Customer Reviews

Fearless Critic Houston Restaurant Guide 2010

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In a town that you could eat at three new restaurants a day and still not not cover them all, the fearless critic provides what it calls, and I paraphrase, "brutally honest ('the way we'd tell it to our friends, if they asked us'), one-page reviews of restaurants that merit a review either because of being unknown gems or well-known names that you may wonder about".

Here's the upsides and downsides I found with this book, both as a Houston foodie that eats almost every meal in a restaurant, and based upon their self-proclaimed mission:

- I devoured this book! The reviews are written that entertainingly well.
Who'd think you'd want to read a 528-page reference book end-to-end? Well, their one page reviews do live up to the promise of talking to you like you'd asked a foodie friend what they thought of a restaurant. Even to the point of saying - 'yes, if you have 20 bucks for lunch buring a hole in your pocket it was fine, but if it was us with that and looking for such-and-such we'd head over to nearby so-and-so instead'. While some of the reviews try to be overly-clever for the most part - it's good reading.

- The reviews are also informative.
Tips about what on the menus worked and didn't work for them, special deals, atmosphere, service, wine lists and even parking options are abundant. Tied with their rating system which provides a separate rating for food and feel, type of restaurant and gives the average purchase for a meal per person including one drink and tip - it's packed with useful info. Add some nifty indexes that break out their thoughts on each of the restaurants from everything from location and genre to date, kid or veggie friendly - and it's a handy resource no matter how you slice it.

- But, it's still all a matter of taste and experience, and you're bound to disagree sometimes.
I found most of the reviews, rating and thoughts - dead on. But, there were plenty I absolutely disagreed with! The fearless reviewers do have personal biases that become self-evident. (again like any friend you ask). They love Austin eateries over Houston's and that artsy-vibe feel, they love red meat and aren't chicken fans (I am), they look down their nose at Italian of any kind with some sort of self-developed, arrogant system and are equally disdainful of American-ized anything - which despite their thoughts is popular for a reason.

- The small group of reviewers can't try everything- so your experience can be very different!
The thing about the Houston scene is it evolves. I went to one place (Jenni's Noodles) and we ordered the two items they suggested. Nothing about them resembled their description in the book, though other things they said were accurate. For other restaurants (like Khyber) where they apparently only tried the buffet - they missed the best. While I give them grace on the variance of visiting a restaurant at any time, I don't on things like listing Baba Yega's as kid friendly. (You really need a kids menu to be kid-friendly).

- Finally, despite what they claim, I don't understand why some places get included.
Specs, Whole Foods, random coffee houses and bars, among others that have nothing to do w/ being a restaurant are included. Add on the reviews of Whataburger and James Coney Island hot dogs - and I began to think I was ripped off of about 25 of the 450 reviews they'd promised me.

Bottom Line: Despite my quibles, or disagreements with them this is a great resource for anyone wanting to explore the Houston restaurant scene. You're bound to pick up at least a few places you want to try - and a few that if you decide to try your expectations will be in line.

A fearless review for these fearless reviewers. This is not a book worth purchasing. Although I have read and agreed with some of the reviews in the past, I was highly disappointed with this recent purchase. Merely printing an annual edition and slapping on the present year does not make it current at all. There are numerous restaurant reviews that have severely out of date information, including highlights of "recent" openings that are actually many years old. I would rather read more accurate and free reviews online that are much more current and informative. The authors really are fearless in cheating people out of money for these annual editions that are nothing more than a copy and paste of the previous year.

This is a solid guide to Houston restaurants and does a good job of highlighting food trucks, holes-in-the-wall, and other places you might not find (or would be scared to try) on your own. I don't agree with the writers on every restaurant, but many reviews are on-point, and they're always fun to read.

The only real problem is that the guide is not being properly updated, despite putting out a new annual addition each year. I realize you can't review each restaurant anew every year, but if you're going to publish a new edition, you should at least make sure that details like operating hours and liquor license status haven't changed, and if a restaurant has a new chef or a new menu, it probably deserves a new review. I've found several reviews with outdated info.

I review restaurants and publish websites and email magazines based on those reviews. I bought Fearless Critic to see what my competition was saying about my local restaurants.
The 2010 issue covers 450 food location in 536 pages. Reviews are thoughtful and long enough to provide information and insight. Overall, a very professional job.

The following year's edition covered only 250 locations and was bitchy, high handed and overly Asian. They rated one joint's food as 9.0 when all they serve is hamburgers while other restaurants with thoughtful complex menu offerings were rated in the 6.0 to 7.2 range because the reviewing staff didn't like every dish they offered. They over represented Asian and Chinese establishments, and neglected popular and well known Houston favorites. There were too many Asian reviewers and too many noodle shops and hole in the wall places. Many of the places they suggested were dingy strip mall family owned restaurants where 99% of Houston families would never go to eat. Most of the reviews were not actually helpful but unnecessarily bitchy and arrogant. Whoever wrote these reviews was young and immature without a sense of Houston or its people.

We bought this as new residents of Houston and we're working through it slowly.

We don't always agree with them but ultimately dining out is a hit-and-miss affair so you always have to make up your own mind anyway.

The reviews are entertaining and it's good for ideas when you're stuck.

I'm so happy that the new edition of the Fearless Critic Houston guide is out! I really loved the first edition, and this one has added a lot of new restaurants. I thought I knew the Houston dining scene well, but I still find great places that I had never tried before.

They also have really good coverage of cheap ethnic places, like the Indian restaurants on Hillcroft and places in Chinatown too.

I highly recommend this book to anyone in Houston who cares about food.

Fearless Critic has really broken new ground by reviewing restaurants candidly and openly. Houston is full of underrated, underpriced amazing ethnic restaurants--and Fearless Critic rightfully elevates them to near the top of the ratings. Houston is also full of overrated, overpriced garbage, and Fearless Critic is the only restaurant guide in the city to call out the overhyped restaurants like Pappas Bros, etc. The writing is clever, witty, and entertaining enough to read it through like you would a novel!

The other thing that bears mention is the books incredible usefulness. First of all it is enormous -- 450 reviews, like 500-something pages. There are like 80 pages of lists, you can look restaurants up by just about any criterion. Every restaurant has a full page review, like 5 times the length of Zagat (and Zagat doesn't even have a Houston book).

Basically Fearless Critic has revolutionized restaurant guides in Texas, and the Houston 2010 book is really their best effort yet. Nobody will agree with every review, but this is by far the best thing out there.

The original Fearless Critic Houston Guide was wonderful. My friends and I came to rely on it for finding new great places to try and which old "favorites" to skip. I was absolutely delighted to find that Fearless Critic has updated the Guide and added more than a hundred new restaurants. The authors continue to be "brutally honest" in their reviews and continue to come up with new places that I was unfamiliar with and am excited about trying. They have continued to be spot on for the ones that I have tried. With the first edition of this book I saved so much money -- by not going to over-priced places that other traditional reviewers continue to blindly praise and by going to inexpensive little places and other higher end places that all provide incredible bang for the buck. I am excited about continuing to use the Fearless Critic advice in the new guide. I can't say enough about how thorough and accurate the book is. And the new one is even more entertaining than the first edition -- partly with the well deserved scathing criticism of restaurants that rip us off and partly with their wonderful and incisive humor which adds so much to the serious reviews of the food, ambience and service in the places they have covered.

As a writer and someone in the hospitality industry, I find it amazing how inaccurate this book is. There is a serious lack of journalistic integrity and a clear bias in relation to the only advertisement in it. As a critic, it is vastly important to fully research what you are talking about or else you just sound so clueless. I suppose that is why one must be a fearless critic.

Fearlessly an attempt to promote friends and talk down people who are not friends by young people within the restaurant industry that don't know the first thing about objectivity! Not worth killing trees or brain cells! These guys should be ashamed to put their names on this.