Let’s catch up. While I was gone there were two comments, both from Todd, about restaurants in strip malls getting two stars, the same rating as The Daily Grill. I couldn’t really tell if the issue was that he thought two stars was too generous for Mariscos Mazatlan and Swagath or too stingy for The Daily Grill, but either way, this all applies. Keep a few things in mind:
1. It’s two of us reviewing, so what I consider two stars Fredric might consider 1.5, or 2.5. We could easily be within a half star of each other at the SAME restaurant, so it’s pretty simple to see how it could vary from place to place. Two stars means very good, and I stand by mine and I’m sure Fredric stands by his. (By the way, you can order from the buffet at Swagath and I said in my review that it’s one of the few in town I could recommend, but you can also order from the menu.)
2. Don’t condemn a restaurant just because it’s in a strip mall. Off-hand I can think of three restaurants that get three stars that are in strip malls: Interim, Napa Cafe and The Grove Grill.
3. And don’t forget–we don’t print bad reviews. That’s the policy here. If you read about it in Playbook, it means we liked it and recommend it. If it’s bad, we just pay and leave.
All that said, it’s no secret that I don’t like our star system and I’d love to see it changed. I’d like to see restaurants rated separately on ambience, service, food, etc. Guadalupano is a perfect example, one I’ve brought up before. I love the food and could easily give it three stars (excellent) for most meals I’ve eaten there, but the ambience is plainly horrible–a flat-out zero. The way it works now, I couldn’t give it more than 1.5 stars overall. And I don’t think that’s fair–yes, the food is simple, but it’s well prepared and delicious. Under a better system, we’d still provide an overall rating, but you’d be able to see how we arrived at it.
Sigh. This is my dream.
Restaurant business
Responses to “Strip malls and stars”
August 6th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I’d also open to discussion the fact that a lot of my favorite ethnic food places have been in strip malls. My favorite Thai/Chinese restaurant (the one I began my descent into Asian-food love) began life in a strip mall near Raleigh.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Ah, strip mall restaurants! My introduction to sushi was at Sakura…in a strip mall on Mendenhall at Knight Arnold. It was a “hole in the wall” type of place but I loved their sushi and service. Maybe I hold it dear because it was the first place I ever tried sushi (hated it at first…then craved it days later) but nothing I’ve tried since has compared to it.
August 6th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I was crazy about Sakura and to this day–maybe forever–will count a meal I had there among the best I’ve ever eaten. I’d been at the lake all day with a friend and poor planning resulted in us not eating lunch on top of sunning and swimming all day. When we came back to town we stopped at Sakura for dinner and NOTHING had ever tasted as good to me as that first bite of gyoza! I ate tempura that night and it was heavenly. Of course, we were starved, but it was great. I hated to see it go.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
I second the praise of strip mall restaurants. I have eaten at C Fu in the strip mall at Perkins & Knight Arnold twice, once for lunch & once for dinner, w/the same friend. She chose it for her b’day dinner. It was excellent both times & says the place is never crowded. They even print a coupon in the Playbook every Friday for a free dinner with purchase of one. We enjoyed a ribeye stir fry w/asparagus & onions for her b-day dinner that was absolutely first rate. My only quibble is that they have been out of snow peas both times I made an attempt to order one of the entrees containing them. One of our fellow diners had a curry dish that was much to his liking & the fried rice that accompanied the lunch entrees was well prepared & not a bit greasy. I would give it two stars & more if I were allowed to, regardless of its not that great location. I agree w/Jennifer that a rating system of each aspect of a review would be preferable to the one she & Fredric have to live with now. I also agree w/her assessment of Napa Cafe, Interim & The Grove Grill, & would add Formosa on Quince to that list. I also still miss The Unicorn, which started out in the Carrefour but was housed in a strip mall at Kirby & Quince when it closed.
August 7th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Well, my position is that a place that serves simple food but “well-prepared and delicious” sounds like a perfect two-star restaurant to me, because part of what motivates my evalution is the degree of difficulty principle, as they use for example with diving in the Olympics; that is, how complicated and difficult a dive is is factored into the scoring. If Interim, Grove Grill and Napa Cafe deserve three stars, Guadalupana, however satisfying the food may be there, does not. Of course Jennifer has been working with this star rating system for about seven months, and I have been working with it for 10 years; it takes time to get the feeling for how to use it.
August 7th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Of course Guadalupana doesn’t deserve three stars–that’s what I said. But under a system where different aspects of the restaurant are individually rated, the food could receive a certain number of stars, the service a certain number, the ambience, noise level, etc. could do the same. Then whatever the overall rating, readers would have more information about how we came to it. For some people ambience is more important than for others; for some, the food is all that matters. I think it’s a more equitable and more user-friendly system. I guess I’m just a quick study, to have figured this out in just seven months…
August 7th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Thanks, Carole H, about the comments for C Fu’s. And now that I know that Jennifer knows where Sakura was then we can tell her that C Fu’s is in the same strip mall.
Mejan, and I am probably spelling that wrong, taught me a lot about Japanese food at Sakura. She eased me into eating things I probably would have never tried otherwise. Admittedly, I didn’t like everything, but I was usually a good student.
Jennifer, when you finally make it to C Fu’s, make sure to try the stir fried soft-shell crab with jalapeños.
To all, who has the best sushi in town at the moment?
Ol’ Neil
August 7th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Neil, I was thinking you had written about C Fu’s & when you mentioned the soft shell crab w/jalapenos I knew that’s why I remembered. The ribeye w/asparagus that my friend & I enjoyed last night was a special, but it was also on the specials board when we went there for lunch several Saturdays ago. Whoever was in the kitchen knew the exact minute to add & stop stir frying the asparagus, which was as close to a perfect texture as I’ve ever eaten before. My friend said they would make things as spicy as you ask for. The curry that was delivered to the table next to me was fragrant before it ever got there & everything is always presented hot from the wok or deep fryer. I haven’t tried the soup yet, but I did share the crispy wonton strips the person sitting next to me ordered w/his egg drop soup. Those things are addictive - like fries or onion rings. We were seated at a “lazy Susan” table, which makes sharing dishes easy for a group. They kept our beverages replenished before we had to ask, & the lime wedges they serve in lieu of lemon with iced tea are a nice touch.
That strip center has had a big turnover in restaurants, but I’m hoping C Fu’s is going to stay. What was once Dixie Cafe, then a hot wings/sports bar place, is now something else. It’s in the freestanding building on the Mendenhall side of the center & C Fu’s is near the middle of the actual strip part of the mall facing Mendenhall. I never made it to Sakura but it sounds like it’s my loss.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Funny you ask about the best sushi in town– I think it is Sakura, on West St. (still in a strip mall), hands down. I have it about once a week. I would recommend a roll, but they’re all just delicious.
Second place would be Sekisui Pacific Rim, which is just a tad above all the other Sekisuis in my opinion.
August 7th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I wasn’t arguing that one restaurant got too high or too low of a rating. I was noting that one restaurant is clearly superior, yet it got the same rating as the other inferior restaurant. I think the New York Times rating system (assuming that is what you’re using) may not be applicable to the Memphis market. A friend told me that she had not tried the Daily Grill because it had gotten a bad review. The review, to me, was positive, hence the “very good” rating. I don’t even consider renting a movie from Netflix unless it has a three star rating. While I can appreciate the difference between the Netflix star system and the New York Times rating system, I don’t think the average CA reader can. Also, I’m confused by restaurants of differing quality getting the same rating. And it isn’t solely because there are two reviewers. Fredric, you gave The Wing Factory two stars as well. I do think what the Daily Grill does with its food is much more difficult, however simple, than the Wing Factory is doing with chicken wings. And that’s discounting the fact the place is decorated with paper beer advertisements. Perhaps splitting the star system into categories would be better.
August 7th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Yes, the rating system may not fairly rate restaurants when you take into account how different each restaurantis and also the difference in the two reviewers.
But how much does a review affect a restaurant? Did the bad (rather scathing) review of Grove Grill (last year, I think) alter its business? It still has a healthy business as far as I can tell.
Why not just a narrative review?
The New Neil
August 7th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
The New York Magazine rating system is also very good - it uses one type of star with accompanying definitions for fine dining and another type of star for cheap eats.
With that said, I remember back when the CA would print negative dining reviews. I understand that issues arise when a major advertiser is panned (and would hazard to guess that an instance of this resulted in said policy…something involving ribs maybe??). But if dinner out is a bigger investment than a movie, I think it’s a needed service to warn the buyer to beware if a place is truly awful. Or at least use this forum…blind items would work!
August 8th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I am in the camp of “star by category.” There are many “dives” that have great food but they do not deliver the total dining experience that multiple stars imply. It would be helpful to know the components of a review - 3 stars for food, 0 stars for atmosphere etc.
I understand there are issues with publishing negative reviews - with just one review a week, should it be “squandered” on a place not worth going to? I would like to see “Didn’t make the Grade” list maybe as a sidebar that gives the name of the failing restaurant with a couple of bullet points on the problem “food so bad that rats under the table refused scraps,” “Chef sneezed on my plate,” etc.
August 8th, 2007 at 11:17 am
I like GrantParish’s idea of a “didn’t make the grade” list. People do need to be warned of such things if someone else has run across them in the course of a review. Remember the weekly Richard Ransom “Food for Thought” review on the 10:00 news? It addressed such topics as pink slime in the ice machine, crud on the cutting mechanism of the can opener, & establishments ordered to “Clean Up!” by the Health Department. I think that was a definite service to the public. Many of the establishments took it to heart & voluntarily requested reinspection so they could be cleared of the deficiencies & hopefully restored to public confidence. That’s a win-win situation for all concerned.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
We can get into the whole discussion of the necessity/ethics of critics period–whether it is food movies,plays or something else.
I don’t like Justin Timberlake, for instance. But were I a critic, would it be right for me to slam him when he obviously cares about what he does? Scores of people obviously think he is great. I am just not one of them. Same for some restaurants in town.
How can we be sure of a critics’s expertise, taste, ethics, etc..?
Is a critic a journalist?
(CA critics not in question on any of these matters, of course!)
Should someone/something be put to task and sharply criticized after investing lots of love and energy in a production? By the way, one can always tell when a chef has put “love” into his food–or any creator into any of his/her goods and services.
Did anyone read/see Bourdain’s discussion of this?
I don’t taste love in a lot of Memphis restaurants…
August 9th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
When I had the ribeye & asparagus special at C Fu’s (a bargain at $11.95) I didn’t realize it was going to be stir fried & neither did my friend. The strips of steak, thin asparagus spears & onions were cut with such precision that somebody definitely cooked it with love. My friend said they would gladly add any level of heat to their choices too, in case you are one of those who loves hot peppers & chili sauces.
Talbot, would you share where you found Anthony Bourdain’s comments? I would enjoy reading that. I like him, even though he has dissed some other chefs I like. I have a copy of his book “The Nasty Bits” that I’m going to read after I finish the book I’m reading now. I’m sure it will be most entertaining.
August 10th, 2007 at 10:45 am
As a native Memphian, I have come to respect Fredric’s use of the star rating system. If one takes the time to read his whole review, as opposed to just checking out the stars, it becomes clear exactly why he gives a particular rating. The stars are not dished out liberally, so you know if a place has three, it’s among the best. He hasn’t steered me wrong yet!
August 10th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
I’d appreciate a system using category ratings; for those of us who aren’t such quick studies, it would be a lot more user-friendly. I also like the idea of a “didn’t make it” list; I want to know where those scrap-refusing rats are hanging.
August 10th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Jennifer makes an excellent suggestion that I would like to see implemented in the CA restaurant reviews. Ratings would be far more valuable to many readers if each restaurant were rated separately on food, ambience, and service. There are times when nothing matters but the quality of the food, but on other occasions one requires all three categories to be at a high level.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Stars, thumbs-up, numerals, letter grades…they are all the same. It all boils down to “what is the true purpose of your restaurant critique?” If your purpose is to give some guidance to those of us with less sophisticated palates, then by all means the ethereal four-star system is more than adequate. But if you aspire to the more lofty purpose of giving the general public and the restaurateur a better understanding of the rating system, then maybe some further categorization is necessary.
I would also say that the emphasis should be on the food. I know that I’m going to a restaurant to eat, and depending on whether or not I want the best, most authentic, quickest, or cheapest will determine the rest of the equation.
August 11th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Has anybody else noticed the sign near Poplar & Highland that the strip center undergoing renovations is going to house a Jason’s Deli? There is also supposed to be a Whole Hog Cafe in that area after the center is completed (currently called Dillard Square). One of those is probably going to be in at least part of the area that was formerly the Malco Highland Quartet theater. Not sure where the other one is going in.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Jason’s Deli is going in at the southwest corner of the center. I wish they would put a barbeque place in the middle of downtown. There’s the Rendevous, but it isn’t very good, prices are high, service is bad, and wait times are long. Downtown seems like the perfect place for another Central BBQ location.
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