MEME MONDAY: YELP

There's a lot of food out there on those crazy interwebs and this feature, Meme Monday, highlights places dedicated to it, be they favored food-related websites, reference sites or, gasp, blogs.

Sure, you know Zagat and Michelin, but do you Yelp?

Yelp is a site where people review businesses be they watering hole, laundromat, bicycle store, Ferrari dealership, quick-bite or white-linen sit-down, in local neighborhoods or while vacation-visiting--and they're reviews written by you and me and not necessarily by those who review as part of a job with an expense account devoted just to eating.

There's some democracy to Yelp. I gave Tabla one star because it sorely disappointed me after all the hype I'd hear. But most other people really liked it and gave it four stars. Tabla's average Yelp rating is thus still four stars. Does it deserve a four-star rating? I don't think so. But that's the beauty of the site, you can read the details of why each person gave Tabla four stars and you can read their profiles to see what their other likes and dislikes are to give more bearing to their evaluations (on the other hand, White House Subs has four stars from me and no one else has reviewed it yet so it's four stars are all standing on my recommendation, twinkle, twinkle).

Do you have to be careful of people handing out four or five stars like they're canned pineapple rings at a bad Chinese restaurant? Sure, but Yelp can also help you avoid that Chop Suey to begin with.

My Yelp profile features abbreviated reviews of all the restaurants you've read about here on Kitchen Toro. Coming soon, a restaurant reviews page where you can find all reviews categorized by location.