you restaurant guys. do you read your YELP reviews?

Japanese Knives - by Tokushu Knife
Miura knives
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
JohnnyChance said:
That is awesome. If I am ever near Truckee I am going there.
Click to expand...

Easily worth the drive from anywhere in the Tahoe/Reno area, in my opinion. :)

More yelp stuff, this one more recent (3 stars). They recently relocated to a larger place about a block away from their old one. Apparently they're still working out a few things, but interesting to see this yelper's update to his original post:

*************************************************************

They just re-opened, so I stopped by for an appetizer and a dessert for dinner.

The pork belly appetizer is very good: pic
Great layering of fat and lean, and nice crispy charred exterior. If the fat were even more crispy charred, and if the whole thing was more rare inside, it would be excellent. I felt it was overcooked by half a minute. ** Update ** John left a note that he's adding a tweak to get this kind of result.

I tried the Baba au Savarin dessert: pic
It's a science lab that didn't work for me. On one side: there is a stick of brûléed pineapple, and a pile of toasted coconut mixed with pop rocks. You dip the pineapple in the pop rocks, and munch on that; it starts the pop rocks going. You also get a cute little container of pineapple soda, and you can sip from that to amplify the effect of the pop rocks. It's interesting, but I forgot to bring my lab notebook. On the other side of the plate, you get the baba, which doesn't seem soaked: instead, it has a bit of cream on top, and you can pop the bubble of rum in the middle of the plate, and let the baba soak in that before eating it, but it's not anything like an actual rum baba. On the whole: I'm sure it's possible to create an innovative take on a rum baba that is still crave-worthy, but this is not it.

Even though I only ordered an appetizer and dessert, they brought out a bunch of mini extras: two amuse-bouches (a rolled slice of sashimi, and a beet salad), bread service, biscuit service, cookie service, and dessert service. In total, all the extras were like an extra appetizer. There were three standout items: the focaccia (in the bread service), and the vanilla buttercream macaron and the pâte de fruit (in the dessert service): pic

The "frozen latte" dessert made with a sub-frigid anti-griddle sounds interesting, but I'd need confirmation that it's indulgent-worthy before I "experiment" with that one.

One plus: In the remodel, they got the acoustics to sound really good.
**************************************************************

My only point being that, like it or not, sites like yelp can definitely have an impact on your business. I know quite a few people that will check yelp reviews before they go eat somewhere unfamiliar to them, especially considering that it only takes a 30 second search from the phone in their pocket. I'm not sure I could choose to completely disregard this type of feedback from customers, despite their ignorance. To each their own, though.
 
Beohbe said:
Easily worth the drive from anywhere in the Tahoe/Reno area, in my opinion. :)

More yelp stuff, this one more recent (3 stars). They recently relocated to a larger place about a block away from their old one. Apparently they're still working out a few things, but interesting to see this yelper's update to his original post:

*************************************************************

They just re-opened, so I stopped by for an appetizer and a dessert for dinner.

The pork belly appetizer is very good: pic
Great layering of fat and lean, and nice crispy charred exterior. If the fat were even more crispy charred, and if the whole thing was more rare inside, it would be excellent. I felt it was overcooked by half a minute. ** Update ** John left a note that he's adding a tweak to get this kind of result.

I tried the Baba au Savarin dessert: pic
It's a science lab that didn't work for me. On one side: there is a stick of brûléed pineapple, and a pile of toasted coconut mixed with pop rocks. You dip the pineapple in the pop rocks, and munch on that; it starts the pop rocks going. You also get a cute little container of pineapple soda, and you can sip from that to amplify the effect of the pop rocks. It's interesting, but I forgot to bring my lab notebook. On the other side of the plate, you get the baba, which doesn't seem soaked: instead, it has a bit of cream on top, and you can pop the bubble of rum in the middle of the plate, and let the baba soak in that before eating it, but it's not anything like an actual rum baba. On the whole: I'm sure it's possible to create an innovative take on a rum baba that is still crave-worthy, but this is not it.

Even though I only ordered an appetizer and dessert, they brought out a bunch of mini extras: two amuse-bouches (a rolled slice of sashimi, and a beet salad), bread service, biscuit service, cookie service, and dessert service. In total, all the extras were like an extra appetizer. There were three standout items: the focaccia (in the bread service), and the vanilla buttercream macaron and the pâte de fruit (in the dessert service): pic

The "frozen latte" dessert made with a sub-frigid anti-griddle sounds interesting, but I'd need confirmation that it's indulgent-worthy before I "experiment" with that one.

One plus: In the remodel, they got the acoustics to sound really good.
**************************************************************

My only point being that, like it or not, sites like yelp can definitely have an impact on your business. I know quite a few people that will check yelp reviews before they go eat somewhere unfamiliar to them, especially considering that it only takes a 30 second search from the phone in their pocket. I'm not sure I could choose to completely disregard this type of feedback from customers, despite their ignorance. To each their own, though.
Click to expand...

I definitely use Yelp! when I'm not in my hometown. I'd like to think I know enough about cooking, running a kitchen (perhaps indulgent on this one), writing, and general communication to ferret out people who don't know what they're talking about, or have an axe to grind from people who are going to convey useful information. I try to read at least 20 reviews with a range of ratings before forming an opinion about whether to try a particular place on a particular day. Even with all of that, my "success" rate is probably only around 70%....and that can go in either direction. I also go to the restaurant's website if they have one.

my $.02
 
I also pay attention to the date that the review was made. If the review blasts a place just because of the service, are those servers still there?
 
IMO I've had really bad results by following yelp opinions. I do like chowhound but even that is not so simple. I have to find certain users that I really trust and agree with, then I will follow their suggestions and am almost always pleased. Blindly following chowhound will make you go insane...I find many of the people on there pretentious at times, and just outright moronic the rest of the time.

The funniest is reading your own yelp reviews and reading just how many people get things WRONG. Like they state things about the food they were served and prices that aren't even close to what they were served, and they state them with such authority! Funny...
 
I go to Yelp for one thing and one thing only. The pictures. The multitude of available photos are worth the search. Enough pictures can make or break my willingness to try a new restaurant.
 
Beohbe said:
Easily worth the drive from anywhere in the Tahoe/Reno area, in my opinion. :)
Click to expand...
Shoot, thats like 25 minutes away. Cant say that I've been, gonna have to check it out!
Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Any idiot with two pennies in their pocket can have impact on the success of an establishment. Way too much power. It's hard enough to please the real food critics.
 
When the local paper let its reviewer go someone in the online comments to the article committed all the YELPers to stepping up and filling Brett Anderson's shoes. The next comment was "quiet, the grown ups are talking". That pretty much sums up my feelings about yelp.
 
i read yelp reviews of restaurants i might want to go eat at, but my logic is unorthodox. i avoid the ones people rave about as i find most people have bad taste. and especially ignore the comments about service, atmosphere, price, blah blah blah, only care about the food quality.

reviewers:
if they sound like a foodie, ignore it
if they tell a whole long story, ignore it
if they sound like a yuppy, ignore it
if they sound ignorant, 50/50% chance it's actually pretty good (i don't know why, but dumb people tend to find good food spots somehow)
 
if they sound like a foodie, ignore it
if they tell a whole long story, ignore it
if they sound like a yuppy, ignore it
if they sound ignorant, 50/50% chance it's actually pretty good (i don't know why, but dumb people tend to find good food spots somehow)
Click to expand...

great advice!
 
I dont get it. why would you try and find things wrong with everything when you go out to eat. How the hell can you ever enjoy it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top