I for one couldn't agree more that yelp has gotten a little bit out of control. So much so, that my personal project has been to make an alternative (but solely focused on restaurants.) My version is also more social and list based. I'd love to have you test out the prototype and let me know what you think so far... it's at eaterguide.com
I checked it out. So far so good! The only thing that's hard is getting content. People only come when they can find reviews, and you only get reviews when people come. Yelp got started having yelp elite parties- they rewarded the top reviewers with access to hot parties with models. It worked. I think anyone that can figure out a way to incentivize people to come and leave reviews has a good shot at unseating yelp. Good luck and let me know how it goes. I'm in Tokyo but live in palo alto- get more content up on the site, or make it dead simple for me to add reviews.