Thomas Carlyle is fingered as the person who first called Economics – The Dismal Science. Well, what could be more dismal than rating restaurants?
I realize that many of my readers respect me for having the guts to put my butt on the line in rating Paris restaurants or at least are enablers to my doing it. I also realize that many readers think that any such rating system is pure hokum, hooey and baloney.
But since I cut my teeth in writing at the Lampoon and have spent my life in science, I’ve developed a solid explanation of how, where, why, when and who –the journalist’s measuring tape.
So let’s take an example from last month – Mark Singer’s Le Dodin.
As I sat recording my impressions on a handy-dandy Rhodia Bloc pad I was mentally thinking through how the meal was going and at the time of delivery of the coffee and the check – wrote 4.5 in the upper left corner. Why? Because, as I tell my grandchildren, as my children before them, that’s what it was.
But what’s the science behind, what’s the basis of, what’s the explanation underlying a number like 4.5 in a 0-10, really a -2 to 9 scale? Why not 6 or 4 or 4.66666? Like the Wizard of Oz or Jonathan Safran Foer, all will be illuminated. Here, now, by me, alone.
I realize that many of my readers respect me for having the guts to put my butt on the line in rating Paris restaurants or at least are enablers to my doing it. I also realize that many readers think that any such rating system is pure hokum, hooey and baloney.
But since I cut my teeth in writing at the Lampoon and have spent my life in science, I’ve developed a solid explanation of how, where, why, when and who –the journalist’s measuring tape.
So let’s take an example from last month – Mark Singer’s Le Dodin.
As I sat recording my impressions on a handy-dandy Rhodia Bloc pad I was mentally thinking through how the meal was going and at the time of delivery of the coffee and the check – wrote 4.5 in the upper left corner. Why? Because, as I tell my grandchildren, as my children before them, that’s what it was.
But what’s the science behind, what’s the basis of, what’s the explanation underlying a number like 4.5 in a 0-10, really a -2 to 9 scale? Why not 6 or 4 or 4.66666? Like the Wizard of Oz or Jonathan Safran Foer, all will be illuminated. Here, now, by me, alone.
By now, I was all alone at my table, my guest/buddy/pal/supporter/friend/etc, having left for a real job and I dissected the meal like a cadaver; piece by piece.
8.0 Setting (I had my 60th Birthday party here in their private dining room when it was my beloved Petit Colombier, the primo game joint in town, and it’s been improved if anything.)
6.0 Amuse of a soup of Jerusalem artichoke, semi-warm, smooth, nice!
2.0 Bread from some jerk down the street, almost crisp crust, soggy interior, for what they’re charging, they could do better.
6.0 Terrine of lapereau with marinated onions and diced marinated veggies, too much sel on top but otherwise quite good.
5.0 (reminder, 5/10 is modal, average, standard, midrange, not bad/not good) Cream of lentil soup with bacon strips on top.
4.0 Sauteed or roasted pork belly with gnocchi, so, show me something.
-1.0 A circle of pressed fish with one (nice, succulent) tiny bit of lobster and lots of sauce and other stuff such as black olives that didn’t belong there.
9.0 A white chocolate concoction that was simply the best dessert of the week, the month, the decade? Boy oh boy!
5.0 An apple tartlette that was again, just average for the territory.
7.0 Service – friendly, brisk in a nice sort of way, efficient, watchful of one’s index finger, etc. Snippy though when asked about private room on floor 2.3.
1.0 Price-quality
So if my math is correct, and it’s better than a guy I ate with earlier that week who works in the Financial Sector who was off by 10 Euros in calculating my portion of the bill (which I refused on principle, this isn’t my Mother’s Schraft’s after all – even though when I got home and looked, I had had 1 E more) but hey, it’s all Merkel’s fault, non?, 52÷11=4.7. I swear to you I have nothing up my sleeves, no bunny I didn’t eat, no handkerchiefs in a pencil – just pure instinct. Aren’t I wonderful?
Rating systems, paraphrasing Churchill on democracy, are the worst form of judging restaurants, except “for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
8.0 Setting (I had my 60th Birthday party here in their private dining room when it was my beloved Petit Colombier, the primo game joint in town, and it’s been improved if anything.)
6.0 Amuse of a soup of Jerusalem artichoke, semi-warm, smooth, nice!
2.0 Bread from some jerk down the street, almost crisp crust, soggy interior, for what they’re charging, they could do better.
6.0 Terrine of lapereau with marinated onions and diced marinated veggies, too much sel on top but otherwise quite good.
5.0 (reminder, 5/10 is modal, average, standard, midrange, not bad/not good) Cream of lentil soup with bacon strips on top.
4.0 Sauteed or roasted pork belly with gnocchi, so, show me something.
-1.0 A circle of pressed fish with one (nice, succulent) tiny bit of lobster and lots of sauce and other stuff such as black olives that didn’t belong there.
9.0 A white chocolate concoction that was simply the best dessert of the week, the month, the decade? Boy oh boy!
5.0 An apple tartlette that was again, just average for the territory.
7.0 Service – friendly, brisk in a nice sort of way, efficient, watchful of one’s index finger, etc. Snippy though when asked about private room on floor 2.3.
1.0 Price-quality
So if my math is correct, and it’s better than a guy I ate with earlier that week who works in the Financial Sector who was off by 10 Euros in calculating my portion of the bill (which I refused on principle, this isn’t my Mother’s Schraft’s after all – even though when I got home and looked, I had had 1 E more) but hey, it’s all Merkel’s fault, non?, 52÷11=4.7. I swear to you I have nothing up my sleeves, no bunny I didn’t eat, no handkerchiefs in a pencil – just pure instinct. Aren’t I wonderful?
Rating systems, paraphrasing Churchill on democracy, are the worst form of judging restaurants, except “for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Ratings are useful from a readers perspective when the reviewer is consistent - which you are and is why many of us read this blog. I have been to several restaurants after reading your review when score wasn't great - but knowing what bugs you I knew it wouldn't be a problem for me, and voila, the place works for me. As long as reviewers explain the ratings they remain relevent - and for my yearly month in Paris you are still my go-to guy.
Posted by: Martin | December 27, 2011 at 04:03 AM