Recently, I noticed a review of a Chinese-American restaurant that I've always liked in my (NJ) area that I've always loved but have trouble dragging people to go the oh, 20 minutes to eat there--it's not traditional fare by any means, but just really solid renderings of American Hunan dishes, very fresh, and so forth.
I was excited, hoping the review would be good--and it was, but it was so stupid, I can't imagine anyone wanting to go there from what was written--mostly about how the reviewer's dining companions were 'weirded out' by the experience, details about how he made jokes with the Chinese waiter, and he didn't even order the dishes the place is known for--just the few quasi-Thai dishes that make up a tiny part of the menu. No balance of selections at all.
That was a local critic who I find singularly unhelpful but overall, I have to say I feel a lot of restaurant reviewers seem to have a conscious or unconscious bias/ seem to be looking for something different in what I am looking for eating out. I love Ruth Reichel, but I was too young to read her reviews in the Times when they came out. Bruni is okay, but he seems so easily recognized, and plus as a vegetarian with any critic there is always the fact that they tend to eat only one or two of the dishes that I would be able to eat, at all.
I usually trust word of mouth and blogs and the Internet (Serious Eats, of course!) more than (most) professional, traditional reviewers.
What about you--what type of restaurant criticism do you trust, and what do you think makes a good restaurant critic?
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