On one level, TripAdvisor is a useful tool that has made the world a smaller and easier place to travel around. “Proper” travellers will grumble that it’s taken all the romance and adventure out of a journey to the far side of the world, but they’re welcome to not use it. I like to stay somewhere that other people agree offers clean rooms, friendly service, a sensible price and perhaps is unique or beautiful as a bonus.
But if I’m looking for a place to eat in a strange city? I wouldn’t touch TripAdvisor with a barge pole.
It seems that crowd sourcing works pretty well for identifying good accommodation, but not good dining. This is because people (approximately) agree what is good in a hotel, but tastes and preferences in dining out cover a huge spectrum.
Take The Chilli Pickle. It’s a brilliant restaurant in Brighton serving contemporary Indian cooking; colourful, inventive and singing with spice. It is undoubtedly one of the top five restaurants in the city but comes in a disappointing 28th on TripAdvisor. Checking some of the poor reviews reveals a pattern:
THIS ISN’T INDIAN FOOD! this is the worst Indian meal I’ve had in my life. food is served in a metal tray, metal glasses and jugs…
Gosh, you mean like they do in India? Or how about this gem from another reviewer:
call me old fashioned but when I go for a Indian I like to be served by Indians… the worse thing was not seeing anything on the menu that I recognised apart from the popadoms.
Yes, and when I go for fish and chips I like to be served by a fisherman. The common thread in a whole bunch of reviews is people visiting the Chilli Pickle in the hope of a good ol’ Ruby Murray and being thrown by uncomfortably authentic food.
[singlepic id=118 w=320 h=240 float=left]The opposite problem is worse; very average or truly dire places bubbling to the top of the pile due to the overenthusiastic reviews of those for whom Frankie & Benny’s is the gold standard of deliciousness. I find this a lot travelling, especially in towns without much tourist infrastructure. Most reviews would be from backpackers (I’m inferring) and many times we followed rave reviews squealing about “the bestest meal I’ve ever had ever” or “their pizzas are the best in the world and I eat pizza all the time” only to find ourselves staring at a miserable plate of tourist-oriented crap and wishing we’d chosen a restaurant using the time-honoured principle of go-where-the-locals-are-eating. If this is your idea of the best pizza in the world then I’d suggest that up until now what you’ve actually been eating is pizza boxes.
But of course, I’m a raging foodie and I’d always prefer to sit on a bench in a back alley and eat a bowl of spicy fish-head curry with dubious things floating in it than sit in an air-conditioned tourist trap eating spaghetti bolognese as interpreted by a chef who has only ever seen a photo of it in the Bumper Book of Food Tourists Like. So my own rave review of a little local joint might just as easily lead a hapless family of four from Basingstoke to a horrible dining experience where nothing seems remotely edible. They’d give the place a 1 on TripAdvisor, no question.
And thus TripAdvisor averages everything out and you’re left with no certainty that the Top 10 restaurants in Santiago actually represents anything like the top ten restaurants in Santiago.
One man’s meat is another man’s poison and you only have to read the comments below any online article about any aspect of dining out to discover how polarised people’s views are on what makes a “good” restaurant. The pretentious-and-overpriced-gimme-a-big-plate-of-tasty-food brigade are never going to review in the same way as the happy-to-pay-through-the-nose-for-independent-and-authentic brigade. That’s my brigade, by the way. Correct me if I’m wrong, but people simply don’t get so polarised over hotels. Everyone has their own price-point but beyond that, a comfy room, friendly service, good breakfast and a bit of character seems to be the generally agreed formula for a place to stay.
Personally, I find food guides and blogs to be a much better source of restaurant recommendations. The guides are professional and their editors are going to be taking account of the style of food, the price bracket, and putting the restaurant into context against hundreds of others. The food blogger is only writing a food blog because he or she has a genuine interest and passion for food, so no matter which brigade they’re in I’m going to be willing to trust their opinion. Certainly a lot more than the averaged-out opinion of a whole crowd of individuals who may be giving a bitter 1 because some clerical oversight meant that their booking couldn’t be honoured, or giving an over-rated 5 because they all had a great and tipsy night out on gran’s birthday.
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Nice summary. I agree – And, as a way of finding reviewers to follow, I like Urbanspoon because it combines all three sets of ‘opinions’ in a logical way – you can see the critics reviews, blogger reviews and general reviews set out with information on what else they have reviewed.
Author
I haven’t really used Urbanspoon. I don’t like the way their “headline” rating for a restaurant (XX% like it) had nothing to do with bloggers, critics or commenters but is simply the number of people who click the “like” button – which is even open to abuse as a restauranteur would have no trouble rigging a huge number of anonymous “like it” clicks. Personally, I’d love a site that summarises *only* trusted blogger and critic reviews.
Anyway, it sounds like I need to pop my reviews on UrbanSpoon to give them a wider audience!
I never use TripAdvisor for food recommendations. Taste in food is far too subjective for me to rely on views of anonymous contributors where it’s difficult to have much frame of reference about what they like. Bloggers (& critics) can be anonymous but there is usually enough info on their site that you can get an appreciation of how their tastes may or may not align with yours.
Author
The main difference for me is that a blogger or critic has (almost always) shown their credentials simply by going to the trouble of creating a blog. You just don’t go to that trouble unless you have a deep interest in a subject, so while there are probably a handful of blogs out there written by terribly keen people with absolutely no sense of taste, they would be the minority rather than the majority. TA has a much more random demographic of reviewers.
Couldnt agree more! Hate TA with a passion but as a business, I have to ‘play the game’!
Author
As a “user” of TA, I’d have to say that it does seem to work for accommodation. But then, I’m quite willing to look at the 1 and 2 ratings giving to a hotel in order to judge for myself whether they’re valid criticisms or just stroppy idiots. On the other hand, perhaps the bigger danger is that through sheer bad luck a good hotel will get a couple of idiot 1 ratings and drop below the “top 10” for a town unjustifiably. And of course it must be exceptionally tough for a new place to open in a mature market – with so many people using TA these days the established operations must suck up all the trade.
Hi, now I have mixed opinions regarding trip advisor.
However this particular quote- “But of course, I’m a raging foodie and I’d always prefer to sit on a bench in a back alley and eat a bowl of spicy fish-head curry with dubious things floating in it than sit in an air-conditioned tourist trap eating spaghetti bolognese as interpreted by a chef who has only ever seen a photo of it in the Bumper Book of Food Tourists Like.”- smacks so much of wanting to be perceived as an adventurous eater whilst looking derisively on everyone else from a some smug position of really appreciating authentic local food that it almost turns my stomach. Sorry, I might be being a trifle harsh, but it’s possible to love eating without using your own particularly catholic tastes as a stick to beat those you regard as inferior with.
Author
I am an adventurous eater, I don’t need to try and be perceived as one. That quote is intended as humour, and like most humour it targets a stereotype group that most will recognise and some will belong to. I would have thought that describing myself as a “raging foodie” makes me as much the target as the tourist eating at McDonalds in Delhi.
The poor cooks in Nepal who try to make lasagne when even the pasta sheets have to be substituted for flat noodles are catering to a very real demand, just like the chap in the back room of Wetherspoons sticking a frozen lump of “home-cooked lasagne” in the microwave. Far be it for me to poke derisive fun at that demographic with my stick.
Oops, did it again.
We had this issue on holiday last week. Over here we have hardens to lead us to good places, but it doesnt reach as far as italy! The Michelin site is hard to use at the best of times and even worse on a phone so we relied on asking hotel staff and then combining that with google and a look at TA (taking comments and ratings with a pinch of salt) to see whether we thought we’d like the restaurant. Many looked good on google / TA but looking in made us walk on past.
Author
I was thinking about this, and wondering whether it’s now possible to find a couple of English-language restaurant review blogs for any part of the world. And we did manage to find such blogs for Hong Kong and Singapore… but of course, perhaps that’s expected. I’ve had a look, and can’t easily find one covering Italy. Hope you had some good meals anyway!
Meanwhile….. TA aside, thanks for the recomendation for Chilli Pickle, I didn’t know of the place and look forward to trying it!
Best regards,
Keith
Author
It’s in Jubilee Square, near the library. There’s a fuller review and some photos elsewhere in my blog. Hope you enjoy it if you get to visit.
Very well put!
What one man wants from a restaurant and what the other man expects are 2 different things. For me its all about the food.