Me, discussing dinner plans with my mom: “I think I want a decent steak tonight.”
Mom: “Here's the latest version of the paper's restaurant guide, see what looks good.”
Me: *blinks dumbly at the paper* *picks up ipad* *googles “steak new orleans”
I handed it over; she scrolled down saying “not that one” to several – mostly due to location – and suggested one she thinks is good. I eyeballed the distribution of its reviews on Yelp and agreed. Interestingly, she thinks that Yelp is utterly useless because everything she's looked at there has equal amounts of glowing and terrible reviews, so everything comes out average. Which is counter to my experience, where there's usually a clear trend to the ratings. Unless there's only like five of them. (I am aware of OTHER problems with Yelp, namely the repeated issues with them de-emphasizing good reviews for places in an effort to get money. But usually I can get a decent read on a place from skimming the range of reviews.)
I did not suggest that perhaps she's just checked online reviews for kinda mediocre places, or even crappy places that have a few fake 5-star reviews from shills and some 1-stars from actual customers…
2022 me, who has moved back to New Orleans, would like to note that New Orleans restaurants get several orders of magnitude more reviews on Yelp than Seattle did, because it is an International Food Tourist Destination. Mom’s view is not far off.
Sorry, Mom.