Why I stopped Yelping and started eating.
A brief note on my background: I’ve worked in food and bev since 2006. First bev and now food and my beau is a serious foodie climbing the 2-3 star food chain. He takes none of this for granted and a lot of that has rubbed off on me. Before Beau I used to write up on my ‘dining’ experiences so much that I was nominated to Elite Yelp by one of the staffers. Impressed, I went on making lists and fielding requests to join supper clubs and contribute to Bronx pizza crawls. Then I met Beau and all bets were off. Pork belly, sriracha (before it blew up), farm-to-table, we ate everything. We hit Babbo, Vinegar Hill, Balthazar and Ecole at FCI in 6 months. That’s when I started reading several server ranty blogs, a very ranty YouTube stream and realized my Yelping was not contributing at all. My reviews would only stand out within the first week of a place opening or in my very small neighborhood. Add to that, the new Yelp added features (sponsored reviews, business replies) which ruined its appeal.
I now use Yelp to help me find the hours and contact info for a restaurant on-the-fly but I can’t say that 100+ reviews, some of them very old or biased, will help me decide. For the newest foodies I’d say hit up standard foodie sites like Chow, Chowhound and Eater. SeriousEats and Robert Sietsema (Village Voice) are also good bets for rational well-rounded opinions on where to eat - and not just in Manhattan and North Brooklyn.
