Is your trusted restaurant guide online?

I did something retro this weekend. I bought a hard copy of the newest Zagat guide. This isn't something I've done in the past six years; have you?

About 8 months ago I began formulating the theory that the established peer-review sites were drowning in reviews (in success!). I first noticed that the non-foodie site TripAdvisor no longer conveyed consensus, but confusion. For each B&B I clicked, I found as many awful reviews as glowing ones. The site needed another site to break down all the information it had amassed -- something savvier than the star system, something like what the Zagat editors began doing in 1979.

Soon after, I had a similar experience on Yelp while helping my friend find the perfect place for his anniversary dinner.

One user said, "I ate at Cafe Pinot last night and could not have had a more enjoyable experience." The next one went, "Save yourself money and avoid dinner."

I'm tired of digging my own way through the growing content on these sites. I increasingly find myself using Yelp as a restaurant yellow pages to get numbers and addresses. I needed a new place to get my recommendations. Or as it turned out, I needed something old. I missed browsing in a finite environment that was protected from inconsistent tagging methods. (I often wondered, were there actually more restaurants with patios in my neighborhood?) My thumbs wanted to thumb through something! I've had a restaurant-guide revolution and come full circle.

Have you? Where do you get your restaurant recs?

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