before trying a restaurant (or a frozen meal) myself. My expectations (and my tongue’s taste buds) are different from those of others, so let me experience the food in my own way, senkuveddymuch.
Interesting video with a very good point.
So “THE BEST!” is the enemy of the good? Wasn’t it CIDUBill who said Arlo said Voltaire said that?
I hardly think either Arlo or Voltaire was referencing restaurants.
Yelp reviews are useful, you just have to take them with a grain of salt. People choose their number of stars based on any their own, often bizarre, preferences, and quirks, so the number of stars, particularly when the number of ratings is low, is not really useful. (A blueberry picking farm near me got a one-star rating, and when I read the review, it turns out the reviewer was mad that they were told “you can’t pick blueberries, because they’re out of season, and there are none to pick.”)
But if the same positive or negative point comes up repeatedly in the comments, that seems worth taking note of, just as you would if 5 or 6 casual acquaintances mentioned the similar things about a movie or restaurant.
And here’s Zach Weinersmith’s recent take on some reviewers:
Back to the Trifecta Palace: was it at least overpriced?
Personally, I think the person in hell should’ve been the one who CREATED the packaging!
I gave up on Yelp a number of years ago, after leaving a (deserved) negative review of a restaurant. I got email from the owner within a few hours, apologizing and asking us to return for a better experience. We did, and it was. A few hours later I went to update my review–and it was GONE.
As was any faith in Yelp.
@ Andréa: I can fully accept unexceptional dining experiences as long as they are priced that way. There is a McDonald’s near my home which I’ll sometimes patronize. I know what I’m getting and the cost is acceptable for what it is. There’s also a sit-down burger joint that does much more interesting and tasty stuff and costs more. If I got a McDonald’s-level burger there, I’d be unhappy.
The ones I don’t like are restaurant’s where I have to spend $60 or more before tax and tip to feed me and my wife and the stuff is frozen-food quality. I’ve found many chain restaurants are like that. Consequently, I’m more inclined to try independent places. They may be good, they may be bad, but at least there’s a chance I won’t be overpaying for mediocrity.
Points taken.
Many years ago, I worked for a vocational college. Among their holdings was a culinary school. I was in the place fairly regularly to check up on their IT, because I was the IT staff for the whole organization. The head chef kept trying to get me to come in to the restaurant attached to the school. I had to tell him all the skills he was developing in his students would have been wasted on me, as I have extremely simple tastes and just wasn’t ever likely to be a customer at the kind of high-end restaurant his students were preparing to work in.
I love the name (if I’m reading it right): Sissy’s Eateria.
Gallery : Galleria :: Eatery : Eateria, except presumably “Galleria” is a real word in some language, and I know of no language with a cognate to “eat”. Plus, “eatery” is not usually used to reference a high-class eatery.
We have several ‘eateries’ in the Tampa area, and it’s even a ‘real’ word.
Is eatery a real word?
Eatery is a casual or informal word for a place to buy and eat prepared food. A diner is one kind of eatery, and a Chinese restaurant is another. … Eatery was first used right around 1901, from eat, with its Old English root of etan, “to eat, devour, or consume.”
Geez Louise . . . I’ve been online too much today . . . not eaterY, but eaterIA. Yes, that is not a word, at least not according the the ‘Scrabble’ dictionary (in case you were thinking of using it) . . . I associated it with cafeteria, as well as galleria, as you mentioned.
galleria noun
gal·le·ria | \ ˌga-lə-ˈrē-ə \
Definition of galleria
: a roofed and usually glass-enclosed promenade or court (as at a mall)
From m-w.com. From Italian, first citation in English 1901.
So, “eateria” would be one of those backformations that arise with no regard for logic. Like “chocoholic” and “[scandal]gate”. If it goes into common usage and lasts long enough, we’ll find it and the dictionary. And we will weep.
If we want to weep as a group we can go to a weeperia.
There was a minor British political scandal which was sometimes called Gategate, though usually it is known as Plebgate (plebeian) or Plodgate (policeman). It took place at the gates to Downing Street (a fairly recent addition – when I was a teenager you could walk up Downing Street and stand across the road from No.10), where there was a dispute between a senior Tory MP who had apparently (though he denied it) called the plods (police) guarding the gate “plebs”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plebgate
SingaporeBill, do you also weep for turkeyburger, begathon, and paralympics? (The words, not the things themselves, that is.)
No, Arthur. I weep for humanity.
Yeah, eateria is probably a backformation, but it comes from the Spanish, (this is Baldo, after all). It’s typical in Spanish to call an establishment after its product by appending -eria, thus carniceria (butcher, or “meat shop”), taqueria (taco joint), etc. and, man oh man, does autocorrect ever play hell with furin’ words.
So, in Spanish, “autocorrect” would be “autoscrewuperiea”?
guero & shrug – I sooooo needed those laffs – thanks!
Before this was all online, there were of course printed guides and ratings sections in things like city magazines. Somewhere in that era, a large portion of my family was together in Chicago for some occasion, maybe bringing my brother to college and visiting with me.
We were driving around as it was getting to dinner time, and someone suggested we eat at a Mexican restaurant — we were in a neighborhood where indeed there were quite a few visible as we went by. My brother was in the back seat and audibly thumbing thru some sort of listing, telling people “That one’s listed / not listed” as they read the signs and tried to pick one out.
We stopped and went into one where Jason had affirmed “Oh yeah, that one’s listed.” It was an unassuming taqueria. It was okay, not really high cuisine nor geared to out-of-town parties.
After we left, my dad or stepmother asked him for more info on just what the listing had said. He said well, it was just the address and phone number. The “listings” he was consulting were not, say Chicago Magazine, but just the Yellow Pages.
Mitch4, I thought for sure the punchline was going to be along the lines of “listed, but low rating”.
Another great name for a restaurant would be “La Chuchara Grasienta”. Doesn’t it sound like a four-star high class Spanish restaurant? It means “The Greasy Spoon.”
Near the end of the Toy Story short “Hawaiian Vacation“, Buzz Lightyear says a short sentence in Spanish, and Mrs. Potatohead exclaims “That sounds so romantic”, but the subtitles revealed that it actually meant “We took the poop out of the kittylitter.“
cucaracha de mar = cockroach of the sea = lobster (well, to Dave Barry and myself)
Mitch4 – Were the places that were not listed – new places or did have not business phones that they were not in the Yellow Pages?
We tend towards inexpensive buffets (which no longer exist near where we live) as we can pick and choose what we want/can eat instead of having to deal with preset options on meals. For example – we went for while to a diner and the main courses came with two sides (and soup or salad – but they do not figure into this). I am a picky eater plus limited by various medical conditions. So I would order my meal with only 1 side and make a point of it to the waiter. Inevitable not only would be there be two sides on the plate but the one that was added was creamed spinach which would be all over not only the other side, but also the main course and since it is one of the foods that I grosses me out – the entire plate would go back to the kitchen. We stopped going there rather quickly. At a buffet (and I am talking cheap buffets) I am able to have the one side dish or something else I found instead such as extra salad (by which I mean tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and maybe a small amount of onions – no dressing) with no problem.