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 ?