The debut of MetaKnife, aka ShortCuts

Posting has been sluggish as I wrestle with a quandry: Restaurant reviews.

The internet has too many already, although too few offer what The Knife wants to know.

For example: Who goes here? Any valet issues? Can the next table hear me better than my dining companion? Do they serve an $80 wine in a Smart & Final wineglass?

And then there’s the adjective problem. “The fish was ____, but the potatoes were ______.” It doesn’t take many for a review to resemble Mad Libs.

So, I’m going to go heavy on the facts, easy on the adjectives. However, there’s no reason you should rely on my opinion because I’m also throwing in MetaKnife. (Not crazy about the name, BTW, but I didn't want to let posting lapse any longer. If you have a better idea, holler.) (We have a winner in ShortCuts!) It’s an average based on a four-star scale as culled from multiple review sources — print, online and blog. If you want to learn about it, here’s more than you probably want to know:

The MetaKnife ShortCuts rating system is not unlike one employed by the good folks at Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic. If a reviewer uses stars or numbers system, I translate it (as needed) to a four-star system. If they don't use ratings (as Jonathan Gold at LA Weekly or Chowhound), it's my best assessment. For instance, I read all of these Chowhound reviews of Bin 8945 to come up with a 1 1/2-star rating. (Also under consideration is the fact that Chowhound can be a veritable cesspool of plants and shills.)

Shills, of course, don’t count. In fact, if I come across a review that sounds especially shillicious, I will do my best to embarrass the hell out of them. (Props to Eater for leading the way on this charge.)

I’m enough of a nerd to wish that I could break it down even further, but I’m not enough of a nerd to figure out the software; I don’t even know how to create three-quarters of a star. So for now, it’s halves and wholes. 

It’s not a perfect system, so you’ll have to trust me. Or not. But you should.

Comments

[Big Bomb]

Lord, that looks like you