Ever since I started living on my own, my main sources of sustenance have been largely consistent of restaurant fare, whether it be in dine-in or take-out form. This habitual change has made me very dependent on online restaurant reviews, almost embarrassingly so, especially when I am looking to try something new. Thus, for this mini assignment, I decided to look at the two different measures of restaurant ‘goodness’ I most frequently use: Dine Here and Urbanspoon.

The websites are similar in that they both address all the basics you need to know before making a reservation, i.e. restaurant location, contact information, website and online menu if available. Informationally, the main differences between the two are the scope and the panel. While Dine Here is restricted to Canadian restaurants, Urbanspoon covers almost all major North American cities.

Dine Here offers more of a vernacular review as the critiques come from ordinary diners with ‘untrained’ palettes. Restaurant ratings are based on an ascending five star scale, which is aggregated from the  rating submissions based on three criteria: food, service value and ambience. In order to avoid evolving into an online platform facilitating restaurant sabotage, users are asked if they have any affiliation with the restaurant reviewed, although this measure is easily by-passable with a simple lie. Users must discuss the reasons for their rating, which are, in turn, rated based on usefulness. This keeps the reviews relatively reliable, as one is able to see and judge individual reviews by how much consensus or the ‘usefulness’ rating it receives.

Urbanspoon covers a larger geographical scope and categorizes its reviews into multiple categories such as price, type of cuisine and city. The panel of judges in effect ‘work/contribute’ to the interactive corporation. While they have fifteen million of these employed ‘foodies’, they also include ratings from newspapers, bloggers and other social media sites. The scope and information categories can be time-consuming and  a little overwhelming if you’re just browsing. However, if you’re not scrambling over last minute reservations then this would be a better source in terms of both validity (although this is dependent on how much you value a professional’s taste buds over the everyday diner’s). The website does not have standard review criteria so what you gain in validity you might have to sacrifice in reliability. The ratings tend to fluctuate with no general trend due to such a wide range of reviewers with completely different palettes and preferences.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I think utilizing Dine Here would provide you and your date with a more reliable rating, and less information to sift through. If you are an ‘appeal to authority’ type, Urbanspoon will allow you insight into a range of ‘professional’ opinions, but the inconsistencies that arise mean that you will often have to take a chance with the review you choose to lend the most credit to.