foodha for thought - menuism blog

Your marriage proposal left something to be desired. You can’t remember the last time you told your mother that you loved her. Hey, you’re just not good with emotions. So how can you write a restaurant review that says how you really feel?

Abandon the Obvious. Start by ending your love affair with words like good, delicious, and perfect. They’re the comfort blankets of the English language and you’re all grown up now. You don’t need to be a foodie to know what you’re tasting. Remember it. Was it crispy? Was it soft on the inside? Did it have a sweet aftertaste?

Take Pictures. Pictures will jolt your memory and fill in the gaps in your description. Plus, everyone loves a little smutty food porn. Take these examples.

A photo by justin wickedly labeled, “All You Can Eat”. From Tadashi Sushi.

A burrito for a small army from Sandiago’s Mexican Grill. Photo by fattiusthebear.

Write about the Interesting and Funny. Was there a fire in the kitchen? Were the men sitting one table over squabbling over their golf game? These things are all part of the dining experience. If it really stood out in your memory, write about it.

Don’t Hide Your Personality. Some of us can do the whole swirl, sniff and slurp wine tasting without giggling, and some of us can’t. So what if you don’t write for Gourmet magazine? There are still countless numbers of people who want to read about your opinion. After all, that’s why they’re visiting a public restaurant review site.

Re-Read Your Review. After you’ve finished, take a moment to look back. Check for typos that make you look silly. Try to read it from the point of view of a stranger: would you be captivated by what you’re reading? Would you find it useful? Would you give yourself an A? Tweak as necessary.

Menuism Users Show You How It’s Done
Or, select words from the superstars.

Rayvenhaus
Motto: Searching the bounty main for the best restaurants!
Best Trait: His honesty results in laugh-out-loud reviews. He also brings in personal experience. “I’ve slopped food in cleaner pig troughs then the bathroom at this restaurant.” (Taco Bell, Lynwood)
Memorable quotes: “I’m telling you what, I love the service at this place. I think next time I’ll try one of their Subs in a Tub.”(Jersey Mike’s Subs)

trufflupagus
Best Trait: Her far-reaching vocabulary: not surprising, considering she’s a professional writer (and photographer). She describes the Mexican Bloody Mary at Café Colonial as “a mix of vodka and tequila with perfectly piquant tomato juice and spices.” And she makes the Shrimp al Ajillo at El Faro sound like a Biblical experience. “A terrific rendition of this incredible classic – small shrimp, bubbling in a clay casserole filled with hot sauce and an immense amount of garlic…” Want some yet?
Memorable Quotes: “You have to be a super-hardcore capsaicin addict to tango with these peppers.” (Spicy & Tasty)

tommers
Motto: The deliciousness is in the details!
Best Trait: He merrily foodies his way from start to finish: his four visits to the Three Seasons Restaurant in Palo Alto cumulated in an 811-word review. Skip a sentence and you’ll be missing out on gourmet-ing vicariously. But he’s no grumpy food critic: in his hundreds of words, you’ll be loath to find any more critical than “wasn’t great.”
Memorable Quotes: Worth noting are his epic struggles with the limiting star rating system. About Saha he writes, “Four stars, just barely”; with AUX Delices, it’s “Four stars going on five?”. But the best may be his happy response to the EOS Restaurant & Wine Bar: “Hot damn! What a great meal!”

My job involves looking at hundreds of restaurant websites. As multiple tabs gather on my Firefox, I mildly worry that an animated chef doing the polka might show up in my dreams. Restaurant websites are a recipe for disaster, as owners are notoriously tight-fisted and their website designer is often the lowest bidder.
At a recent conference I attended for restaurant owners and managers, a speaker said, “You have to get into the twenty-first century with a website for your business.” The bad news is that owners are listening. Here are some things that that will send your potential customers lunging for the X in the corner of the screen.

Overenthusiastic Use of Multimedia: I’ve seen sites that have buttons that squeal, squeak, or moan every time a mouse runs over them and animated knives that sharpen themselves as a transition to every page.Too often, the multimedia takes the place of actual content; it’s these sorts of sites that have the most “Under Construction” pages – a good segue to the next point.
Serious Offender: Gregoire’s Restaurant . The links are swirling images that I can’t identify, but they look suspiciously like rounded coffins. Move your mouse and out pops the name of the link in a seedy-looking font. Are we meant to be surprised or terrified?

The Under Construction Page: If a page doesn’t exist yet, don’t link to it. There’s nothing more frustrating than clicking on a link that promises information but doesn’t deliver.
Serious Offender: Burrito Boyz . If I were an investor trying to get that ball rolling by clicking on “Invest”, I’d be greeted with a sadly pixelated Under Construction image. Bad news. Anyway, did I say nothing’s more frustrating than the under construction page? That’s a lie. Take the next point, for instance.

Playing Hide-and-Seek: Your potential customer shouldn’t have to hunt for your address, phone number, or other contact information. Put these things on the front page.

Manager in a Fortress: Hey, Rapunzel? If your customer had an especially good or bad experience (okay, most likely bad) she’s going to want to e-mail the owner or manager. Either post your e-mail address or create a feedback form. You can’t placate an angry customer who can’t reach you.
Serious Offender: Bob Chinn. if you’d like, you can read his entire biography, and you can even sign up to have him send you e-mails, but your chance of reaching him is slim to none unless you hire a private detective.

Music: Sorry, Beethoven; vocal website are so Web 1.0, and for good reason. The person doing dinner sleuthing at work will be given away by a burst of music to annoy the coworkers; another person already listening to music will be treated to an unpleasant remix. Play your favorite music at your restaurant; keep it off the internet.
Serious Offender: Katana. No one wants to buy your “Sounds of Katana” CD to “escape into a world of smoky sake, sexy candle-lit moment and luxurious beats” while they’re eating Bagel Bites.

The Orphaned Website: You can’t just slap your logo, address and menu onto a site and forget about it for months. Think of your website as your portfolio that needs continual updating. Post your specials every time they debut and display positive reviews as you receive them.

Thank goodness for Menuism, which will give you all the information you need with an interface that’s just as pretty as you please.

We’re often asked how Menuism can help find new and tasty places to eat. We’ve worked hard to build a number of tools (tagging, map-based filtering and sorting, ratings, favorites, etc.) that help those hungering for new tastes to find and choose what they want. But what if you need a little extra inspiration? What does Menuism have for you?

We’re happy to announce the addition of suggestions to the Menuism world. We’ve got two types of suggestions for your dining pleasure:

1. Restaurant-based: restaurants that are user favorites will show other restaurants that those users also liked.
2. User-based: it doesn’t get any easier than this – check your user homepage (“My Home”) for a daily restaurant recommendation, based on your own Favorites and the opinions of those you’re a fan of. Menuism can’t read your mind (yet), so make sure to mark your favorite restaurants to help us give you good suggestions.

Try out the suggestions and let us know what you think. This is just the beginning of the suggestions feature, so we’re open to any ideas to make it more useful/accurate/pretty/and so on.

-John