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Comment by cultofmetatron | Hacker News Reader

I'm currently in bangkok atm. where can I go try this soup?

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Restaurant_Review-g293916-d87...

Actual customer reviews are less gushing than the WSJ article....

Long time since reviews on the internet mattered one squat. Reviews can be because of everything from a jealus competitor, the platform asking the restaurant to pay to unblock favorable reviews/remove unfavorable ones, doing the opposite when you don't pay, or simple a bunch of people who basically fill the web with junk.

More often than not I have a great experience in restaurants with 2-3 out of 5 in ratings, and shit experiences with restaurants with 4-5/5 ratings, I've simply stopped reading reviews at all, anything with numbers on the internet is basically fuddled with nowadays.

I discovers this 10 years ago with Yelp. I refused to pay, but still kept an account linked to Faceboook. When I deleted that account, apparently Yelp knew that and released some old negative reviews that previously had been hidden. One review was filled with lies, and I never had the chance to see it (much less respond to it) when I still had the account. That was the day that I learned what legal online extortion looks like.

When publishing, it's always important to get a fresh viewpoint from an unrelated account/device to ensure nothing looks amiss!

Agree however this restaurant isn’t worth going out of the way for even without a line. It’s totally middle of the road for a common dish served by hundreds of places.

City-level reddit subs have a fair idea where to avoid, I find.

> I've simply stopped reading reviews at all

This is the way. If I'm traveling I consider Tripadvisor's top lists as things to avoid, and don't use the site otherwise. Bangkok in particular, you can basically walk blindfolded and you'll run into amazing food.

Wattana Panich is absolutely not worth waiting in line for. Any number of places make a better version of that dish.

If you want to wait in line for something actually worth waiting for: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GodS2ozgTYR1K4kGA?g_st=ic

I always get the pad kapow with half crispy pork and their sour pork soup. My wife gets the pad kapow with glass noodle. Their spice levels are accurately described. If you are not tolerant to spice, definitely get one of the lower levels, they aren’t over the top and the dish does need some chili.

Also, feel free to get in touch for more places to go and things to do (lived here for over a decade): firstname.lastname at gmail.

Its on Ekkamai rd, "Wattana Panich"

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