The cost of housing in places like SF and NYC are driving chefs away. And “away” can mean 50 miles away. It’s more than just chefs.
It’s keeping many types of careers away. The horrifying lack of decent school teachers comes to mind.
Don’t worry overmuch. The bust is coming, I can feel it.
The rising tide didn’t lift all boats, and the horrible sucking sound won’t pull back the right ones. I’m assuming you were around during the last crash. Yes, it calmed things down, but it was brutal.
Yep. One of our daughters and her family moved to Corte Madera because in the city they’d have had to go the private school route cause the public schools are so poor.
UPI’s famous slogan is “Get it first, but FIRST, get it RIGHT” Yelp doesn’t always get it right, but with its human wave approach, almost always gets it first. Yelp is a tremendous resource if you take the time and effort to filter out the noise and learn how to “read” the signal.
The Queen of the Boards on CH once posted about a “new” restaurant she’d become aware of, and wondered if any 'Hounds had tried it. I pointed out that there were already 30 reviews on Yelp. My reply got deleted, of course.
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Don’t disagree with the Queen. I did. Not good. And I agree that if you read correctly Yelp has good info.
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What I thought was great about SF is mostly gone. Time to move to new orleans, I was thinking to myself as I drove home tonight.
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I have no idea why you’d have been deleted for just mentioning Yelp but I always felt as if Yelp reviews were never given much cred by CHs in general. For me they’re a ‘toss out all the best and worst ones and see if there’s a common theme in what’s left’ game. I tend to use that formula on all opinion boards, though CH, it’s cousins, and it’s successors provide a more navigable path than someplace like Yelp. The smaller user-base size helps a lot with that.
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In this instance the deletion may have been for implying that the Queen had not done her due diligence, but for a stretch there any mention of Yelp seemed anathema.
My Yelp strategy is to ignore the first five 5-star reviews if the posters have only one or two reviews to their credit (they’re usually shills or friends of the owners) and all the 1-star reviews which appear to be driven by some perceived service slight. Then I mentally make an “opinion cloud” (like a word cloud) of the dishes mentioned in all the reviews I take the time to read. If you’ve done your homework, you probably won’t go to Ha Nam Ninh without trying the #25 dry, or Hai Ky Mi Gia without vetting the duck leg noodles, for example. They’re the “Oysters and Pearls” of Tenderloin dining.
Over time you can also identify reviewers whose opinions you tend to trust more than others, of course…
I’m waiting for some AI genius to develop a poet-processor for Yelp reviews to do the work for me.
They didn’t HAVE to go the private school route. That is purely a choice. There are some very good SF public schools. You just have to do your research and remain involved.
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Oh, so you don’t have to go in the area where you live? I didn’t know that. Being involved is tough when you’re working 60 hours weeks and traveling extensively. But the Redwood School District, where both girls went, was pretty much a private school education at a public school.
You said they moved because public schools in SF are poor. When you choose to have kids, choose to live in SF, and choose to work 60 hours a week, that is a lifestyle choice (my opinion, YMMV). We are renters, not wealthy, not in tech, and have struggled for 10 years–a little less so now. That was our lifestyle choice so that we could be involved. I mean, it’s a narrative I’ve heard over and over–“had to move to Marin for the sake of the children.” Marin has its own really dire issues, like (to make it about food) a dearth of great restaurants!
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Re: yelp, the yelp dataset is not exactly open for use. They allow some cities to be used for research - which can be used, but the kind of ML you’re asking about is probably regional and requires lots of data - but not enough.
My algorithm is to see if the 5 star reviews mention the dishes I am likely to order — and the spelling and grammar of those posts. I look for the “megareviewers” and discount them, generally, then I also throw out the 5-10 review people.
Many reviews for chinese places, for example, say “great lemon chicken” ( or similar, perhaps I’m poking fun ) and if those people said 5 stars, I’ll stay away ! OTOH, If they say “too expensive!” in poorly formed english, I’m there in a flash !
I then find I need to apply local tuning and set expectations accordingly. For example, Vancouver turned out to have a less educated dining population ( in the english language at least ). The peninsula is very stodgy. San Jose is uneducated. SF is faddish.
I am not afraid of the Queen. (whoever she may be).
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The food scene from what I’VE seen is grim.
Also the fact that her mom lives just a few minutes away helps with logistics.
Oh, I wasn’t afraid of her but her snark if one disagreed was just not worth it.
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By the way, is/was there a king?
Yes.
Hi,
I understand that your dissatisfaction with particular individuals may directly lead to a diminishing SF food forum scene, your points have already been clearly articulated. While names haven’t been named, for the sake of making newcomers feel more welcome, can I please ask that specific grievances against particular individuals on the SF board be made via the User Messaging function please:
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