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Arby’s is one of the best restaurants in Atlanta

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (6 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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People who are professional food critics

People who think they are professional food critics

Culinary genius at work.  Let’s put chocolate chips on pancakes.  How do people come up with this stuff?

Yelp thought they were helping us.  It is a great idea: put the power back in the hands of the people rather than the manipulated and arrogant professionals.  The only problem is that most of the people are idiots.

My wife and I were trying to figure out a good place to eat a few weeks ago, so we fired up the trusty MacBook and sailed on over to yelp, a site that lets amateurs rate restaurants (among other things) on a 5-point scale.

One of the first things you’ll notice on yelp is that every single restaurant in the world has 3.64 stars.  Part of the problem is that people don’t know how to rate restaurants.  Here is a 5-star review of one of the worst restaurants I have ever eaten at in Atlanta:

The dishes are garnished with hand-carved carrots and other vegetables that are stunning and just too pretty to eat.

Clearly, the food was too pretty for you to eat: if you had overcome the beauty of the carrots, you would have put the food in your mouth and puked in your Thai tea.  And here is a negative review of the place:

The utensils tell the story.  No “Thai Spoon,” just a fairly heavy and ornate bronze colored fork sat lonely atop a napkin.

Thank you, sage food guru Dickens.  ”As the dark curry clouds rolled over my rice noodles, the visages of patrons were overcome with duck sauce tears.”  Give me a fucking break.

Between these two reviews, and many others, this restaurant ends up getting almost the same score as one of my favorites in town, Watershed.  The chef at this place won the James Beard Award, which is sort of like an Oscar for these guys.  Here’s an excerpt from Krystal W’s in-depth review:

But honestly speaking when it comes to southern cuisine, the decor and the food (at least for me) go hand-in-hand. In other words, they kind of have to match to create the true ambiance of the south.

I couldn’t agree more.  I only eat southern food served by barefoot, shirtless men in overalls and straw hats.  If I ever get another taco not served in a place where chickens roam the floors, I’ll leave immediately.  If I’m allowed to discuss the government in a Chinese restaurant, the food simply CANNOT be good.  And don’t get me started on traditional Israeli food: the last time I went for some, not a SINGLE person tried to suicide bomb the place.  Unacceptable.

So as we perused the ratings, we strongly considered #22 in Atlanta: IHOP (no, I am not kidding); before deciding on one of our favorites, Tacqueria Del Sol, which was rated lower than the Chick Fil A down the street.

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November 5, 2008 | Filed Under food and eating 

comments

5 Responses to “Arby’s is one of the best restaurants in Atlanta”

  1. David Plant on November 5th, 2008

    Are those pancakes from Pancake Pantry, per chance? In any case, I love the addition of deer pellets to the top – very organic.

  2. Mike on November 5th, 2008

    Yeah, couldn’t agree more on the stupidity of people point, but yelp is still very useful if you know how to use it and have a lot of time.

    It tells you about the people in the city, and the type of people that go to certain places. Especially I’ve found it useful for finding bars more than anything. The best thing is to find an idiot with a long review, often you can gather that if they hate it it is good and vice versa.

    For example, it tells you something about the people of a city where IHOP is rated highly.. I’m not sure what. I guess I would gather from that Atlanta people are really unpretentious.

  3. Jess on November 6th, 2008

    Here’s where my Miami brain went when I saw that photo: “Black beans on pancakes?? What next?!”
    Strangely enough, I have more favorite restaurants in Gainesville and Maryville than Miami. Might have something to do with the tragic lack of sweet tea.

  4. Soulxtract on November 6th, 2008

    Tacqueria Del Sol… PROPER!!!
    Screw the “popular vote.” As you said.. “amateurs rate restaurants” will give you a crap shoot of results. It’s always more fun to find that one off restaurant (del Sol for instance) and savor it until the the mass majority takes it over.

  5. Kate on February 18th, 2009

    I love Taqueria del Sol. But Chick-fil-a might be a notch up. A notch on a different belt, of course. I wish I had that pancake right now.

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