Chicago AAA Diamond ratings

From the current issue of AAALiving, Chicago's five diamond restaurants:
Arun's
Charlie Trotter's
Everest
Seasons
Tru

Arun's but not Avenues? Bizzare. The four star list is perhaps even more interesting. The Carriage House Dining Room? Shanghai Terrace? See the full list

here.

Meanwhile, the same issue has a perfectly respectable article about Chinatown, mentioning Shui Wah, Phoenix, Joy Yee, Lao Sze Chuan, Moon Palace, etc. On-line here

I'm sure this proves something.......

All the time... but I can't think of any time I used it for local eats.
They were indispensible as a benchmark when traveling, especially off the interstates.

Usually we went with two or three guides in hand: AAA, Roadfood, and Where the Locals Eat, which is just a directory of anything that's ever been listed as a "Best Chinese" or "Best Family Restaurant" etc. etc. in local newspapers. It's spotty, but at least it gives me a cross reference, and a better idea at the kind of food than AAA will. Generally, I'd try to find something in two out of three books.

Never, although I've been known to use Vindigo when traveling to other cities.

Sometimes - I often take one with me when traveling, and will look at it once or twice. I also tend to look at their ratings when choosing a hotel since they are available on some sites - Travelocity comes to mind.

Seems to me that AAA and Mobil are more about amenties, than anything else, so they apply best to hotels.

As to the Chicago ratings, they make sense to me. You see a list of cutting-edge, high on amenities, restaurants from 10 years ago. After all, AAA is not out to capture the trendoid or even the LTH market.

Anyway, I did not vote Ann since you did not give me a sometimes option.

Like Dickson I didn't vote because I sometimes use the AAA guides, and it's primarily for hotels. I sometimes look at restaurant info to see if a particular restaurant is listed and to get location, phone, hours, etc.

I didn't vote either because we sometimes use them. Or maybe that would be better phrased as, we sometimes used them. And learned our lesson. They are entirely undependable in our view. We tried navigating cross country with them and found them extraordinarily uneven: sometimes spot on, sometimes clueless.