Restaurant Reviews (be careful)

[BillyB33]

I rely on restaurant reviews when I am seeking out new places to explore.

Mostly TRIPADVISER.

Sometimes it can get confusing like this one:

Reviewed 3 weeks ago via mobile Jan 2020

Has lost its way ! It used to be a great restaurant !

I’ve been coming to this restaurant for the last 8 years every time I visit Pattaya but I have to say that it has recently turn to rubbish ! Three days in a row they stuffed up my order and then day didn’t not even acknowledge that I was there until I got off my chair to grab a menu ! And some of the waitress are so angry it’s like their doing the job for free ! If you don’t like to do customer service do something else !

Than you have this one..

Reviewed 3 weeks ago via mobile Jan 2020

Great Service Staff and food

I have eaten breakfast here maybe 10 times...119baht for full breakfast including a real and good cup of coffee.
Always good, always clean.
The best group of women in Pattaya work HERE. Always welcoming and smiling, fast and efficient. Thank you!
Air con inside, large menu.

Brilliant Cafe for Breakfast

This is my go to place for breakfast but they do have daily specials and other great meals.
Been going here over many years.
Staff simply brilliant and deliver excellent friendly service .
I get the full English breakfast as in photo
I have nothing but praise for this Cafe
Another draw card for me is the coffee
not the dish water at other places.
Really you need a good strong coffee
with this excellent breakfast.
Big Thanks to the Owner and Staff.

So what is it? Was the restaurant having a bad day?

Bad reviews can kill a place, be careful!

Edited February 2, 2020 by BillyB33

[mixedberrys]

I use tripadvisor reviews as well especially for hotels and restaurants. I find that it's a bit like here,  some people are just picky and negative about everything. Usually if there is one negative review and the rest are positive I just ignore it. 

[rainman333]

you need to look at the reviewers history.  Some reviews are fake and can come from competing businesses.  Some reviews are generated from bad people who demand freebies or else they write a bad review.

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by rainman333

[Piece Corp]

I think Cafe Pitini is pretty good for breakfast, a few times the waitresses were nasty, but I haven’t visited this month.  Cafe Pitini and Golf Club are my favorites for breakfast in the LK Metro area, sometimes the waitresses have been rude, maybe because they have to deal with difficult customers?  I go for the food, I don’t have as high expectations for the customer service.

[regyai]

Nasty, rude staff who ignore the reviewer....

 

 

may just be good judges of character

 

 

[Melboy66]

I never bother with reviews or reviewers. Only opinion that matters is your own. If a restaurant looks good, then try it. What’s good for me, might not be good for you.


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[Evil Penevil]

2 hours ago, BillyB33 said:

So what is it? Was the restaurant having a bad day?

Bad reviews can kill a place, be careful!

Inconsistency is a huge problem for small restaurants in Pattaya. A lot depends on which staff member is doing the cooking on a particular day. It is possible for reviews to reflect this.

 

6 hours ago, rainman333 said:

Some reviews are generated from bad people who demand freebies or else they write a bad review.

This is a significant problem in Pattaya.  One hungry little fellow is notorious for fake reviews.

Evil

[keepitfun]

What?
Stuff on the internet isn’t true? 

Restaurant reviews may be done by perennial losers looking for freebies?

I’m broken.....  

[Kahoy]

Quite often the good reviews are fake more than the bad reviews. Discard the 5 best and worst reviews and what's left is probably true.

[adammike]

2 minutes ago, Kahoy said:

Quite often the good reviews are fake more than the bad reviews. Discard the 5 best and worst reviews and what's left is probably true.

That's the formula ignore the best and the worst and you get nearer to the actuality,it goes for most consumer reviews.

[jpmelville]

2 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

Inconsistency is a huge problem for small restaurants in Pattaya. A lot depends on which staff member is doing the cooking on a particular day. It is possible for reviews to reflect this.

 

 

Another problem is that many restaurants want to please everybody with their 100+ items in the menu. When you see that kind of menu, you know instantly that many of the ingredients are frozen and food will be mediocre. 

[ChiFlyer]

A while back @Evil Penevil ran a thread on the validity of Tripadvisor ratings. I found that informative, but also was unable to find it just now in a search. Basic message was, at least for me, Tripadvisor is not staffed to review the reviews. They tend to kill bad reviews.

Yes, I take a look at Tripadvisor, when checking a place out, but I take it with a grain of salt. 

 

[Evil Penevil]

4 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

A while back @Evil Penevil ran a thread on the validity of Tripadvisor ratings. I found that informative, but also was unable to find it just now in a search. Basic message was, at least for me, Tripadvisor is not staffed to review the reviews. They tend to kill bad reviews.

Yes, I take a look at Tripadvisor, when checking a place out, but I take it with a grain of salt. 

 

Here's a link to the two most relevant posts in that thread (Trip Advisor's List of Top Pattaya Restaurants).  The thread dates back to 2018, so the list of restaurants will have changed considerably.

On 29/01/2018 at 08:07, Evil Penevil said:

This is a list of Trip Advisor's top 59 restaurants out of 944 in Pattaya as of Jan. 28, 2017. It was supposed to be a list of 60, but Mai Thai Cuisine at #9 fell by the wayside while I was formatting the list.  My apologies to Mai Thai. You can find the T A ranking's for Pattaya here,  However, T A continuously updates its rankings, so what you read today may differ from the lists below.

 

 

And the top 10 in more detail:

 

 

These 60 restaurants were placed highest by Trip Advisor's algorithm for ranking restaurants based on reviews by anonymous posters.  It is NOT by any stretch of the imagination a list of the best restaurants in Pattaya as it doesn't feature objective standards for quality.  Even if such standards could be established, it would be impossible to apply them to anonymous reviews.

 

Basically, the list is a mishmash of the most popular Pattaya restaurants according to Trip Advisor's set of RULES for calculating rankings. It's a very flawed approach that is wide open to manipulation. Just consider the recent case of the fake restaurant listed as #1 in London: How An Entirely Fake Restaurant Became London's Hottest Reservation.

 

But even if the ranking algorithm were perfectly fair, there's still an inherent contradiction which can't be overcome.  How do you compare a fine dining restaurant to a casual budget restaurant?  Or a pizzeria to a seafood restaurant? Or a classic French restaurant to an Indian or Tex Mex restaurant and say which is better?  It's impossible.

 

That said, there's no denying T A is hugely influential and contains some excellent reviews and tips on restaurants.  It's a matter of using it carefully and sorting the fake reviews from the genuine.  Keep in mind, too, that restaurant reviews are always subjective and reflect personal preferences.  Diners have different priorities when it comes to restaurant meals.  Some are most concerned with portion size and price; if they get a lot of food for a little money, they are happy. Others are focused on the quality of the food and the total dining experience, which goes beyond the food on the plate.

 

A few things jump out regarding the list of the top restaurants.  It's not surprising to find places like Cafe des Amis, Bruno's, Livv, Moonlight, Horizon and Casa Pascal among the top 10; fine dining restaurants always do well in ranking lists. It's surprising, though,  that Five Star J comes in at #3 and absolutely mind-boggling Caravan, a Russian-Uzbek (!!!) restaurant, would place third.

 

Surprising and mind-bogging, that is, until you take into account how T A compiles its rankings. Both Five Star J and Caravan appeal to limited groups of customers- Five Star to vegans and vegetarians; Caravan to Russian and Chinese tourists. Within those groups there's more uniformity of opinion about the restaurant's food, so it gets a high number of positive ratings.  Those who don't like vegetarian or Russian food aren't likely to eat there at all and it therefore doesn't get a lot of low ratings.  

 

It's a bit more complicated that that, but without going into a lot of detail, it's safe to say the high rankings of Five Star J and Caravan are largely quirks of the T A system.

 

I also found it surprising that Hooters ranked in 32nd place, one notch above Pattaya Beer Garden. Considering how much hatred is expressed on the punter boards over Hooters, I'm astounded it's done so well in the T A reviews. A comment in of one of those reviews made me chuckle:  "The biggest Hooters I've ever seen."   

 

I found it strange that very popular Thai seafood restaurants like Mum Aroi and Pupen didn't make the top 60, nor did popular Thai chains like MK.  But that may simply be due to Thais not writing reviews on T A. There are a few I'd never heard of in the list- Bacco Beach and DOM Pizza (location, location, location!) and a couple of the Indian restaurants.  Over the years, I've eaten in about 40 of the restaurants on the list of 60.

 

Anyway, what restaurants do you feel shouldn't be in the top 60 and which are glaring by their omission?  Remember, the list is about popularity, not quality.

 

Evil

 

On 01/02/2018 at 06:48, Evil Penevil said:

@Pattaya_Brian

Bullseye.  In 2016, Trip Advisor had revenues of US$1.48 billion, but only 1,500 employees in the U.S. and 3,224 worldwide, almost all of whom were concerned with sales, Search Engine Optimization  or administration.  A very tiny number were involved in reviewing or editing reviews.

According to Trip Advisor's annual report for 2016,  the site had a mind-staggering 436 million reviews.  An average of 290 new contributions were submitted PER MINUTE that year. They would need thousands and thousands of employees to give new contributions even a cursory glance.  It's all automated- and that makes perfect business sense.  T A's biggest asset, the contributor-generated reviews, costs them nothing. More employees to check reviews with human eyes would add a big expense, but it's unlikely that would add to the bottom line.  T A is doing fine even with the occasional scandal.

As someone else stated, T A is mainly useful as list of hotels. restaurants, attractions, etc.  The reviews and rankings are far less useful, but that doesn't seem to have a decisive influence on its appeal.

Evil

:devil

Evil