I look at TripAdvisor, Yelp, and other regional restaurant review sites. Tablelog is the only one with overall ratings that seem to reflect reality, but that's Japan only. Even though the big two are more noise than signal as far as reviews go, at least I can see pictures. Often I use these sites while sitting in the place to decide what to order. I'm starting to use Google Maps more because TripAdvisor and Yelp sites suck so bad and I refuse to install their low quality, spammy apps. What I wish existed:
- NO reviews. I want facts not opinions.
- Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks, etc. Delete those and ban the idiots who upload them.
- Ruthlessly curate the photos. I want a couple of photos of each dish, only the best quality ones that are recent.
- Caption the photos and tag the food. I want the exact string on the menu neatly displayed on each photo. I want to be able to search "pizza" and get a stream of photos of the food.
- A clean set of photos of the menu so I can see the prices. OCR that into searchable text.
- Let me privately rate the food.
I guess what I'm describing is kind of Tinder for food. And no ads of course. Not gonna happen.. but hey I can dream.
> Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks, etc.
I agree that photos of people are ridiculous, but I want photos of the interior. The ambiance of a place is even more important than the quality of the food (to me), and it's one of the attributes hardest to portray in reviews (mostly because people who review are not professional reviewers). Good photos help here.
Fair enough. What makes a good interior shot is more subjective. The idea with the food pics is that it's very easy to tell which photo of the same thing is better.
I think the big sites must know this and they could do it, but users who contribute might get discouraged if they throw out so many uploads.
- NO reviews. I want facts not opinions.
- Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks, etc. Delete those and ban the idiots who upload them.
- Ruthlessly curate the photos. I want a couple of photos of each dish, only the best quality ones that are recent.
- Caption the photos and tag the food. I want the exact string on the menu neatly displayed on each photo. I want to be able to search "pizza" and get a stream of photos of the food.
- A clean set of photos of the menu so I can see the prices. OCR that into searchable text.
- Let me privately rate the food.
I guess what I'm describing is kind of Tinder for food. And no ads of course. Not gonna happen.. but hey I can dream.