Are the reviewers wrong???

Saturday we took a drive to a little cafe that has been getting great reviews. Interestingly it is not listed on Roadfood.com. It was not bad, but we passed better places to get there. I have seen this before. By the time a place is "discovered", it is no longer special.

tmiles,
I agree with your comment. I have also found that my personal preferences sometimes differ from a reviewers comments. When I check out a place that I have read/heard of I keep in mind my previous experiences with the authors earlier reviews. After a period of time you tend to know who's reviews line up well with your tastes and who's don't !
If it a no choice type of stop, I will try it and hope for the best !

I agree with the Mayor... Alot of it has to do with personal tastes... I've been waiting to visit both Pizza King and B&K Hot Dog stands in Indiana that I've read about in these forums. I loved the Pizza King (and greatly miss it here in Michigan), but I wasnt too impressed with the B&K Dogs (I'm a chili dog fanatic)... Just didnt have the right spices that I tend to favor. Not that they where bad, just my different taste. But the next guy might brag to high Heaven about them! I just enjoy to read and be able to sample something different. Makes for a nice "culinary" experience, especially when youre traveling down the road and see a sign that rattles that one brain cell that says STOP, I've read about this place!

I couldn't agree more. I always have to figure out whose taste buds are compatible with mine (ooh, that sounds a little wierd, doesn't it!) Sometimes I will try a place regardless of the reviews; other times I will not try a place despite the reviews.

This is also true of movie reviews and music reviews (with no disrespect intended towards the several fine music reviewers active on this site!) For example, Michael Medved -- if he likes a movie, I usually don't like it. If he hates a movie, I will usually go see it and like it. Go figure!

Some restauranteurs take their reviews too seriously. Except in markets were rent is such a critical factor to success (like NYC), I believe good food will always prevail. Sometimes bad food will, too. As I said, go figure

While I agree with the above posters, I also have to say (and this is no blatant attempt at puckering up to anyone's rear) that without fail, the recommendations and reviews that are done specifically by the Sterns have never steered me wrong. I have eaten at many of the recommended places -- on these forums, from their books, from the review pages, etc. Invariably, when I go to a place that I read about on this site, and I find it to be less than I expected, I will research who wrote the recommendation and it has yet to be Jane and Michael.

That said, I am sure that I have steered some people in a direction to one of my absolute favorite places that they, in turn, did not necessarily care for.

The lesson...only trust Jane and Michael's reviews!

Steve

Interesting topic.I totally agree that you can always count on the Sterns. I've been using the Roadfood guides from the beginning. I will take other reviews and reviewers with a small grain of salt. Usually I will follow my own intuition.
With that in mind,I found a real gem here in Raleigh NC where I'm visiting family. We always go to Big Ed's for huge breakfasts or real nice meat and 3 type lunch. Lately I've noticed the service a liitle harried and the prices going up. Don't get me wrong-Big Ed is still there and it's still good but we are always lookin'...
Today we ran across a really great place called Pam's Farmhouse on Western Blvd (not far from NC State Fair grounds) There is a very funky bar called The Goat which shares 1/3 of the bldg. Anyway,we did breakfast and lunch (the place closed at 2:00 pm or we would've been back for dinner! Great people and wonderful roadfood. Fluffy biscuits,cornbread and hushpuppys delivered to the table with a big pitcher of iced tea. Good BBQ,fried chicken,ham.beans it went on and on. My husband thought the fried bologna special was a nice touch. Glad we decided to stop in a place no one we knew here had ever heard of.BTW,the Goat side doesn't open till evening but stays open till4 a.m. just before the biscuits get in the oven

I think a movie review is different. When you go to a movie, you see the exact same movie that the reviewer saw. You may not always agree with the reviewer, but as one poster said, you get to know him over time, so that even when you disagree with him, you understand where he is coming from. With a restaurant I doubt that any reviewer would have given a great review to the cafe that I went to on the date of my visit. That is one of the reasons that I think it is harder to be a restaurant reviewer than movie reviewer. The reviewer's reputation over time depends on somebody else's execution. It may also be a reason why some reviewers make several trips to a location before they write about it.

Maybe I’m over sensitive. But something about recommending a restaurant to someone and then having them not like, really rankles me. A person can almost take it personally. You start with the “well what did you order” “I told you to get x,y and z you dummy”. We’ve all had it happen, send a person to a steak house, they order the fish and then tell you how your favorite joint isn’t that great. Tell them about the best pulled pork, they order the ribs, grrrr…