3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Michelin Guides, December 19, 2009
This review is from: Michelin Red Guide New York City 2010, 5e: Restaurants & Hotels (Paperback)
The Michelin guide can be counted on. Every restaurant I've been to which they recommended has been great
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1.0 out of 5 stars
A total waste of time, July 1, 2011
I'm not sure if the other reviewers work for Michelin, but I can't believe we're reviewing the same guide. Maybe I'm just looking for something different from my review guide, like some sort of guidance.
Briefly, because I can't believe I'm wasting more time on this particular book, this guide DOES contain write-ups of many restaurants. They are arranged alphabetically by neighborhood. So the first issue is that you have to know EXACTLY which neighborhood you're in. No problem - I live here now, except that means I know that there are different levels of granularity that are used to distinguish neighborhoods. This book is minutely detailed for mid-town, but lumps most of Brooklyn together in one. In other words, it's inconsistent in it's organization, which makes it hard to navigate.
As far as the reviews go, I've never come across a more confusing grading system. I'd heard of Michelin stars and I know they are given out sparingly. Very few restaurants in this guide are actually recommended and those that do are invariably extremely expensive (unless you've lived in London, in which case it's probably what you'd pay to go to a gastropub). Instead, you have to sift through half-page write-ups to understand what's available. Every description is a rave, even the mediocre restaurants. In short, these reviews are untrustworty and offer zero guidance. On the plus side, there are occasional photos of empty restaurants to liven up the proceedings, but this isn't a GUIDE. It's a compendium of overly-gushing-but-too-short-to-be-truly-useful reviews. Also, there's no guidance as to which reviews to read, so you have to sift them all. Oh, they've tried: there's a stupid little cartoon Michelin man who supposedly represents "good value" who pops up when you least expect him. Well, all I can say is their definition of value doesn't match mine.
So, it's not a guide (despite what the title would suggest), it's big, it's heavy, the reviews are not too hot. What else could it do wrong? Well, how about throwing in a whole bunch of completely irrelevant HOTEL reviews? Yes, this self-proclaimed restaurant guide wastes valuable time, weight, and space on a selection of independent hotel (ie non-chain) reviews. If it said anything other than good things about every single hotel, it would probably be useful. Instead, it smacks suspiciously of product placement.
Do yourself a favor and buy another guide for hotel listings (or use the internet) and then buy the Zagat guide for restaurants.
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4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but they need to notice when restaurants have closed down, April 6, 2010
This review is from: Michelin Red Guide New York City 2010, 5e: Restaurants & Hotels (Paperback)
It is good, but it is hard to trust that they really visit and review every restaurant every year.
In the introduction description of the upper west side,on page 330, they mention 2 restaurants (Tavern on the Green and Cafe des Artistes) that closed in 2009. They closed long before this guide was published. To be fair, they don't include reviews of these restauarants. But, they didn't proof read the neighborhood descriptions to remove references to closed restaurants. That lowers the credibility of the reviews that they did publish.
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