I saw the LAT story first then clicked over to the link to Yelp.
A Los Angeles spot ranks second: Pisces Poke & Ramen – Los Angeles, CA (What to order? The Truffle Salmon)
Burgerama in Valley Village is in the top five (What to order? The Country Boy Burger)
For what it’s worth, Yelp says the reason mom and pop places rank so high is that their reviewers like the personal, familial way they treat their customers.
I do realize that Yelp doesn’t carry much wait here – I don’t think it does, anyway. But IMO, everyone ends up on Yelp every once in a while even if they’re just trying to figure out what’s close to where they happen to be at the moment. Anyway, I thought it was interesting and worth sharing, without necessarily endorsing the reviews.
Also filing suggestions for later via the bookmark feature and hours. Some restaurants are really good about making sure their hours are updated on there.
Last time this came up, the criteria here was satisfaction. So the places that end up on the top of the Yelp list are usually there because people have low expectations that are then exceeded.
google has all that, pics, bookmarks, menus… and reviews. that’s where i review
i was elite yelper for a long time but it has been about 5 years of just me being over their business practice and reading about people complain about nonsense
i used to belittle yelp, but i’ve come to a perspective that yelp is no better or no worse than FTC. but then my history includes an IT data quality background, so i’m always evaluating source and delivery as much as content. you can’t identify the quality/accuracy of data until you’ve clearly defined how you want to use it.
some folks collect restaurant like badges. the reviews of these types of folks are of little interest to me. some folks have a provincial western palate that leans towards excess vs. balance; someone who claims to love sushi but eats only deep fried fillings such as tempura shrimp and deep fried crab rolls or california rolls with jalapenos is not someone whose review would carry a lot of weight with me.
but just like on FTC there are yelpers whose reviews reflect my sensibilities and i give their reviews more weight even if they had the only dissenting opinion about a place. and it’s easy to find all their reviews since yelp offers a link to all of them. i think it’s a nice feature that yelp allows you to sort reviews chronologically; you can get an idea if a place has changed, especially after a change in ownership. information such as location of the yelper as well as volume of posts can help one clarify the credibility of a review. someone with just one review living out of town is to me an obvious ringer who’s probably friends with the owner.
the bottom line is that there’s useful data on yelp, you just have to know how much of it you find useful and determine a convenient way to locate it.
I wrote an article for the old LA Weekly a couple of years ago (it’s still out there somewhere) on how and why Yelp ratings were particularly off the mark for Chinese restaurants. To prove the point, Yahoo once did a listing of the best Chinese restaurant in each state based on their interpretation of Yelp ratings. Number one in California was The Chairman in SF, which subsequently opened and shuttered in LA.
Yelp is still a good informational site if not a serious food site (I get that from FTC). Too many bitchy people just wanting to slam places. Aside from the above mentioned things one of my favorite Yelp features is a “search” box on every restaurant page where you can plug in a dish or word and it pulls up every review with your search criteria. The times I do Yelp reviews is when the staff was really good to us or to help a nice place that might not be a critical darling… or I’ve had the worse experience and need to vent.
Edit: trying to post a Yelp review with numerous photos is a job. They prompt you to attach more photos but don’t upload all of them and post them out of order. FTC is easier.
respectfully disagree
Yelp requires a lot more work to filter through all of the friends/family, payola and unfamiliarity with the reviewers.
On FTC I have comfortability with many of the posters and their reviews whether its J_L, Porky Belly, The Cookie, Nemroz, NS1, Attran99, Dommy, Chowseeker, you and some others. On Yelp you have to do a lot more homework to figure out the sensibilities and common likes/dislikes with the people reviewing that restaurant.
I was an Elite yelper for a decade and stopped for many of the same reasons as @Nemroz. The payola to buy Elite Yelp reviews with free food/drinks and the de facto payment to force restauranteurs for their better reviews to appear on page 1 or page 2 was too much for me.
