Why I dislike Yelp rather strongly

I think Yelp! has some utility.

Having said that, I really dislike it a lot - especially when it comes to restaurants.

My mother owned a couple of restaurants - not fine dining, but neighborhood joints where you'd sit down with friends and have a good meal. She has marked saltine preferences. My sister's been front and back of house in the same kinds of places. I started work life as a waitress at Maxine's Continental Restaurant and Lounge (not as fancy as it sounds). I also worked at the NCO Club at Ft. Indiantown Gap, Robbie's Carry-Out Pizza in Gettysburg, PA (prep, pizza maker, front of house, delivery), Creme de la Creme Pastry in Monterey and as a volunteer caterer over various firepits as part of the California Rodeo Salinas. I've been a wedding cake consultant, pastry deliverer, outside salesperson, finisher, and maker of many, many pounds of shrimp scampi - once over an open fire in the Salinas Valley in midsummer. I was married to a waiter at Spanish Bay.

I read cookbooks like other people read novels. The place in my head where other women pair off shoes, purses and cute little dresses was co-opted early on by rotating ingredients to see if they worked together.(Note to all: anchovies in meatloaf - bad idea.) I pay full price for "Cooks' Illustrated" at the newsstand.  I have over 30 episodes of "Good Eats" with Alton Brown on TiVO and I've actually read "Cookwise" by Shirley Corriher. I still don't understand carbon chains, but I'm trying.

All that's to say I'm not a chef, but I know a little bit about cooking and what makes a professional kitchen succeed - and how easy it is to have an epic fail. I once met a couple who fancied themselves gourmets. Okay, you know good food, I'm with you. They announced that any restaurant with three Michelin stars should NEVER have a bad night. And by the way, they said, "the French Laundry wasn't all that." I ventured to say that ANY kitchen was subject to the vicissitudes of its employees. If your dishwasher, one waiter and oh, a busser, all call in sick - you're way behind the eight ball, if not totally screwed. They snapped at me that the Michelin three-star should have "people on call."

Okay, I don't know where you're finding a dishwasher, a waiter and a busser - who don't make much money to begin with - sitting around with no other work, just waiting for you to call them on a Friday night, but good on ya.

I've read Yelp reviews where diners panned dishes not served at the restaurant. I've read reviews where they were "watching the elephant seals" on Monterey's Fisherman's Wharf. Spoiler alert: We have no elephant seals on the Wharf. One reviewer in high dudgeon dished that her server went to a neighboring restaurant to get dinner. The neighboring restaurant had the same owner; their meal policy allowed for it.

And here's the really sucky part of Yelp: If you own the business in question, you have to provide all your information plus a picture of yourself to respond to bad reviews, whereas the Yelpers can be anonymous with only an email address and first and last name - which they can totally fabricate.

So an anonymous "reviewer" can negatively affect business based on one bad - or imagined - or falsified - experience, while the business owner has to put him or herself out there to attempt to redeem the experience. Or, I, as a competitor, can create (and have my employees create) a bunch of yahoo mail accounts and post uninformed BS to my heart's content.

Go ahead and look at Yelp, but consult a site or publication staffed by professionals, like Gayot.com, Zagat Guide, or your local paper. Get the whole picture. And give a restaurant more than one try if you have a bad night out. Or at least ask a friend or two to check it out another day.

Thanks!

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack. . .

A lot of people have told me that they think it would be awesome to have my job and they want to know more about what it's like to be a food writer. Well, while I'd never complain about my work, here are some of the ups and downs:

Ups:
Free food. Amazing service.
Meeting celebrities and seeing what they're really like.
Getting a table pretty much any time I want one (I NEVER, EVER abuse this privilege).
Hearing about new trends early.
Trying the chef's new dishes first.
Enjoying luxe locations and occasional overnight accommodations.
Being invited to all kinds of goings-on.
Being on chefs' and winemakers' holiday gift lists.
Not having to settle for well drinks.

Downs:
Server and management at my table every 5 minutes, "just to see how things are going."
Meeting celebrities and seeing what they're really like.
Being the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
Five days. Five restaurants. Serum cholesterol test on day six. . .
Two lunches in three hours because I'm on deadline.
People who want to use me.
Fake people.

Here's my favorite part of my job: I get to meet amazing people and see them in action. Case in point: Sometime in the recent past I was reviewing a restaurant. The five tables in my server's section were so close together, she could barely insert herself between them. Besides me (the known reviewer), she had two seasoned citizens who wanted the menu "their way," two tourists who fancied themselves restaurant savants, and a man who'd brought his wife - who had dementia, Alzheimer's or both - to dinner. The server never batted an eye. She treated me with grace, she accommodated the seniors, she calmed the tourists down and sent them on their way with a map to places for breakfast, and treated the wife with dementia as if she were her own grandmother.

I over-tipped, but probably not enough. Watching the woman work was inspirational. She was a portrait of patience and compassion. I'm thinking that if you look around, you'll see plenty like her in your everyday life. But you have to look. Your server has to be a human being in your eyes. So does your driver, your masseur, and your stylist. They are often among the most amazing humans you'll ever meet. Open your eyes. Admire the class in the person who's serving you.

That's what it's like to be me.