A Monroe Restaurant Ranking Tool: MonroeEats.com
Posted on 9 October 2007 under Review Notes, Reviews: Restaurants | 1 Comment
Jason Blue has emailed with information that he and his friends have created an online restaurant ranking tool for restaurants in the Monroe area. “We originally created it to help us pick out where to go for lunch, but it worked so well that we decided to open it up for the whole community.” MonroeEats.com is an interesting tool for this. Restaurants aren’t simply rated … there are top 10 listings for Menu, Service, Atmosphere, Value, and an overall top 10 list. The tool also keeps track of how you’re voting, keeping track of a set of top 10 listings of your own favorites.
There are a few important notes, from the web site:
- Along the way, we decided that this is going to be a positive-only website: we are only interested in finding the best restaurants. For that reason, we’re only showing the Top 10 restaurants and we’re not releasing the scores publicly …
- (I)t was decided that the Top 10 list will only show results from the last 24 hours, to give all local restaurants an opportunity to rise to the top.
- All votes are based on a match-up between two restaurants, and are recorded as a vote up for the winner. In the case of skipping a match-up, the restaurant with the lowest score is voted up (this is to prevent cheating).The list may appear random, but over time all eateries are matched together evenly. As you vote, you may notice that the match-ups get more difficult; this is how the program sorts out what you really like.
Obviously, the gang has really thought this through in such a way that would even make George Gallup proud. And it looks like fun, too!
The Blade’s Review of Panera Bread
Posted on 8 June 2007 under Review Notes | 5 Comments
It’s not often I have a problem with any of the restaurant reviews in the Toledo Blade. The fact is, I’m generally in agreement with what’s written there. For once, though, I’m taking serious issue with one of those reviews.
Yesterday, the Blade published a review of Panera Bread. I can certainly agree with most of it:
How, for example, could anyone resist a sandwich stacked with roast beef, smoked cheddar, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and horseradish sauce on fresh asiago cheese bread? Or a hot panini with smoked turkey breast, bacon, cheddar, and sun-dried tomato ale mustard? … Especially tasty on the sandwich menu were the Italian combo, a stack of roast beef, turkey, ham, salami, swiss cheese, and pepperoncini on ciabatta bread; a creamy tuna salad sandwich, and chicken “tomesto”, which gets its name from sun-dried tomato pesto on the three-cheese bread.
Obviously, there’s no problem with the food. Heck, I’ve got Bill of Fare’s back there. Mary and I simply love the food, just as so many others do.
However, it’s opinions such as the following that really stick in my craw:
The chain has been in business since 1981, parlaying nutritious food into a roaring success among the so-called “fast casual” restaurants … It’s that “fast casual” appellation that sticks in the gullet and detracted from my overall experience … Appealing though the food may be, the chain is a descendant, and likely modern-day precursor, of the assembly-line automats - restaurants that displace servers with diners, who in effect are drafted to perform the chore of serving themselves … In the current automat model, it is we, the paying customers, who must place the order, pay the money, fill the beverage cup, mind the pager, pick up the food, and deliver it to our table, and on the way out, dump the debris into the trash bin. All we get in return is a pass on tipping … This is a trend that’s growing almost to the point where sitting down to a table and being waited on by a real live person threatens to become a quaint memory … Despite these problems …
Sorry, but I’m getting sick to my stomach here.
Does it bother anyone else that the Toledo Blade’s Bill of Fare apparently has never been to a McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, or even a KFC? Maybe even an ice cream parlor with a walk-up window? Or how about, the good Lord forbid, a street fair with (gulp!) street food vendors?? Mary and I have even been to the ZooToDo, and made the official video documentary for this year’s Taste of the Nation: Toledo, both $150-per-ticket events, and even at those high-falutin’ events, had to serve ourselves!
Oh, the humanity …
None of these things paying customer do in some restaurants today are considered “problems”. Rather, these so-called “problems” are a way of life. Massive, huge, ginourmous numbers of restaurants, from the Toledo area, to across the country and around the world, have this particular “customer model” in-place. Does it “detract from my overall experience”? Not if I’m expecting it, that’s for sure. But even so, there’s enough of it around that it shouldn’t come across as a surprise, as it seems to have for Bill of Fare. I mean, come on, I’ve even served myself at a breakfast buffet at Cousino’s Navy Bistro at The Docks, and couldn’t have been happier. I actually enjoyed it … what a problem that must have been for me, and I didn’t even know it!
Again, from the Blade:
Another problem - again a result of assembly-line service - is that the piping hot soup, the piping hot sandwich, and the piping hot pizza were ready at the counter at the same time, leaving me to ponder the imponderable: how to eat them all while they’re still hot.
Ya’ know what? Piping hot food has never been a problem for me. The fact is, if it’s that hot, it’ll probably still be acceptably hot even 20 or 30 minutes later. Besides that, at more than one Panera location, I’ve specifically asked to get some of it later. Was that a problem? No, no problem at all.
I’m not quite sure what to think of yesterday’s review of Panera Bread from the Blade. Emotionally though, it immediately hit me that even a successful establishment such as Panera Bread might be “below” what Bill of Fare feels is an “acceptable place to eat”.
In my humble opinion, that’s a problem.
I’m suddenly reminded of that delightful scene in the first “Princess Diaries” film, where Julie Andrews as the Queen takes her first-ever bite of a corn dog.
Somebody please drag Bill of Fare to the nearest hot dog cart …
Reviews: A Reason for Titanium Sporks?
Posted on 25 January 2007 under Review Notes | 1 Comment
Mary … honey … Sweetheart! I now have a reason to buy some titanium sporks! Five of them to be exact. Oh, and I’ll need a plastic one, too. Heck, we may as well order six of the titanium ones so we have a complete “set”. 
When I first spoke with the Monroe News’ Managing Editor Dan Shaw about writing this blog, one subject that came up was that of restaurant reviews. I’ve written a few so far, but the whole concept of giving, say, the Frog Leg Inn ”five stars”, or, as some sites have, “five forks”, just seems a bit too passé.
Enter the titanium spork. Currently only available through ThinkGeek, that particular site even provides action shots of the titanium spork in … er … action.
Here’s how titanium spork-based restaurant reviews would work:
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