I think it depends. Usually, I believe giving people or restaurant a few chances. I don’t like to judge a restaurant by one visit because even the best restaurant can fumble. Subpar is just below average, right? Some of us have very extensive experience and our “subpar” maybe someone’s outstanding.
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I look away and move on . I vote with my dollars .
That’s a very good point.
It may be hard to run a profitable restaurant, but that’s no reason to let other people spend their hard-earned money on a “meh” meal.
I have often posted reviews of “meh” restaurants, sometimes with qualifiers. For example, if the restaurant is new and the service poor, I might say they didn’t have their act together yet (implying that they might in the future).
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That’s the other side of how I feel. If I can knowledgeably discuss something, why not? Thanks for your input.
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The other thing I am thinking is that maybe restaurants should also be judged in light of its environment and price point.
Let’s take sushi for example. Maybe you are a very knowledge person in sushi and have eaten at some of the finest sushi restaurants in Japan. In which case, your knowledge base is so high compared to most people here in US. I won’t be surprised that 95% of the sushi restaurants in US suck in comparison.
Yet, is it fair to hold a sushi restaurant in Arkansas against the good sushi restaurants in Japan? You also will come across as very arrogant if you start to shoot down 95% of the sushi restaurants here too. Your friends will be “What is wrong with her?”
Everytime I came back from SF or Toronto eating their Dim Sum, I tried to avoid Dim Sum in the east coast for awhile because they just don’t taste as good – in my humble opinion. At the same time, I try not to criticize them too much because they are kind of the best there are in this area.
I think there is just this very large gray area.
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I’ve already dealt with that in that I don’t compare Seattle dim sum (where we are now) to San Francisco. I think that’s REALLY a valid point, CK. The place I’m thinking of doesn’t come close to measuring up to the place where we’ve been eating for many years. But as Bob said “If I hadn’t had dim sum in six months and this was my only choice…”
If it is below average in its neighbor competition, then I think it is fine to point it out. It is no different than some people say “In and Out” is better than “Burger King”…etc.
Oh, I know. But they’re so damn nice 
No, and [quote=“catholiver, post:3, topic:4210”]
Would you POST negative comments?
[/quote]
If someone asked for opinions about a particular restaurant, and I had one, I would answer. My loyalty is to the potential customer, not to the restaurateur. I probably wouldn’t offer up a lukewarm review unbidden. But I would post about an egregiously negative experience.
That’s a luxury professional reviewers have and most people don’t. Most people pay for that one visit. So I have no problem judging it.
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Yeah. The dim sum place we won’t go back to.
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I think it’s good to know what to avoid, I don’t like to waste money on meh. You can make an objective review and include the bad.
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I’ve written my share of critical reviews - both on yelp (occasionally) and on my (now defunct) blog - but I’ve always tried to be constructive in my criticism.
I prefer writing positive reviews, and do my best to promote places I think are worth it.
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If it’s a place in the public eye or that people in this community have shown interest in, I’d recommend writing it up. If it’s a neighborhood restaurant that doesn’t differentiate itself in any way, I wouldn’t bother to write a negative review.
Do you mean, would raise these “not very good” issues with the restaurant or mention it on reviews I might write for here or elsewhere?
If the latter, then yes. I would and I do. I have contributed to the UK’s Good Food Guide for years (since pre-internet days) and am always pleased when I see my comments published in the new year’s guide - I accept that’s personal vanity. I usually post to something online as well (and for restaurants that I know are not up to the Guide’s standard). That’s now HO, with Chowhound before. Sometimes, the post goes also to TripAdvisor and/or to a local forum or review site. I suppose that because I usually research before visiting somewhere new, I rarely come across a really bad place. Last year, I wrote reviews on 66 different places where we’d eaten in the UK and others about places overseas. Truth be told, I am envious of professional reviewers with their command of language - I run out of original words to describe places/dishes - one day, I must invite folks to come up with words that indicate a meal was just OK.
If the former, then generally not. I take the view that most restaurants that are just not very good, arent really interested in getting better. I recall we went to a place about an hour’s drive away that featured in the UK’s Good Food Guide (and still does - score of 3). It was an OK meal, although they had been minor issues with the cooking, the service and the pricing (we reckoned it was tad on the expensive side for what it was). On the way out, the chef/owner asked how it had been. I said it had been OK. He asked what he could do to improve. I said I’d email him the next day. Which I did, having put some considerable thought into it. Almost needless to say, there was no reply, not even the politeness of an acknowledgement.
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I can usually tell going in if the food at a restaurant is going to be “meh” and I assume other people can too. Most of the time when I eat meals in restaurants I have no great expectations of WOW food. I am there for social reasons, or convenience, and not paying very much for the food. Websites like Hungry Onion exist partly because we all know that most restaurant food is just average, and we are looking for pointers for something better than that. So if you walk into a moderately priced restaurant that no one has recommended to you, what are you expecting? I might hope to be surprised with outstanding food, but I don’t expect it.
So, no, I am not going to go to the Internet to document every bite of restaurant food I eat and criticize a place that is competently providing a desired service for being average when I was the one who chose an average place to eat. Besides, I often have very different reactions to restaurants than other people, and dislike things other people love for their own reasons.
I feel a bit differently when I’ve chosen a restaurant based on rave reviews and I am making an effort or paying elevated prices to eat special food – and that turns out to be “meh” or worse. Then I think it’s a good to share information about my negative experience for others who might have read only good reviews. Full disclosure.
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I agree that a lot of places that are mediocre probably aren’t that interested in improving, but in situations where there might be hope, I think you should give feedback. Sometimes mistakes get made and not caught before they get put on a plate. I’ve had line cooks charge my dessert ISIs with CO2 instead of nitrogen, if a customer had mentioned that the mousse seemed carbonated they might have realized before I found it out and had to bust heads. Just recently I had a really nice dinner but felt one of their sorbet recipes was so off as to be inedible, so I left them a note because they probably do want to fix that.
Meh, I just don’t go back to.
Really awful might get some criticism.
But I almost never start threads about bad experiences at restaurants. I just reply to existing posts or threads.
I’ve given some bad reviews when I had to.
When I began posting on Chowhound.com, I really started because I had so many great mom and pops near me that I just had to tell someone about. It was my outlet. I got a rep, (mainly from my brother), that I never gave a bad review, but the truth is, I had only discussed places I was already wild about.
As I started writing about new experiences, well…some were good and some not so much.
I had an owner or two ask me back for a personal “re-do”, but I always declined. I’d rather keep my anonymity and just have them do better for everybody. Right?
Anyway, the “too long, didn’t read” answer is: "Sure. They need to know."
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I’ll cut to the chase with a frustrating answer: Sometimes.
We mostly go to places that may be family-run and definitely aren’t corporate-run or fine-dining. Examples that have actually happened recently:
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On an $80 check for 2, both entrees were tepid-to-cool in the middle and had an unfresh taste, with the texture of being warmed via microwave (desiccated edges + cool spots). When our server asks how [ITEMS] were, we told him, just like when we told him earlier in the meal how great a starter was. It also helped that we’ve had better meals there and that that night’s problems were the type we could explain. He offers to comp dessert, we accepted (and it was good), and tipped the difference. We’ll go back at some point, in all likelihood.
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On a $60 check for 2, the starring ingredient of the starter was made with a frozen product that’s readily available fresh, and the whole thing was flavorless. The day’s special they’d been hyping on their website (which was why I was there) was not being offered. I went with something that sounded tasty – and it was - but that made me realize mid-meal, “I am eating a $15 sandwich and it’s fine but it’s a $15 dollar sandwich.” The service was nice but the problems we had weren’t relatively straightforward issues with the kitchen’s execution. It was our first time there and I doubt we’ll go back.
I wouldn’t trash either on Yelp, regardless.
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