Against all my better judgement I went online and looked at a few restaurant reviews. The internet, it's great, it democratizes everything...
Tripadvisor.ca, a few of the local restaurants, the one I'm working at, it comes in pretty low, I understand, I work there. But you read the reviews, one by one, and you can understand where everyone is coming from, but not one of them is even close. Taken all together the aggregate of the reviews ideally will give you a sum of the experience, taken singly, few people can spell, even fewer have dined out...
I check our reviews against the other restaurants in the area, one is described as "Fancy" and "Fine Dining" - not by a long shot, and it only goes to prove the ignorance of the reviewers - out here, paper napkins and a set table make a restaurant fancy. And in the reviews there's a lot of that petty small-town in-fighting, trivial politics, feuds, dirty laundry and grievances are aired. The reviews are skewed in both directions - both on the high end and on the low end, and everyone has an opinion and wants to share it...
Which is a problem, and here I'll explain. Not everyone should be allowed to have an opinion, most people shouldn't, and certainly shouldn't be allowed to give voice to it. A proper restaurant reviewer will visit a restaurant a minimum of 2 or 3 times to sample various of the items on the menu, rate the staff, the ambiance, etc. A proper reviewer has dined in a lot of different restaurants at both ends of the spectrum - from the ethnic hole-in-the walls to the higher end places with brand-name chefs. No respectable critic would even think of dining out on a Mothers Day or Valentines Day, let alone writing a review of the experience. Here, people review restaurants either to boost their friends or diss them for what they feel was an extraordinarily bad experience. For a lot of the locals, even getting a bill at the end of their dinner is enough to ruin their week.
Every restaurant out here relies on the scenery for the ambiance. It's rare to find a place that even comes close to a well designed Chinese takeaway, let alone a fine or character filled restaurant. There's one restaurant, been meaning to try it forever, I don't want to give away the name so I'll make up something equally pretentious, "The Kootenai Epicurian" or "Kootenai Conniseurs", you get the idea, and the place, it's an old garage, old tables, dusty plants and ledges and a big assortment of junk pretending to be antiques, ask for a menu and you're told to pick something from the fridge; not a glass countertop like you might find at a bakery or deli, no, a big fridge beside the kitchen, grab your frozen meal, pay for it. tip, and you can microwave it yourself and enjoy...
...burritos, lasagna, it's kinda unbelievable, the name of the 'restaurant', because even here I'm being pretty liberal, and the menu and accompanying preparation...not what you'd expect from such a grandiosely titled establishment, but for here, well...it's got 5 stars...