Should we judge restaurants by their best?

[Fat Guy]

Recent discussion about a favorite (of many people) New York restaurant raises a question about how we evaluate restaurants. Not to pick on that one place, let's take some hypothetical restaurants:

Restaurant X has 40 dishes on its menu. Approximately 30 of them are poor. The other 10 are amazingly good.

Restaurant Y has 12 dishes on its menu, and 11 of them are terrible. But there's a single dish that's one of the best dishes in town.

Restaurant Z has 10 dishes on its menu, all of which are excellent on some days and poor on other days.

How do we judge such places? Do we take the glass-half-full approach, and say any restaurant with a single great dish is something to celebrate? Or do we take a glass-half-empty approach, and say that there's no excuse for having any poor dishes on the menu?

Of course, if you know the good and bad dishes (at least in examples X and Y), you know how to order a good meal. But what level of concern should we have for the innocent bystander who just wanders in and has no way to know which dishes are good or bad, and therefore is likely to get a majority of bad dishes?

Just a starting point for a discussion.

[markk]

As I read this, I wasn't sure what specific question you'd be asking at the conclusion, so I had all my answers ready in my mind, and then you asked something I didn't see coming.

Not to sound nasty, but I don't have any concern for the innocent bystander who wanders in.

For myself, my main concern, I wouldn't be going to Z, but I'd go to X and Y when I was craving one of the good dishes. And if I sent somebody there, I'd warn them about the bad dishes to avoid. If somebody asked me about restaurant Z, I'd tell them just what you stated. But as far as an innocent bystander, it wouldn't be a concern of mine at all.

I guess that in the case of Restaurant Z, if the critics and the members of the online community making public comments luck out badly and get mostly the dishes on their bad days, it's going to make it harder for that restaurant to survive. Same for just the word of mouth of the innocent bystanders. (In my town, it wouldn't make a difference; people line up for restaurants so horrible to my taste that it's like begging for school cafeteria food, but that's not NY now that I think of it.)

So for me, I wouldn't give any thought to the innocent bystander, and I don't know why in this context I would. Oh, maybe if I happened to see one studying the menu outside such a restaurant I'd warn him as I passed by, but that'd be the extent of my concern.

[Margo]

Sorry, but do you always already know what to order in whatever restaurant you walk into? Are you never that benighted innocent bystander who has no inside dope on what to order, but simply goes for what looks appealing based on the menu and what she has a taste for?

Not having followed whatever discussion led to FG's topic opener here, I guess I'd call restaurant X pretty good, restaurant Y not so good if not downright bad, and restaurant Z a crapshoot. At least if X and Y are consistent, the diner has a chance of hitting the good dishes on a regular basis once she's identified them. That is, if she's hit the good dishes on the first visit and is inspired by them to want to come back. Restaurant Z is the worst of the lot, I think, because the diner really never knows what she'll get out of the kitchen.

And I think we'd be right to be concerned for the innocent bystander. Even if I think she has poor taste.

[Daniel Rogov]

From the point of view of the critic, to taste broadly enough and on several occasions in order to give potential clients a fair set of expectations.

From the point of view of the client aforewarned and with that set of expectations, no reason to be unhappy as long as those expectations are met. After all, the client chose to go there with what we can think of as advance informed consent

From the point of view of the client who simply wanders in with no knowledge aforehand, same possibilities in any place on the planet. Imagine, for example, the Martian who visits our little planet, has his or her first burger at Peter Luger, likes it and then, seeing that they offer burgers at McDonald's wanders in there.....

[Joisey]

40 dishes and 30 of them poor? .250 makes you mediocre in baseball, even if you do hit a few home runs. Same thing for a restaurant. This implies to me that the kitchen stumbled across a few good dishes and maybe their menu is too big. Probably the easiest to help of the three choices.

A restaurant with one good dish and the rest suck? Forget it.

A restaurant that's hit and miss on everything? I'd be more wary of this than the first one, someone isn't paying attention in the back. A crap shoot at best, and at NYC prices and time gambled, not worth it.

This is all from an analytical standpoint. Who the hell knows what an innocent bystander is going to like or dislike?

[Pan]

Recent discussion about a favorite (of many people) New York restaurant raises a question about how we evaluate restaurants. Not to pick on that one place, let's take some hypothetical restaurants:

Restaurant X has 40 dishes on its menu. Approximately 30 of them are poor. The other 10 are amazingly good.

Restaurant Y has 12 dishes on its menu, and 11 of them are terrible. But there's a single dish that's one of the best dishes in town.

Restaurant Z has 10 dishes on its menu, all of which are excellent on some days and poor on other days.[...]

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I tell people to get ONLY the 10 good dishes at Restaurant X and warn them that I am not responsible for what will happen to their tastebuds and general demeanor if they order anything else. I tell them not to go if they can't control the dining habits of the other members of their party.

I tell people that as long as Restaurant Y has the one good dish, it's worth going to if you like that kind of dish, but that because everything else there is horrible, it's hard to know whether even that dish will deteriorate without notice. I do not recommend the restaurant.

As for Restaurant Z, I simply warn people that they're playing Russian roulette if they go there.

None of the people I discuss these restaurants with are innocent bystanders, and those who are would be people I don't know and have no chance to speak with, so that's their tough luck.

If you're asking how the restaurants should be rated in terms of a review, It's clear to me that Restaurants X and Y do not deserve a rating higher than "fair," unless perhaps if the menu at Restaurant X makes it evident to anyone with cursory knowledge of the cuisine that the 30 poor dishes are only for ignoramuses (as in a great Sichuan-style restaurant with typical Chinese takeout-level American-Chinese food). Restaurant Z may deserve a star, but with a warning.