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Comment by michaelchisari | Hacker News Reader

Los Angeles has serious grade inflation across the board wrt social ratings.

Their yelp reviews are completely unreliable, everything is 4 or 5 stars. I'm used to Chicago where even a great restaurant can have 3 stars because everyone is so picky, and the 4 or 5 stars are reserved for the truly extraordinary.

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Do you find Yelp helpful?

I find Yelp so strange with complaints about how someplace that really doesn't do someone's favorite food style gets some stupid reviews.... or they wish a place was more like a place that is 3x more expensive (how is that fair?). I just have no clue where anyone is coming from.

We had a Neapolitan pizza place open up in in our neighborhood. Great ingredients, amazing Neapolitan pizza. It was inundated reviews complaining about how thin the crust was and floppy the pizza sometimes is. .... they were basically complaining it wasn't some fast food style pizza place where they could stuff their face.

Eventually their ratings did recover and they've got reasonable reviews now, but ... people are dumb. I need some elitist type review system I think ;)

Maybe yelp and other review sites have changed but I've given up on them for a while.

> I need some elitist type review system I think ;)

Then you shouldn't "ask" random people you don't even know. That elitist type review system is anything from a newspaper with an established critic, to a Michelin Guide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin_Guide

I find this to be particularly bad with Americans and Brits. I don't really use yelp much anymore, but when you're on holiday and look at tripadvisor reviews of restaurants, it always seems to be the Americans and Brits complaining the otherwise great restaurants are bad because they don't do some awful shit that no one in their right mind would ever expect a really good seafood restaurant on the coast in Spain to do (e.g.).

These days, reviews on all platforms are more useful as a way to avoid genuninely awful places. As someone else said, ignore the average rating, but check a few comments to see if there's a consistent negative theme.

Yelp isn't particularly useful if you're dependent upon the average score. It's solid as far as locating local businesses (and drilling down into actual reviews to make a decision, assuming you're in a city where yelp has a presence).

Unfortunately that involves actually reading the reviews instead of looking at the rating.

It's a lot to dig though and not everyone is as obvious that they really want crappy pizza for $5 and went to the wrong restaurant as others might be.

My opinion is that everyone should get rid of 1-5 stars in favor of "thumbs up/thumbs down" ratings... Wonder if there's any research to support this suggestion...

Youtube realized it once https://youtube.googleblog.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-r...

I fully agree with you, but we all saw how that went for Netflix. Some people are still angry at them for it. But yea, I can't even with good conscience give anything 4 star or less, knowing that it will basically destroy their job. So I only even vote low if it's a truly horrible experience.

Netflix's system wasn't so much a thumbs up/thumbs down system that we all know and love - it was a frankenstein system where you couldn't see how many thumbs up/down a title had, rather you saw a percentage on how likely you are to enjoy that title based on the thumbs you gave others. At first glance it looks like YouTube's system but in actuality it was very different.

https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-thumbs-rating-system...

In terms of impact on conversions the star rating has a powerful impact. People are highly receptive to the stars. I doubt that system is going away any time soon.

So we move towards a 5 star system, where anything other than 5 is considered a failure. Last time i looked lyft wanted their drivers to have a 4.8, and I've heard similar expectations from waitstaff and customer service call centers.

That's ridiculous, and only helps inflation to be normalized. For me, I've found it means it is hard to give credit for truly exceptional service. When I have to give 5s to those that just do the job like I wanted, I have few options to highlight when someone truly goes above and beyond.

has anyone tried competitive rankings? like hot or not ?

This is because giving someone less than five stars is a direct threat on their livelihood. Unless I think someone should not be allowed to continue in their line of work, they get five stars.

When recently buying a car, the saleswoman said we would be sent a survey about the sale and that anything other than a 5 out of 5 rating she gets hassled by corporate. Wtf is the point in even giving people options if only one option is considered 'good'?

Untrue. Chinese restaurants in the SGV are tough.

3 stars in LA crushes 5 stars in other cities in the US.

And yes, I’ve lived 10 years in the Bay Area and the Chinese food pales in comparison.

Hmmm, we are going to have to check your credentials. In your opinion what is the best Chinese restaurant in either LA or SF?

Dim Sum: Joy Luck Palace (Sunnyvale). LA, the one that’s very good is Five Star Seafood (SGV off of Del Mar). 888 in Valley a little east of that place. Don’t go to Elite, Ocean Star, or mission, IMO. They are kind of on par with Jou Luck Palace. Koi Palace(Daly City) and Flower Lounge(Millbrae), Mayflower(Milpitas) I would stay away from.

Seafood: Newport Seafood(SGV). The restaurants listed above are decent for the Bay Area with Mayflower a notch or two below.

Best Taiwanese street food: Sin Ba La (Arcadia). Southland Flavor Cafe(Cupertino)

Lastly, in LA, the 626 Night Market is lots of crazy street food.

(Bistro Na is great too.)

Your credentials have been accepted.

Bistro Na's

Good chinese restaurants in London (like my old place) end up having less than 4 stars because of service. I find that raging since the food is the only thing that should matter.

I wouldn't make a blanket statement like "the food is the only thing that should matter"; but for some Chinese restaurants, bad service is part of the fun.

My favourite is "Oriental Canteen" near South Kensington station. At lunchtime I would order takeway, and then go browse a neighbouring bookshop. One day, as I was heading back the manager (who was rude on the best of days) just wordlessly held the bag with my lunch out the window so that I just grabbed it from her hands without even setting foot in her restaurant.

An excellent combination of impoliteness and efficiency for busy people who are there to exchange money for food rather than to make friends.

Push the ‘impoliteness and efficiency’ to the extreme and you get the Australia Dairy Company in Hong Kong, a restaurant where the service is so bad that tourists come to experience it...

And I agree with how you feel about the Oriental Canteen. A really inexpensive place to get a quick meal. Can’t expect much more from it.

> A really inexpensive place to get a quick meal. . Can’t expect much more from it.

I reckon the food there is pretty good quality, especially by London standards. Though the menu is pretty basic. At least that was my assessment 10 years ago when I lived there.

If we’re sharing then:

* jiaba: for taiwanese food

* orient: best dimsum

* joyluck: good hotpot

If the food is the only thing that should matter everyone should be ordering for delivery. The service counts so much as the food in my opinion.

Eh, unless they're shitting on my plate I feel no need to be critical of service at all. Also, it's nice to eat out simply because it's away from your home.

Service is: Bring the right food, bring it on time, bring the check in time, be somewhat friendly, help with strollers/bring a baby chair etc.

Eating chinese with a large group is done at the restaurant. Food is at the utmost importance. If you are willing to go eat worse food for better service then you should not be rating restaurants.

Maybe people are over critical but the service and experience of a meal is not to be ignored. I'm sure you would agree that if they literally threw the food at you it wouldn't deserve a rating regardless of the food.

Rating the food, or rating the service? Rating them together is nonsensical.

Some Amazon 1 star reviews: "great product, delayed by the post."

Ratings generally have become nonsensical. Between paid reviews, influencer reviews, bot-generated reviews, one-dimensional reviews that confuse multi-dimensional experiences, friends-and-family reviews, bucket reviews where you can't tell which product of a range is being reviewed (Amazon...), and hostile fake reviews, reviews have become all-but useless.

FWIW I had to pick a removals company recently, and I crossed one company off my shortlist when I found they used a suspect ratings company for their review listings. It's possible they were fine, but any company that pays to hide or remove bad reviews may easily not be.

I'm not sure if it's even possible to create a reliable independent review system. It might seems like a trivial problem, but given all the issues it's actually incredibly hard to get it right.

That’s something I like about Airbnb, it will give you different categories to rate

both ways have problems. when I'm dissatisfied with a place I want to help people not go there but let's say there are separate ratings for service, decor, food, atmosphere. I don't want to lie so if the food tasted like garbage but everything else was a 5 then it will look like I'm helping to recommend the place with 5 5 1 5 average 4 out of 5. 4 out of 5 sounds like a recommendation but what I really wanted to say is "don't go here!"

Those ratings shouldn't be averaged together though, because the weighting would be different for everyone. Each category would have its own average, and when I'm searching for a place, I would specify what I care about.

That’s the worst kind of rating for me as I only care about the food.

I just had this discussion with my SO while traveling n Japan. Here google maps give a really good indication, but you really really have to check out restaurants with under 4 stars. We found several gems that had under 4 stars because these places where just really busy. From reading the reviews these places the bad reviews where all from really condescending assholes that would even sometimes claim that the waiters were racist. These people giving 1 star because they couldn't get a table or some other shit not connected to the food whatsoever. Other times we would go to places where the food where mediocre but service and facilities where superb and thus having 4 star + ratings. I don't mind waiting, and i don't mind sitting in cigarette smoke to get an authentic quality meal.

I really wish that google maps, yelp etc. would have 2 or 3 categories being

Food, Service and Facilities

5 stars are just too simple, i feel the same way about Netflix thumbs up and thumbs down. Are we really so fucking simple minded that we can't handle nuanced ratings ?

> had under 4 stars because these places where just really busy

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." -- Yogi Berra

Everyone in Japan uses tabelog, and they are very tough - a restaurant with 3 out of 5 stars is an excellent restaurant.

Why should only the food matter?

If I have to wait one hour to get the food, that is detrimental to the experience in my opinion

People eat at restaurants for different reasons. Even if my food took an hour if the quality was high enough then I would be happy. That's part of what's missing, having a single score for all types of diners doesn't makes sense.

There are restaurants across the globe that people wait for over an hour to eat at because the food is simply that good.

It's fair enough that people will rate according to their expectations.

Curt, even surly service is pretty much trademark for Chinese/Vietnamese restaurants in my mind. I find the notion of "good service" actually a little overbearing sometimes honestly

The best servers are there when you need them, are paying attention so you rarely have to wait or wave, and are wonderfully absent when you do not need them. The manager coming 'round to confirm quality of service is a bad sign (new place or struggling). Surly should never enter the picture unless it's a theme restaurant based on belittling the customers.

I love Chinese service. I hate feeling obligated to make small talk with the waiters. "Is everything fine?" Fuck off, I'm trying to talk to my friend here.

I hope you are exaggerating a little for fun. Asking if everything is fine isn't really small talk and definitely doesn't deserve contempt.

Yeah, of course I am and I understand it's their job to do that. I really hate it when waiters come interrupt you, but what made you think I'd actually say it out loud? I used the phrase "fuck off" as an expression of annoyance, not contempt.

Now, white people not realizing that different cultural norms are at play and calling Chinese waiters rude, now THAT is definitely deserving of contempt.

If everything isn't fine I'm just never coming back. Though I don't have that problem often because I have a high tolerance.

This is the problem with crowd sourced reviews. Everyone rates things on a different scale. Even grouped scores like Metacritic aren't great for specific people. Rotten Tomatoes suffers the same problems. While it works in general, you are better served by finding reviewers who have liked what you've liked, and following them and listening to their reviews. Everyone likes different things, and it's worth while to be discerning with who you listen to. I've seen 4-5 star restaurants on Yelp in San Francisco that don't deserve 4-5 stars. I've seen the same with highly-rated hotels, too (Sorry, but if you are charged for Wifi or $3.50 for an apple, it's not a good hotel).

Find people you trust. Follow their reviews. Use socially gathered reviews as indicators when all else fails, and understand that half of them are probably worthless.

Well then the opposite will be true, 2 or 3 stars will mean the place is really bad.

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