A while ago, I played around with the idea of working on a replacement for Yelp. Finding new amazing places to eat and drink is an obsession, but I’ve found Yelp to be an imperfect tool for doing that. I’ve been burned too many times by mediocre 5-star places and finding 3-star places that ended up being incredible hidden gems. Generally, my preferred way of figuring out where to go is recommendations, either from friends or food blogs like Eater SF.
I ended up dropping the idea after running some surveys and finding that most of my friends weren’t degenerate gluttons like me and were fine with existing solutions. However, the question of what makes a good restaurant or bar good still bothered me. There’s something missing that 5 stars don’t quite capture.
Good and Life-Changing Food and Drink
If you’re going out to eat and drink, the number one thing you’ll be thinking about is if what you order will be any good. But scrolling through Yelp, nearly every restaurant is rated 4 or 5 stars, which makes it really hard to figure out the quality of what you’re going to get. In my mind, there is a spectrum of 3 categories: Bad, Good-Enough, and Life-Changing.
Bad is pretty self-explanatory, it’s just plain bad. These are the places that piss you off and ruin your day for having gone there. Either the type of food and drink is bad (maybe something you personally dislike) or it’s just low quality (think cafeteria food). It’s hard to find some of these on Yelp, but you will encounter a fair share of 3 star and below restaurants and bars. Likely though, they are out of business. I don’t have many examples of this, besides my own cooking.
Good-enough feels like a harsh categorization but is generally 90% of the food and drinks you consume. They are restaurants and bars that you enjoy but don’t necessarily wow you. A personal example for me is El Metate. It’s a Mexican restaurant in the Mission that I order from every Monday (yes I’m that consistent). You might think that a place that I order from all the time must be incredible, but for me, it’s just good. When I’m in the mood for some solid Mexican food I know I can count on it being consistent, but it’s not amazing.
15 Romolo is a bar I usually have in my rotation when I’m hanging out in North Beach. It’s a bar that has some decent drinks, but they don’t blow my mind. They’re good enough in the sense that it’s worth making a stop when I’m in the area, but I wouldn’t go completely out of my way to visit.
Life-changing food and drinks are few and far in between, but these are places you will go out of the way for. When you have life-changing food, it’s like seeing in color after having lived in a world of black and white. Most Michelin star restaurants would fit this category. At San Ho Won in the Mission, my friends and I were shocked that something as basic as the rotisserie chicken we ordered could be so delicious. Even though it was “just chicken”, there were flavors that I didn’t even know could exist on chicken.
Pacific Cocktail Haven is an award-winning cocktail bar in Lower Nob Hill, and it’s not hard to see why. They have an incredible selection of unique and flavorful cocktails that massage your palate and go beyond what you would get at your local dive. Using ingredients like pandan, Japanese curry, wasabi, and more, you’re guaranteed to find flavors you’ve never had in a cocktail. Sadly it’s temporarily closed due to a fire (it was too lit).
Vibe and Atmosphere
An underrated part of going out to eat or drink is the setting that you’re doing it in. If all you’re thinking about is filling your appetite, cooking up a meal at home is no problem. But one of the fantastic things about eating out isn’t just what you’re eating, but where you’re eating.
Going out to eat in a major city is like being able to travel to a different place or time without needing to hop on a plane. Some of the best bars and restaurants are the ones that make you feel like you’re in a totally different world. Sadly, this isn’t something that’s easily discernible on a platform like Yelp except for digging through pictures.
For example, one of my favorite restaurants (that tragically closed down when the owners retired) was Walzwerk. Walzwerk was a German restaurant with a great selection of schnitzel, spaetzle, and schwarzbier but the food wasn’t the only thing that made it amazing. The restaurant was actually East German themed, with Lenin, Marx, and Engels watching over diners and models of the Trabant car decorating the restaurant. Eating there felt like being transported to Cold War Germany.
Tiki bars generally do a pretty good job of taking customers to the tropics, but some do a much better job than others. Some of the best bars I’ve been to include Zombie Village in the Tenderloin and Last Rites near Duboce Triangle. Zombie Village is extremely over the top, with a simulated night sky and palmed cabanas available to reserve. Going to Last Rites feels like being taken onto the set of Lost, with the bar actually sitting inside an airplane fuselage.
It’s not just bougie places that bring out the good vibes though. One of my all-time favorite taquerias is Taqueria Vallarta on 24th Street. In addition to having some good street tacos, the inside of the restaurant has beautifully painted murals about Mexican-American history in San Francisco. It’s a restaurant that has an amazing story to tell.
What about an example of a place that doesn’t do the vibe just right? Personally, I don’t go to Kitchen Story for the atmosphere. It’s a great spot with amazing brunch, don’t get me wrong. But the setting is entirely forgettable, just generic Millenial pleasing.
In fact, most restaurants that cater to Millenials would probably fit this category. 20 years from now, I’m sure people will look at identical-looking Yuppie restaurants with the same disdain that millennials currently ascribe to Applebee’s and Sizzlers (or any other family chain restaurant).
Now when it comes to vibe, there is another dimension that comes into play besides uniqueness, and that is the bougie-divey dimension. Bougie (aka bourgeois) restaurants and bars are the fancy ones that you go to for date night. Divey restaurants and bars are like dive bars; they have a lot of personality but are maybe a… fourth date option. So on your first date, you might go for the safe bougie choice even if you have to make a sacrifice on uniqueness. But when you’re really trying to build a relationship and share your personality, go to places with personality for a more authentic connection.
Value (including Time)
Finally, there’s value. Generally, this is something that Yelp does well with their dollar range ($-$$$$). For the most part, you can expect a $ place to satisfy you and a $$$$ place to wow you (both in terms of food, drink, and decor) but this isn’t always the case, as there are some incredible $ places and overrated $$$$ places. But I think the other missing aspect here is time.
As an example, Mensho Tokyo SF was a place I waited 4 years to try out. Not because I have a thing against ramen (I LOVE ramen actually) but because every time I would go, there would be a massive line. It landed a permanent spot in my head; if people were waiting in line it must be good. Finally, I got the opportunity to try it with some friends and it was… fine (I would place the food firmly in the good-enough category). It was the kind of restaurant that if there were no line, I would most likely make it a part of my regular rotation. But the food and vibes weren’t good enough for me to warrant waiting again.
The ability to make reservations at some places does make it “cheaper” (in a time sense) to eat and drink at certain restaurants and bars. But a place that makes me work my wallet and my schedule but doesn’t blow me away with taste or atmosphere will probably not see a return visit from me again.
Yelp Still Makes Me So Mad
As I finish writing this in New York City, I scrolled around on Yelp to try and figure out what to get for dinner for the week and found… nothing that convinced me. One friend asked me for suggestions for where to go, and I ended up hitting my tried and true source Eater, New York edition. Maybe one day I will find more people with the same problem I have and culinary happiness. But for now, I’ll be relying on food blog gut checks and getting some recommendations from my friends.