I never read restaurant reviews. I just want to know the name, the address and the ethnic food served. Who needs food reviewers? It is pure BS, just for bringing in adverts. What’s next? Film reviews? Oh, already got that. Book reviews? Oh god, got that too. Why does every god damn thing in the modern world have to reviewed? Can’t people decided for themselves what and where they want to eat, fart, burp, drool, read, play, screw? What’s next? Website reviewers?
[quote=“fred smith”]Hakasonic:
I believe that hotels always know in advance whether someone will be coming to do a review. [/quote]
Of course the hotels know–the ad execs from the papers call them beforehand to let them know they are sending someone to “review” the restaurant. This is usually if the restaurant had bought an ad or if the restaurant is new and the ad dept. is getting ready to sting them.
Flicka, you mean the entire newspaper game is a sting operation to obtain ads to pay for future sting operations? Whatever happened to good old fashioned …journalism?
For those of you with work experience at Taiwan’s English papers, why don’t their internet sites have searchable databases of restaurant reviews?
I think that would be the one of the most useful features of a web site. They could easily make their sites so much better and useful. I don’t really know why they don’t. Is it because upper management never checks their internet pages or it is the usual “chabudwo” attitude towards things?
Yes, it is a viscious cycle of stings and great reviews for mediocre food.
I have several reviews by Frank A. Smith in the China Post in front of me and several of them have very negative comments about
Chinese desserts
Din Tai Feng
Grand Hotel
Service at Chinese restaurants
Noise and Cleanliness Levels
Prices
Also I am looking at David Momphard’s reviews in the Taipei Times and some of these come out and hint pretty openly that all is not perfect. Look closely and I think that you will see what I mean. There is no reason to insult restaurants but I think he is pretty clear about what is not as exceptional.
Yes. It only takes critical thinking skills to catch the negative inferencing in those reviews. I try Gavin’s picks as I trust his elegant and refined palate. 
I’m dead…
[quote=“fred smith”]I have several reviews by Frank A. Smith in the China Post in front of me and several of them have very negative comments about
Chinese desserts
Din Tai Feng
Grand Hotel
Service at Chinese restaurants
Noise and Cleanliness Levels
Prices
Also I am looking at David Momphard’s reviews in the Taipei Times and some of these come out and hint pretty openly that all is not perfect. Look closely and I think that you will see what I mean. There is no reason to insult restaurants but I think he is pretty clear about what is not as exceptional.[/quote]
fred smith praising frank smith: isn’t that like a restaurant owner writing his/her own review?
Hakkasonic:
We are brothers but not related. (Frank and I) 
Now seriously, wasn’t praising anything just pointing out that negative reviews have taken place in the pages of the English dailies. Surely nothing wrong with that. har har har
Fred, what’s with the “ahem” and the “um”? Please stop being so coy. If you know something about the reviewers or if you are a reviewer yourself, why don’t you quit with the hemming and hawing (aheming and uming) and just let us know.
I agree. And I still think that Fred and Frank are one and the same.
But it doesn’t matter if “Fred Smith” is really a Brian, a Jared, or a Sue, “Fred Smith” provides good information to the Forumosa Restaurant forum.
Fee:
I sympathize with your view entirely. It is terrible when writers for local newspapers are coy but I have a friend who is a reporter and he told me that if the connection is too direct than can they really to continue to post honestly here if you get my drift?
So review writers are between Iraq and a hard place. They’ll have to show their mettle then and submit reviews, where applicable, that on the surface appear positive, but to keen readers are nothing but “Nuclear Waste” warnings.
[quote=“fred smith”]Hakkasonic:
We are brothers but not related. (Frank and I)
Now seriously, wasn’t praising anything just pointing out that negative reviews have taken place in the pages of the English dailies. Surely nothing wrong with that. har har har[/quote]
C’mon. Disliking Chinese desserts or noise levels at a restaurant is easy to get away with when writing a review for one of the papers here, but berate a restaurant you are reviewing and the restaurant will go tell their mommy (a.k.a. the ad exec at the paper who told you to write the review) and the writer is in big trouble. Yes, negative reviews do take place, albeit once, before the reporter is banned.
Flicka:
I am sure that many in the profession would answer you by saying what is the point of running a bad review? Point out any negatives by all means. But if the restaurant is so overwhelmingly bad that the whole exercise is just one to shame them in public or score cheap points to prove that you are an “honest” reporter, then giving them the space is just a waste of newsprint. There are reporters who live solely to attack and this somehow verifies that they are an ace reporter. I would say their writing skills probably leave a lot to be desired and this is how they compensate for lack of ability.
If a restaurant has good food but you think it is overpriced, that is acceptable. Mention it. If a restaurant does not have good food but has a very unique atmosphere you can mention that. If the prices are good, the food is okay but the atmosphere is nothing special fine. Bring it up, tell it like it is, but what can possibly be gained by just running an entirely negative piece? Just avoid the place.
I think that everyone who reads the local newspapers already knows who is ethical, principled and honest in their reporting. If you go to the restaurant in question and find that it is a complete kiss ass brown nose job then many others would to and then where would that reporters credibility be? How many times before no one would believe him or her? I suppose there are some reporters who would not care but I think for the ones that do, this would be unacceptable.
Thanks for the clarification, Fred.
Yeah, I understand what you mean. And I respect your wish for privacy and anonimity. (It seems like most of the posters on these forums post anonymously–I do!)
Anyway, thanks for clearing that up.
[quote=“fred smith”]Flicka:
I am sure that many in the profession would answer you by saying what is the point of running a bad review? Point out any negatives by all means. But if the restaurant is so overwhelmingly bad that the whole exercise is just one to shame them in public or score cheap points to prove that you are an “honest” reporter, then giving them the space is just a waste of newsprint.[/quote]
Yes but then the only way for a member of the public to determine whether a certain restaurant he has discovered is good or bad, is to obtain every newspaper published and check the restaurant column. If the restaurant has appeared, it is good. If it has not appeared it is either awful (and therefore no review is published), or no newspaper has visited it yet.
That would not be much of a service to readers.
[quote=“hexuan”][quote=“fred smith”]Flicka:
I am sure that many in the profession would answer you by saying what is the point of running a bad review? Point out any negatives by all means. But if the restaurant is so overwhelmingly bad that the whole exercise is just one to shame them in public or score cheap points to prove that you are an “honest” reporter, then giving them the space is just a waste of newsprint.[/quote][/quote]
So if its resoundingly awful, just ignore it? What kind of service to the reader is that? No offence Fred, but this sounds like total nonsense to me.
Shame them in public? Score cheap points?
I’m pretty sure most readers, like me, do not consider a bad review to be a waste of newsprint. Quite the opposite. Are you working for the restaurant or providing valuable information for your readers? And why do consider it to be scoring cheap points?
I read restaurant reviews in proper newspapers all the time and those critics frequently – frequently – give totally slamming reviews if they feel that is what the place deserves.
Read some of Gillian Glover’s reviews in The Scotsman if you don’t believe me. She even gave cooking-world-darling, he-who-can-do-no-wrong Gordon Ramsay a total bollocking in print. The result? He ACTED on the criticism and his restaurant improved no end.
Unlike Papa G, for example “sometimes people don’t like something.” Well, no shit sherlock!
Good reviewers are respected (but not necessarily liked!) by both their readers AND the restauranteurs. Cheap points, my taut furry butt!
I learnt that with movie reviews, you tell if the film was bad (but they’re not going to tell you), because most of the review is talking about plot points.
What’s the restaurant equivalent then?
Brian
And there you have it. The public knows because they can read it. But what the public does not know is “who is ethical, principled and honest at running their restaurant.”
Your “no need to print negative things” argument sounds suspiciously like the mind-numbingly asinine argument the Taipei Times management trots out every day to keep their jobs secure.
[quote=“fred smith”]Flicka:
I think that everyone who reads the local newspapers already knows who is ethical, principled and honest in their reporting. If you go to the restaurant in question and find that it is a complete kiss ass brown nose job then many others would to and then where would that reporters credibility be? How many times before no one would believe him or her? I suppose there are some reporters who would not care but I think for the ones that do, this would be unacceptable.[/quote]
What credibility? Half of the food reviewers are using pen names. It could be a different person each time for all we know. Perhaps in other countries and other planets there is no point in writing a bad review, but here the big reason no one does it is because the reporter will get in trouble. (And that advertising dollars are shrinking, not going up–another reason to not piss off any restaurants here at the moment.) There certainly are some stinkers out there, but review after review after review, each restaurant always has great food. Perhaps the water had a little too much lemon, perhaps the closest table was too noisy, but besides that everything was perfect.
The only review I can recall that said something bad about the signature food (not some trinket dessert) was for the Hard Rock Cafe years ago. The food was bad and the only thing they had going for it was the “Ring My Bell” gold record next to one of the tables. I am sure the person who knocked their ribs was reprimanded for it, but he or she probably isn’t even here anymore anyway. So much for being in the “profession.”
Then, of course, there are always the good reviews for a restaurant that are run only because the restaurant’s boss was mad to see a good review for a competing restaurant the week before, and called and complained to the ad exec.