The problem with stars
our paragraphs don't quite jibe with the rating. We critics see it as a simplistic system. In The Sun's ratings, at least for restaurants, one star is "poor," two is "fair or uneven," three is "good" and four is "excellent."
I happen to be the one who decided their meanings, with a little help from my editor, back when we first started using stars. I have no one else to blame when I think to myself, How can two restaurants get the same number of stars for food (two) when one is uniformly mediocre and the other has some really great dishes and some really bad ones?
And then what does "excellent" mean? I eat a lot of excellent meals -- OK, some excellent meals -- but shouldn't four stars be reserved for "fabulous"?
Once, I'm embarrassed to admit, I said in a review of the Oregon Grille that "the service couldn't be better" and then assigned the service three-and-a-half stars. A reader was quick to point out the contradiction.
On the other hand, more than once I've been glad for the shorthand. I don't have a lot of space for my reviews, so if there's nothing interesting to say about the service, if the waitress hasn't spilled soup in my lap, then I'm just as glad to assign the stars and be done with it.
Please let me know below whether you prefer reviews with stars. I know they can be misleading, but they are a good quick guide.
Comments
Another peeve:
Waiters who reply "no problem" to every request or thank you. Please save this for when i ask for something that may actually be a problem for you to accomplish. What happened to "you're welcome or I'll take care of that?
Posted by: Mark | May 3, 2007 10:33 AM
Stars are fine, but I think they need to represent more meaningful ratings. A poor or fair rating should get no stars, 1 star = good, 2 stars = very good, 3 stars = excellent, 4 stars = exemplary in all ways. The number of 3-star ratings I see in the Sun is outrageous. I know Baltimore isn't New York, but 1 star restaurants there are probably on par with many of the 3 star restaurants here. And...is Charleston really only 1 star better than PF Chang's and Zen West?
In addition, since the Sun can't afford to pay for you to dine in a restaurant 3 or 4 times before writing a review, you can't even make an accurate assessment of the restaurant as a whole. If you're there the one night out of 100 that the chef has a meltdown and the whole kitchen is in the weeds, you won't have a good experience and the food might be horrible. Or you may be there the one night out of 100 that the kitchen turns out good food by some fluke, so the rating is much higher than probably deserved. In this case, I think dispensing with star ratings altogether at the Sun might be fairer to both diners and restaurants.
Posted by: Kathy | May 3, 2007 11:49 AM