Hi,

This thread alone brought us to a website and writer I had never yet come across. Sometimes silence is golden because it does not highlight the negatives you feel are untruthful. It's funny and sad about human nature: a single negative comment in a sea of glowing comments is what we cling to and allow to gnaw away at us.

A restaurant long gone once offered fresh muffins in their bread basket. They were sufficiently popular people asked for more to bring home in doggie bags. A local newspaper reviewer took a shot at these muffins, which caused management to withdraw the muffins. Thereafter muffins were made only for customers who called in advance. I always thought it odd how a popular item vanished based on one person's opinion. When they should have served their customers what they asked for.

While you cannot control what people say and do, you can control how you choose to react.

Regards,

I am the first to admit I am no writer, and because of that maybe some of the details which flow through my mind have a hard time finding a way onto paper. I blog and post here because I like to see what all of you think about something I care very very deeply about. David's earlier comment about this being a tough forum is correct, you all pull no punches. I like that, as long as they dont assume things about about me personally, or try to interpret what I have said.

I am as honest and straightforward as any human being you will ever meet, when I say something, I mean it, and exactly what I said. I am not a person who whines, or gets despondant with one negative review of my restaurant. I always feel like every person is entitled to enjoy, or not enjoy what we are doing, and every single person who pays me to cook for them deserves the right to say they dont like it, no question. The very first post in this forum on inovasi caused me to stop and think about what and how well I was doing things. It made me look, pay attention, and we got better for it.

The entire point of the OP was to question what makes a professional, or at least someone claiming to be, qualified to write about us; and how that can affect our business. The question is a very important one for us, because, while only one review, it does affect my business, and consequently, my life and the lives of the 30 people I employ. I do not mean to say that this review will cause some sort of downfall, but you never know who the one customer who reads it, believes it, and chooses not to come in is.

I agree with a few of you that mentioned that people do not take the time to learn if an online reviewer is qualified, a person reading about us for the first time will simply form a negative opinion and choose not to come to my place. This has even happened with one of the posts in this thread. I think I have the right and duty to question the people that help to decide out fate, and I feel there is nothing wrong with being open and honest about those questions. Time will tell if I am right.

I always feel like every person is entitled to enjoy, or not enjoy what we are doing, and every single person who pays me to cook for them deserves the right to say they dont like it, no question.

well, there's your answer, then, to the question you posed in the title of this topic. provided, of course, that "say"ing they don't like it equates to "tweet/blog"ing about how they don't like it.

The entire point of the OP was to question what makes a professional, or at least someone claiming to be, qualified to write about us; and how that can affect our business.

but then you get into the question of who qualifies as "a professional" and when.

it's a sticky, murky issue.

is someone who blogs and gets paid a minimal amount of ad revenue from Google AdSense "a professional"? is someone who does tv/newspaper pieces about food compelled to always adhere to the "professional" guidelines, in all forms of communication? twitter, facebook, and blog entries are all "non-official" media outlets that can (and often are) utilized by professionals in a non-professional capacity.

JohndesRosiers wrote:The entire point of the OP was to question what makes a professional, or at least someone claiming to be, qualified to write about us; and how that can affect our business. The question is a very important one for us, because, while only one review, it does affect my business, and consequently, my life and the lives of the 30 people I employ. I do not mean to say that this review will cause some sort of downfall, but you never know who the one customer who reads it, believes it, and chooses not to come in is.

I think you make another problematic assumption here, John.

If reviewer A doesn't know a matsutake from a morel and writes you a bad review online, and as a result diner B doesn't come to your restaurant, you assume that diner B has been led astray by reviewer A.

What if reviewer A perfectly encapsulated exactly how diner B would have felt?

What I mean is this. I don't like Leonard Maltin. I think he's a lousy film critic. I don't trust his opinion on a thing. But nonetheless, he accurately reflects the film tastes of millions of people. So if all of those people can read a Maltin review and get an accurate impression of whether or not they'll like a film, no matter how unqualified I may consider Maltin, who's to say he's wrong?

Bring that back to your restaurant. Vettel or Nagrant or Hammond might love Inovasi*, but if your average diner doesn't, what meaning do their reviews have? And how are those reviews more correct or proper than some food-ignorant schmoe on Yelp who accurately captures how many people dining at your restaurant will feel and whose review has real, practical value for hordes of people no matter how abhorrent you may find its conclusions? If one out of twenty online reviews of Inovasi are terrible, chances are pretty good that one out of twenty of your diners think Inovasi is terrible. It's not an aberration. It's not a fluke. It's not a lone, misguided opinion that lends the wrong impression and unfairly threatens your business. Rather, it's an accurate representation not only of how your restaurant plays with the portion of the public that has dined there, but -- and here's the important part -- also the portion of the public that hasn't yet dined there.

And this is precisely why it's a fallacy to claim that some opinions are inherently more valuable than others. The person who loves rubbery, charred pork chops? Her opinion may have no value to you or me, but it means a lot more to somebody else who loves rubbery, charred pork chops than anything Vettel or Nagrant or Hammond could write. If a bad review is hurting your business in that manner, it's not because you're being misrepresented, but rather it's working exactly as a review should. That doesn't mean I, as somebody who abhors rubbery, charred pork chops, like it, and it doesn't mean that I don't want to do my part to open those people up to what I'd consider a broader food experience in the hopes that they might change, but how can I condemn a review that accurately reflects how many people will actually feel when they dine at your restaurant?

And this is precisely what makes this brave new world of "everybody opines" so powerful. It's all out there. The voices that reflect your own are there for the reading, along with those that don't, and you have the power to filter accordingly. And in the process, as Santander astutely points out, you see all of the other voices as well, and whether you find you agree or disagree with them, you've considered them and your knowledge can only grow from the experience in a way that it couldn't if there were only one or two rarely updated "educated" opinions to refer to.

JohndesRosiers wrote:I think I have the right and duty to question the people that help to decide out fate, and I feel there is nothing wrong with being open and honest about those questions.

If what you truly value is an open and honest dialogue in all things, then it sounds like we're actually on the same page, John. It's just that you don't seem to realize that online criticism achieves exactly that in a way that the (persuasively argued) defunct traditional review structure never could.

* - I have no idea how or if any of these guys have reviewed Inovasi... I just used them because they've been discussed upthread.

An afterthought...

Would you consider it a good thing if all of your online reviews were positive? It seems to me that if everybody likes what you're doing, it may be great for business, but what good art doesn't ruffle some feathers? It seems to me that a smattering of bad online reviews is an indication that a restaurant is doing something right. Or at the very least, something interesting. You won't please everybody, and while there are some who are in the "customer is always right" camp, I'm personally of the opinion that you shouldn't try*. Alinea gets some terrible reviews. From you included, I believe (at least when it comes to MG in general). Doesn't seem to be hurting them much, and Achatz seems pretty content to do his thing.

* - Well, you should probably try to please enough people to keep your business afloat, of course, but that goes without saying.

Dmnkly wrote:It seems to me that a smattering of bad online reviews is an indication that a restaurant is doing something right. Or at the very least, something interesting.

And as we know from Eliot, it's better to do something interesting than to do nothing. Some bad is better than all boring.

P.P.S.

It seems to me, John, that you're making some awfully critical statements about online food criticism without really understanding how it works.

Are you sure you're qualified to be offering your opinion on the subject?

Dom, your posts continue to make me and I’m sure others think about the important problems of knowledge issues being discussed here, and I appreciate the thoughts you're laying out there. One point I stick on:

Dmnkly wrote:it's a fallacy to claim that some opinions are inherently more valuable than others.

It seems indisputable that Vettel's opinions are more "valuable" than just about anyone else's in Chicago. He's Mother Trib's highly visible and largely respected critic, his word is worth more in the currency of public opinion than just about anyone else's in this city. I'm sure John or Grant or Graham or any other chef is Chicago would much rather get a good review from him than from, say, anyone who posts on LTHForum. That's because he has a recognized name and power.

Now, this does not mean that Vettel will always make the most valid, best or even interesting points about a restaurant? Definitely not. Anyone can make a valid point about a restaurant, of course, but in the marketplace, Vettel makes the most valuable points because his stars are easily understood by the millions of people who still make decisions based on the ratings of professional critics...and I think we're maybe a little near-sighted if we think that the majority of the eating public spends as much time thinking about food as the people who post on LTHForum. Stars are short-hand, they’re easy, and people follow them, not as much as they used to, but my sense is that they still carry a lot of power (power that may be diminishing but is not yet, as you say, “defunct”).

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but just want to clarify the meaning of "valuable" in the context of this discussion.

Well, that's why I use the qualifier "inherently".

I could be wrong, but I wonder if you read that to mean I was throwing stones at Vettel? Couldn't be further from the truth. What I meant was that in the context of this discussion, online criticism, I think it's very, very hard to assign value to opinions without also defining to whom they're more valuable. To the Olive Garden set, Vettel's opinion is clearly not more valuable. What I'm trying to say here is that the value isn't a one-way proposition! Vettel could be the most educated, experienced, intelligent diner in the world, but if that world is populated by people who like gummy pasta and well-done steak and salad dressing on the side, what value does his opinion hold as a reviewer?

My point was that the value of his opinion is not purely a function of his experience and education, as John would seem to suggest, but that it is also dependent upon the context in which it is received -- that a far less-educated and (to us) discerning diner may have a far more valuable opinion depending on the audience. And that when it comes to the internet, because it encompasses so many audiences, there is an audience out there for whom this is the case. In an idealized internet, there are infinite audiences, and the perfect opinion for every audience, and hence every opinion has perfect value for somebody out there. If we agree that, in theory, when you write something on the internet, somebody somewhere is out there screaming, "Yes, yes, that's exactly how I feel!", then I think you've just made the argument that every opinion is equally valuable to somebody, hence, none is inherently more valuable than any other. Your Mickey Mantle rookie card may be worth $50,000 to most of the baseball card collecting public, but if my tattered Juan Pierre '08 is worth $50,000 to just one guy and I find him via the internet, how is yours more valuable?

I'm not sure if we're arguing semantics or if we actually have a fundamental difference of opinion here. And, honestly, I'm talking myself into it a bit as I'm writing it, but I do stand firm in the belief that value is meaningless without context, and in a realm of (theoretically) infinite contexts, it's impossible to assign absolute value. I may do so colloquially when posting on LTH since there's a certain understood context to doing so, but break down that wall surrounding our little community and I don't know that I could continue to make pronouncements like that.

Am I 'qualified' to judge a restaurant as long as I can cook a freaking pork chop so that it's a bit pink in the middle, then ?

I think the chef needs to read, re-read, memorize and tattoo Dmnkly's first post.

You're no longer a slave to a powerful local critic whose tastes simply don't run towards your style. You never have to worry about somebody writing for a paper, getting a bad impression and torpedoing your restaurant. The only restaurants that have anything to fear from online criticism are lousy ones, because they can't hope to pull the wool over a critic's eyes for a couple of meals. They can't hope to identify that critic and make sure nothing goes wrong. With online criticism, you're less likely to be misrepresented to the public simply because of the sheer volume of people who are writing about you.

If your product is good, the positive effects of online, "amateur" reviews will far outweigh and outdraw any one or handful of 'unqualified' reviews.

And while I'm sure everyone here enjoys the caché of having industry folk post here on LTH, you really comes across as a hurt little boy whose bottom lip starts to quiver every time someone looks at him cross-eyed. I thought my last boss didn't know s*** about what I did for my job and had many others that agreed with me on that topic but guess what ? I still had to deal with the crappy review he gave me and still got laid off.

Welcome to the real world. My advice is to stick to cooking and stay away from yelp and metromix lest your head explode.

Oh, gosh... ALSO...

...(why won't my brain stop on this subject?)...

...John, you lament the potential loss of customers who avoid your restaurant because they read a review that was far more negative than it should have been because the reviewer was uneducated.

What about the customers you gain only because they read a review that was far more positive than it should have been because the reviewer was uneducated?

If you've spent any time reading online reviews, you've seen it. Somebody who rarely dines out decides to click the five star button the moment that incredibly cute little amuse with microgreens on top hits the table. They're so in awe of something that isn't hamburger that everything is divine.

Should their opinions also be discounted? Or is it only the ones that potentially hurt your business? And how do you know there aren't more of these uneducated diners helping you than hurting you? For all you know, it could be that uneducated diners posting online are the only thing keeping you in business!

Also also ...

I believe that the web/blog/forum-o-sphere is largely self-policing in that if you have a well trafficked site such as LTH and post something that has *obvious* factual problems, the odds are very high that the post will get called out relatively quickly by others.

For example, if I post how I really hated how Honey One's ribs are too chewy and not as good as Twin Anchors' meat jello, there are about 200 people here who could chime in within about 15 minutes saying how I'm full of it and how I really should reconsider my opinion. The same goes to some extent for blogs or sites like yelp.

Dmnkly wrote:My point was that the value of his opinion is not purely a function of his experience and education, as John would seem to suggest, but that it is also dependent upon the context in which it is received -- that a far less-educated and (to us) discerning diner may have a far more valuable opinion depending on the audience. And that when it comes to the internet, because it encompasses so many audiences, there is an audience out there for whom this is the case. In an idealized internet, there are infinite audiences, and the perfect opinion for every audience, and hence every opinion has perfect value for somebody out there. If we agree that, in theory, when you write something on the internet, somebody somewhere is out there screaming, "Yes, yes, that's exactly how I feel!", then I think you've just made the argument that every opinion is equally valuable to somebody, hence, none is inherently more valuable than any other.

I feel we may be quibbling about semantics (inherently, perfect value, absolute value) that might be beside the larger point.

You’re defining “valuable” as the ability to connect with someone, anyone, out there. In that sense, any post on any bulletin board is theoretically as valuable – or value-less – as any other. I think that perspective renders the concept of value pretty much meaningless.

I’m defining a critic’s value as the ability to influence decisions. A valuable critic is not just one reader’s soul mate who speaks for him or her and reflects “exactly how I feel.” A valuable critic, in context, influences lots of decisions and, to a restaurateur or chef, the more decisions influenced, the more valuable the critic.

I didn’t sense that you were targeting Vettel or anyone else specifically, and I’m just using Vettel as a representative of a class of traditional, newspaper-based critics who are now sharing their power with a lot of other influencers in places like LTHForum…but the power of critics like this is still immense, and it’s because of that power that his words are, I believe, perceived as more valuable than even one of the perhaps vastly more articulate and knowledgeable posters on LTH.

Hypothetical example: ErikM, one of the early posters on Chowhound/LTH, writes about ABC Thai Restaurant. I can think of no eater of Thai food who has more credibility, authority, value than Erik M, and he says that the papaya salad at ABC is the most “authentic and exquisite rendition of this salad ever served in Chicago. “ Vettel says that the papaya salad is “really tasty,” but a little sour and he wasn’t crazy about what he saw as the excessive spiciness. On the front of ABC’s menu, they’re going to put Vettel’s mild recommendation (“Really tasty.” Phil Vettel, Chicago Tribune) rather than ErikM’s over-the-top recommendation. Why? Because within the context of the vast dining public, Vettel’s milder approval has higher value: it influences more dining decisions of more people, and so it’s more useful to the public at large as well as ABC Thai Restaurant. To me, individually, ErikM might be more valuable, but that does not make his and Vettel’s words of equivalent value.

JohndesRosiers wrote: a person reading about us for the first time will simply form a negative opinion and choose not to come to my place. This has even happened with one of the posts in this thread.

I dont know if you were referring to my post where I said I wont visit your restaurant, I also mentioned in my post I probably wouldnt have visited it before based on location, etc. I base my statement of not going there now based solely on you, and your post & thoughts about who is entilitled to have an opinion, not because of a bad review.

Enough about you, Jim, I want to read more about Phil Vettel.

Mike G wrote:Enough about you, Jim, I want to read more about Phil Vettel.

touche'.. well played mike.

David Hammond wrote:Hypothetical example: ErikM, one of the early posters on Chowhound/LTH, writes about ABC Thai Restaurant. I can think of no eater of Thai food who has more credibility, authority, value than Erik M, and he says that the papaya salad at ABC is the most “authentic and exquisite rendition of this salad ever served in Chicago. “ Vettel says that the papaya salad is “really tasty,” but a little sour and he wasn’t crazy about what he saw as the excessive spiciness. On the front of ABC’s menu, they’re going to put Vettel’s mild recommendation (“Really tasty.” Phil Vettel, Chicago Tribune) rather than ErikM’s over-the-top recommendation. Why? Because within the context of the vast dining public, Vettel’s milder approval has higher value: it influences more dining decisions of more people, and so it’s more useful to the public at large as well as ABC Thai Restaurant. To me, individually, ErikM might be more valuable, but that does not make his and Vettel’s words of equivalent value.

But what if their positions were swapped, and ErikM was writing for Mother Trib and Vettel was posting on LTH? Would Erik's opinion not, then, by your definition be more valuable, even though they're offering the same opinions? In that case, the value of their opinions is not -- as John suggests -- determined by their relative amounts of education and knowledge, but simply by the place in which their opinions appear. Similarly, what if Mother Trib hired a lead restaurant critic that didn't know a thing about Thai? That critic's opinion would then, by virtue of the position, immediately become one of the most valuable opinions in the city on a subject about which s/he is completely uneducated. And perhaps most importantly, it's entirely plausible that this last hypothetical critic may very well, in fact, be the one of the three who has the most "ability to influence decisions". We see critics with little knowledge influencing vast swaths of people all the time.

David Hammond wrote:A valuable critic is not just one reader’s soul mate who speaks for him or her and reflects “exactly how I feel.” A valuable critic, in context, influences lots of decisions and, to a restaurateur or chef, the more decisions influenced, the more valuable the critic.

If value when it comes to opinion is, as you seem to suggest, a numbers game, perhaps what you're saying goes even further than what I suggest -- it's not that the uneducated opinion is equally as valuable as the educated opinion, but rather that knowledge and education don't even figure into the equation. If you're persuasive and reach a large number of people, your opinion is valuable even if you form it by throwing darts at a dartboard. Value and knowledge, when it comes to opinion, are completely independent of one another.

Which, if that's where logic leads you, probably refutes John's position even more forcefully than mine.

Or we're so deep in the semantic rabbit hole that I can't even keep track of who's saying what now, myself included. Either is possible.

Why? Because within the context of the vast dining public, Vettel’s milder approval has higher value: it influences more dining decisions of more people, and so it’s more useful to the public at large as well as ABC Thai Restaurant. To me, individually, ErikM might be more valuable, but that does not make his and Vettel’s words of equivalent value.

I think what you, David, (and Dom) are saying is that "value", and and of itself, is meaningless without also knowing *to whom* a thing is valuable.

Vettel's mild recommendation is more valuable to the restaurant owner, due to the wider circulation. Whereas EricM's rave recommendation is more valuable to a smaller segment of more discerning restaurant-goers who eschew Vettel's opinions as too mainstream or whatever.

To the restaurant-owner, it's a no-brainer. They place higher value on the person who has a larger reader/viewership. But to readers/viewers, it's about figuring out how well what you like in a restaurant matches what that particular critic tends to like. If I go to five Vettel-recommended places and am disappointed each time, his words will begin to have less value to me (as a reader). But if he gives my restaurant five stars and business booms for 2 years, I value his coverage and attention greatly.

As a kind of a sidebar to the discussion of "value" and how to define it in this context....the main reason I started participating here was that I didn't much value the opinions of the restaurant reviewers at the major publications and was casting about for something better (or of more value to me, personally).

Edzo, thanks for reffing.

elakin wrote:As a kind of a sidebar to the discussion of "value" and how to define it in this context....the main reason I started participating here was that I didn't much value the opinions of the restaurant reviewers at the major publications and was casting about for something better (or of more value to me, personally).

Collectively, LTH commentary on a subject is much more valuable to me than any single reviewer could possibly be, but it requires doing homework and reading the different posts, weighing the different perspectives, and coming to conclusions based on the incredible reach and intelligence of this internet-based organism. Not many people are going to do that, and for those who can't spare the time or don't share the passionate interest, a relatively brief review in the Trib is going to be much more valuable.

A lot of good thoughts are being discussed here about value and how one develops a trust for whose opinions. However, the one thing that I kind of cringe about is the recurring theme of "have a thick skin" or the suggestion up-thread that the restaurant is to be avoided now just because the OP questioned the validity of the reviewer's opinion.

First of all, folks on this forum question each other's qualifications for expressing opinions all the time. This is a great forum, but it is not always an easy or warm-and-fuzzy forum.

Second, a point that resonates for me, is that it is a lot easier to say "have a thick skin" than it is to actually develop a thick skin. I have a book out that has gotten a lot of good reviews, but when one guy gave it two stars, and I found out the guy generally reviews SciFi and military novels, I asked a question similar to the OP's -- why the heck did he even bother buying a travel narrative if all he reads is SciFi and war stories, and why, when the book was simply not to his taste, did he have to trash it publicly. Granted, I didn't lose any sleep over it, but my skin is not so thick that I didn't feel the blow. I don't know that one can remain really creative and be really hardened at the same time.

So I might advise the OP to let it go, but I'd never tell anyone that he or she should not even register the pain. Learn to deal with pain, but don't shut down the creative spirit just because it's sensitive to pain. It's better to hurt than to not care.

I just fininshed watching Check Please! I'm guessing Chef desRosiers is not a fan of the show. It reaches a large audience, yet some of its reviewers are not particularly knowledgeable ("I'm from Arizona, so I know good barbeque.")

But I have to give props to the chef for starting up such an interesting discussion.

nr706 wrote:It reaches a large audience, yet some of its reviewers are not particularly knowledgeable ("I'm from Arizona, so I know good barbeque.")

The quote is from the Honey One episode. I rewound and listened to that segment several times, the woman never said that.

I bumped into this woman maybe a year later, "You're the lady from the Check Please who was on the panel reviewing Honey One." "Yes, I seem to be famous." "I guess you are," though in my mind I filled in, "For something you never said."

Same day I bumped into Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn who championed Honey One for Check Please.

Cannot for the life of me recall who the third panelist was.

Regards,

I believe the segments on the website are heavily edited from the original.

nr706 wrote:I believe the segments on the website are heavily edited from the original.

I was at Gary's right after it was first aired. I saw the entire segment at his place, then backed it up and replayed it a few times trying to catch this comment. I never heard it.

It makes for a great story, so I probably shouldn't touch it.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:

nr706 wrote:I believe the segments on the website are heavily edited from the original.

I was at Gary's right after it was first aired. I saw the entire segment at his place, then backed it up and replayed it a few times trying to catch this comment. I never heard it.

It makes for a great story, so I probably shouldn't touch it.

Regards,

It was definitely said. No question about it. Not sure who said it or even if it was on Check, Please! but it was definitely uttered.

=R=

I was at the viewing party at Honey One and remember the laughs the line got when it aired. I don't remember the exact line, but the gist really was "I lived in the southwest so I know something about barbecue"...

Too bad we don't have access to the original episode anymore.

Hi,

I played the program back several times to hear what was reported and never found that precise phrase. It was a copy of the original airing, which wasn't edited.

I'll bet Craig Goldwyn has a copy to refer to.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:I'll bet Craig Goldwyn has a copy to refer to.

I thought I still had a copy on my DVR, but it got deleted.

To the best of my recollection the phrase was something like ...."I'm from Phoenix and we know our BBQ"

This is what Gary wrote the day after:

G Wiv wrote:*"I'm from Phoenix and know my ribs" might be the funniest thing I've heard in months

gleam wrote:This is what Gary wrote the day after:

G Wiv wrote:*"I'm from Phoenix and know my ribs" might be the funniest thing I've heard in months

Still makes me laugh to this day.