If so, which ones? Google, Tripadvisor, Yelp (Is that still active?), Facebook, personal blogs like Hungry Girl’s? Google seems to have taken over the others for being the most accessible, most popular, up-to-date and reliable. But I think I’m getting a bit too dependent on Google. A friend recommended a place to me recently, and upon checking it on Google, I found that it only had 3.5 stars and quickly decided not to go. Maybe I’m missing out on some good places due to the negative reviews.
I don’t trust reviews. I trust the pictures of the food in reviews.
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I check Google. Not over reliant but it definetly has some weight.
How about beautiful and bland food?
I’m a dude. I only get off the couch for what’s on the outside.
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I look at pictures and reviews. But reviews can be BS, lots of people with poor taste. I don’t trust any reviews while in Malaysia, people say places are so good and the food taste awful.
In Taiwan, hardly at all - there just isn’t enough of a review base, at least in Yelp or Google. If there’s a lengthy written review in English that may make me decide whether or not to go; I use Yelp more when I’m in Canada.
If I had better Chinese I’d probably try to “follow” a few prolific reviewers and see what they like, but my skills aren’t up to that.
The main way I use Google and/or Yelp is to see what’s nearby, rather than to see what people think about what’s nearby.
Most of the restaurants I try these days are probably from forumosa recommendations. I used to go by Hungry Girl posts a lot more, but she doesn’t post much in the blog these days.
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I use Yelp. I know some people hate Yelp, so people can give me shit if they want. But generally I find it pretty accurate. I don’t want to waste money on shit food because I was too proud to check out a place’s reviews beforehand.
You’re right Taiwanese don’t really use Yelp. So it’s not useful for Taiwanese places. But expats still use it here, so I find it useful for western establishments.
Browsing through the reviews you’ll often find morons. One women was going on about this delicious lentil soup that she trashed, she said it wasn’t even made from lentils. I questioned her and realized she doesn’t know there are red lentils…Or stupid people calling garbage food authentic Chinese food when it’s more like Panda Express.
Sure, there’s going to be morons. So if you’re checking reviews it’s best to pay more attention to ones with large pools of reviewers so you get a more accurate average. If a place only has 4 or 5 reviews, I wouldn’t pay attention. But if it has 50 or so, you can get a good idea if it sucks or not.
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Not true in a place called Malaysia lol. I can’t trust anyone there.
@Andrew0409 you are traumatizing me. Everytime I hear ‘Malaysia’ I think of you, or the fighting chef, or your diaherria
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Google Maps is my go-to has all the information, opening hours and a variety of reviews but you have to use them wisely. And I might have pinned that spot a month or a year ago by comments from friends or someone else. Then can find ready if I happen to be in the area.
Can not use blogs or sites like hungrygirl because I don’t need one persons 500 sentence positive description.
I need 20, 30 or a 100 people’s one or two sentence description and rating.
Sites like yelp still not usable enough for me in Taiwan.
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Yeah @Andrew0409 has singlehandedly made me not want to visit Malaysia, which probably isn’t fair to a country that I previously thought I might check out one day (before I was inundated with stories of violent diarrhea, ghost elevators and rundown restaurants).
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There goes my dream of retirement long vacations in Malaysia
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I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemies.
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I do check reviews and photos, but as everyone’s saying it’s normally pretty lacking. Sometimes I just take a chance. More often I just rely on word of mouth. I’m more likely to go somewhere new if someone I trust recommends it to me.
I follow a couple of Taipei and Taiwan food blogs, too. Those generally don’t lead me astray.
I usually first google the place, look at the photos and a few reviews. Then I find it on Facebook and look at the reviews there.
This is a useful tip. I started doing this a year or so back, just pinning places to try (or that I’ve tried) in Google Maps. Months later I’ll be in the area and open Google Maps and see the pin - so that’s lunch or dinner decided.
Re: westerner use of Yelp: true, there are reviews there, but often in Taipei it’s not so much “What’s the best Middle Eastern place near me?” but rather “IS THERE a Middle Eastern place in town?” So in that sense the reviews often aren’t very useful - if I want to eat that style of cuisine, I don’t have much choice in this city. Like Ed’s Diner or Baba Kevin - both good, but they’re basically the ONLY barbecue places in this city, so good reviews or bad, I’d have gone to them eventually. (And I do recommend both.)
I assume that tapping into Chinese-language reviews would help me make choices between the bajillion Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean places.
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I make a lot of surprising discoveries this way.