Reading between the lines of Yelp Reviews - I'm a data geek.

Reviews are not always what they appear, especially on Yelp.  This post won't get into the nitty gritty about filtering, shill reviews, and other shenanigans, but this post will give a different view of how you can read between the reviews on Yelp.

*Note: This data generally applies to Austin-area restaurants (trailer or brick and mortar).  This does not apply to other types of businesses or mail order food products.  I have not looked at the data concerning those types of businesses. I have not looked at data in other cities. If you have a restaurant, don't fret if your review behavior doesn't line up with what generally happens.  Your restaurant might just be an outlier.  This will not apply.  

*In less webbie (or techie) locations or places with a smaller population, I find Yelp to be only marginally useful. 

When I use Yelp for search, the first two questions I have are:

• 1. What is the average star rating?
• 2. How many ratings? 

In Austin, you would expect a successful places to have a relatively large number (more than 75) of reviews after a year.  If the location has very few reviews after being open for a year or so, my next questions are:

• 1. Who wrote the reviews?
• 2. Is there anything that makes this place an outlier (difficult to reach location, odd hours, unavailable to the public, special events only, or otherwise)?
• 3.When I Google this location, is there anything odd on the web?  Is the owner an axe-murderer?

After making sure that there was nothing that made this place a horrendous outlier, I would think read the actual reviews for the qualitative data.  This is typically a laborious process just to figure out where I should eat. 


After going through this routine of trying to interpret the data, I found that the review behavior is much more telling than the reviews themselves.  Any place can have a high average star rating as it is fairly easy manipulate.  A restaurant can have only four ratings of five stars each, geee...... that restaurant looks perfect doesn't it?  I would beg to differ, the low number of ratings could be because people really dislike the restaurant and avoid it, or it could be that some Yelp users just don't write about negative experiences.  In any case, a low number of reviews after being open for business for a significant amount of time is a red warning flag.

Being the big data geek that I am, I've looked at review behavior for many restaurants over a long period of time.  One thing that stuck out was that successful restaurant consistently garnered reviews, positive and negative.  Not so successful restaurants would stagnate after an initial burst of reviews, garnering maybe one review every month or so.  In my interpretation of that behavior, a restaurant with a four-star average with a consistently growing number of reviews is a much better choice than a restaurant with perhaps a 4.5 star average, only a handful of reviews, and the latest review was two months ago.  Personally, I would rather eat at a restaurant with a lower average rating that had consistent growth in their reviews rather than a restaurant with a high average rating but no new reviews.  That's just my interpretation of the data, and my opinion. 

I will also add that public relations effort does have an impact on the review behavior, but only significantly in the early days of a restaurant's opening.  There will inevitably be a spurt of reviews (positive or negative) when a restaurant first opens, but if the restaurant fails to perform, the reviews stop coming in.  Additionally, if the restaurant participates in branding and publicity efforts, that might cause other spurts of reviews.  However, it doesn't change the review behavior significantly in the long term.

The chart above is something I created to model the review behavior, and it is based off of many Austin restaurants.  I will not list the ones that are unsuccessful, but I'll point out one that is successful.  The Noble Pig is a great example of a successful restaurant that did not engage in a large public relations effort.  They have been open for only about six months, and they are located a 40 minute drive away from downtown; yet they already have 69 reviews to-date with a 4.5 star rating.  Even though the location makes them an outlier, they are consistently garnering reviews.  That's a place I would definitely visit again, and again, and again.  *Disclosure: I met the chef at several events, and I really like his sandwiches. 

This post is just a suggestion that reviews and star ratings should just be taken with a grain of salt.  Looking at review behavior can give you more in-depth look at a restaurant's success. I'm using the word "success" loosely.  You can define it however you like.

Sustainable Food Center's Spring Bounty Dinner 2011

Spring is in the air, and fresh veggies are are hitting dinner tables.  I can not wait to see what spring crops bring.  The Sustainable Food Center Chef's Series was an awesome event to check out what spring veggies and meats are available.  Thank you so much to SFC, Giant Noise, La Condesa, and the Chefs for having me out for dinner.  Before we get started, I have to show off my Scan-gauge with some readouts from the Chevy Cruze Eco.  MPG is instantaneous miles per gallon.  It says 0.0 because I was stopped.  However, on my drive from my home to downtown Austin and parking, was 45.3 city driving.  Not too bad considering the Chevy Cruze Eco Automatic is rated 26 city driving. 

YAY!  This car performed better for me city driving than highway driving.


The first course wasn't started with a beer, but this is pretty awesome to have just sitting on a table.  This was Independence Brewery's Stash IPA.  Wanna firkkin?


Foreign and Domestic's Richardson Farms Pork liver custard waiting to be plated.  I was pretty hungry by the time 5pm rolled around, and staring at food did not help.  I nearly passed out from hunger be the time the food started rolling.


I caught Chef Paul Qui from Uchiko in the back preparing for dinner service.


Chef Zack Northcutt from Haddington's and Chef David Bull from Congress Austin chopping onions and grill red romaine.  I'm unsure how they aren't crying from the onions.  I wear goggles when I chop onions.


The first course is from Chef Ned Elliott from Foreign and Domestic.  It is Richardson Farms pork liver custard with piquillo syrup, natsturtium salsa, and sherry caramel.  The flavor combination was utterly fantastic, and the texture of the custard was incredibly smooth.  If you're a lover of the liver, this is the dish for you.  If you're not a liver lover, you  might not be so thrilled.  While I loved the dish, I thought that the La Spinetta Moscato made the pairing overly sweet.  I think a dry champagne would have paired better with the texture and sweetness of this dish.


The next dish is from Chef Paul Qui from Uchiko.  Spring onion dashi, squash blossoms, baby zucchini, baby carrots, on top of a goats' milk ricotta.  I think that's goats' because there should be more than one goats' milk to make the cheese.  Coming back onto the subject at hand, this dish was literally spring in a bowl.  The flavors was so light, fresh, subtle, and clean that it made me feel like my body was healing itself, Wolverine style.  Also the presentation of this dish was fantastic. The colors were simply gorgeous.


This dish is the Milago farms soft egg, elephant garlic puree, and pancetta shitake vinaigrette danube from Chef Bryce Gilmore of Barely Swine and the ever popular Odd Duck Farm to Trailer.  I must say that Chef Bryce has got that soft egg thing going on.  It is one of my favorites at the trailer, and this dish aimed to please.  The yolk of this egg was perfectly cook, congealed but not runny.  On top of the garlic puree (that was not the least bit pungent) with a bite of crunchy pancetta, #win.  Paired with Lagunitas Little Sumpin Ale, it was a perfect balance for cutting the rich heavy fats and the sweetness of the pancetta.  Double #win.


Chef Shawn Cirkiel of Parkside served up Sloan Farms rabbit, green garlic, pecans, glazed spring carrots, and a red wine sauce.  Is this dish beautiful or what?  This dish just looks so pretty with that pink carrot.


Next up was grilled Lockhart quail, grilled red romaine, candied orange, and cardamon yogurt by Chef David Bull from Congress Austin. The quail was out of this world. Chef David brined it in citrus for 24 hours, and that will be the next method I use when I cook poultry.  It was sweet, juicy, and de-boned (except the leg bone which made for a nice handle).  The sweet quail, tart orange, and subtly spiced yogurt was fantastic.
 

Chef Zack Northcutt of Haddington's can make a mean meal.  This Windy Ranch osso bucco served over polenta was so mean is made me cry and wish that my ancestors were Italian.  But they are not, even though I don't have Italian roots, this osso bucco made me feel like I was at home (even if I never ate it at home).  I'm pretty sure my mom doesn't even know what it is.  In any case, the osso bucco was meaty in texture, juicy with flavor (just the right amount of fat), and perfect with the Independence Brewing Stash IPA.  It had just the right amount of hop flavor to go against this beefy dish. I hope this gets added to the Haddington's menu on in the wintertime.  I would be shoveling it in my mouth like it was going out of style.


This drink is the Del Maguey Crema de Mezcal with Honey Liqueur, cream, and house-made Froberg Farm strawberry soda.  I loved this drink's creamy texture and strong liqueur flavor though it was just a tad sweet. 

Dessert by Chef Laura Sawacki at La Condesa was Soncrest Farms smoked egg parfait, marcona almond, Oakhill Farms strawberrry, pickled mustard seed, and smoked sea salt.  To someone who doesn't know Chef Laura's style, that might sound a bit daunting and completely unconventional.  Let me tell you straight up that Laura is not traditional, but she is downright amazing.  This dessert paired sour, sweet, spicy, smoke with creamy, sticky, cold, and crunchy into something fantastic that words cannot describe.  I have to hand it to Austin pastry chefs.  They can get downright creative and pull off crazy concoctions.

Thank you again to SFC, Giant Noise, La Condesa, and the Chefs for having me over for dinner.  And Happy Birthday to Chef Rene Ortiz!

Southern Cooking at Josey's Grill and Bar at the Lakeway Resort and Spa

It seems to be spa season, and that's no complaint from me.  Being invited to partake in a tasting menu at the Lakeway Resort and Spa made me pretty giddy.  Chef Jeff Axline was playing host a the resort's restaurant, Josey's Grill and Bar.  It only took a glance at the menu to note that he takes Southern food seriously.  I would say that the style could be a cross of Paula Deen meets Charles Alderton and then runs away with the Antonelli's.  Butter meets soda (or pop) and elopes with cheese.  Let's get started on some food-pornorific photos by John M. P. Knox otherwise known as @windaddict/@hopsafari. The view outside from the windows is beautiful  First up was the cheddar and bacon buttermilk biscuits with Jeff's chili/bacon jam and whipped sweet butter.  The buttery, warm, and fluffy biscuits were oh-so-sinful that you'll be doing some serious time in purgatory.  I enjoyed the texture of this bacon jam more than others.  This one had tiny chunks of bacon as opposed to bacon chopped into tiny specks. Next up were the pulled beef nachos with house potato chips- Tillamook cheddar cheese sauce and a jalapeno avocado crema.   Think of this is a fancy pants version of nachos and cheese with meat. Jumbo lump crab cake with jalapeno tartar sauce with creamy slaw.  Jumbo referred to the size of the lumps of crab, not necessarily the size of the crab cake.  This crab cake was, well, wonderfully full of crab and not fluff. Quail is growing popular these days, and this Dr. Pepper infused fried quail is no exception.  It was sweet, smoky, flavorful with tender morsels of meat on the thin bones.  I think that the salad that came along side this dish, blue cheese potato salad with ancho/honey butter was a clear winner.  Even for a cheese and meat eater, this salad was pretty amazing.  I must say that this salad was actually my favorite dish of the night. A word of warning when you order this dish: make sure you split it with several other people.  This dish is so rich and creamy, you'll feel like you'll have cheese running through your veins.  It is quite literally loaded baked potato meets mac and cheese.  It includes maple rubbed bacon, scallions, and a potato chip crust.  I would have loved to try this with a nice brown ale or even an IPA to balance out the sweet maple.  This mac and cheese is not for the faint of heart. Here comes the soda again.  Gorgonzola grilled cheese-root beer braised short ribs with marinated tomatoes on artisan sourdough.  This could have been a stand alone meal.  Crunchy toasted sour dough bread, pungent gorgonzola, and sweet short ribs.  Yes,  I wrote a sentence with only nouns.  Drool.  And a sentence with only a verb and an implied noun. As if there wasn't enough meat, next up is a grilled petite Hereford beef filet mignon with roasted beers, fingerling potatoes, brussels sprouts, and red wine jus.  Eat meat now. And to tie to meal together, double chocolate bread pudding with slightly sweet whipped cream and butterscotch sauce.  I'm not sure how I managed to do it, but I ate all of my dessert.  That is a testament to the meal.  Thank you again to the Lakeway Resort and Spa, Josey's Grill and Bar and to Chef Jeff Axline for having us over for dinner.

Visiting @RoyersCafe & Festival Hill with the @ChevyTexan Cruze Eco

*Chevy provided the Cruze Eco that I drove for this trip. *Bud Royers kindly tried to buy the meal at Royer's Round Top Cafe, but he did let me pay for a portion of it.  I win!  I can be very stubborn.

*Royer's Round Top Cafe sends pies to the troops on a regular basis.  If you know of someone in the service who might appreciate a little slice of heaven, Royer's will do it right.  If you've ever received a care package, you know how much they mean.  Click here to send one now.  Bud has a list of soldiers who are in need of care and a bit of comfort if you'd like to don't know one personally.

The 2011 Cruze Eco is gorgeous (26 city, 37 highway, 30 combined).  There is no doubt that this is a sexy car, and the color combination was smoking hot.  The exterior was black granite metallic and the interior was jet black webbing on sport red fabric.  That's also a very common choice of colors for lingerie, but I digress. 

This was my first long outing with the Cruze Eco, and the driving conditions were well, at a disadvantage for fuel economy.  I had found that in super highway mode on my short drive around town on Wednesday, I was netting in the high 50 mpg range.  However, the wind was not on my side.  With strong and gusty winds from the South, the average on this trip was 42 mpg over 180 miles.  That included a mild incline and decline over the trip and several small towns and numerous stop lights, but mostly I fought with the winds.  The gusts threw the ignition timing and transmission load numbers around like a kite in the hurricane.  I rarely, if ever, saw super highway mode on this trip.  I'll take this baby out again over the next few days to see how it performs under more stable conditions. 

Red with black webbing is haute.

My first impressions are that it is a little sluggish when changing gears, even with the manual tiptronic.  I was very difficult for me to achieve high numbers over EPA.  Typically, I can easily hop into a brand new car and get anywhere from 150%-200% over EPA.  I struggled here with a heavy car (~3400 lbs), a tiny 1.4L, and high sidewinds pulling 42 mpg out of EPA 30.  This is not an easy car for eco-driving beginners, but this is a pretty slick ride.  It isn't a fancy pants ruin your credit history while shrinking your smooth muscle tissue that carries gamete cells type of car, but it comes close.  It is sexy, hot, and perfect for those who want the bang with out costing big bucks. 

These photos don't really do it any justice.  Just sitting in the car will get your testosterone flowing.  Yes, women have testosterone. 

Rachelle (@blindedbite) accompanied me on this trip, and our first stop was Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory in Brenham.  We didn't go on the tour because it was sold out, and well, the entire experience was a little underwhelming.  If I was a kid, I'd enjoy it.  As an adult, I'm there for the Foursquare and Gowalla check in.  Next stop was Royer's Round Top Cafe.  My choice in going to Royer's took years, quite literally.  Back in undergrad, my beloved mentor and professor, Dr. Dev. Singh, constantly told the class about pies at this place in Round Top.  The class was substance abuse, and the substances we focused on were calories.  Royer's Round Top Cafe was owned by one of his students who would bring pies into class regularly.  Drool worthy pies.  I started bringing my own baked goods into class shortly after, and that kind of turned into this whole blog and the #cupcakefairy/#cupcakeriot a decade later.  Now you know where my true inspiration to become a proficient baker began. 

Bud Royer with the Chevy Cruze

It wasn't until a several month ago (over a decade since I first heard about Royer's) that I happened to glance at Facebook to see someone with the last name Royer comment on of mutual friend's status.  So we connected, and it turns out that he was the owner of Royer's Round Top Cafe.  His wife, Karen, had taken Dr. Singh's class.  I decided that I needed to visit soon, and this was the perfect time. Royer's Round Top Cafe is a place of history.  The walls are decorated with menus from other restaurants, hilarious signs, photographs, and letters.  After spending the afternoon with Bud, my head is brimming with all the tidbits of stories.  You'll have to visit Bud yourself to get the scoop. 

Bud did the ordering for us, and it started with this Shrimp BLT. This is some of the best bacon ever.  Sweet, caramelized, crisp, and smoky. I need a towel please.  Below is the REALLY BIG stuffed jalapeno.  Yes, it is big.  That's what she said. 

I had the grilled rack of lamb with a lemon basil sauce.  It is the most tender lamb I have ever had.  I kid you not.  Tender.  These babies are tender and flavorful.  The side dish is called Bud's Smash - mashed potato casserole, creamed-corn, red onions, and bleu cheese crumbles.  He said that he just mixed it up one day, and a customer asked him what it was.  People liked it, so it was added to the menu.  Yummy!  Rachelle had the Micah's snapper - grilled snapper topped with shrimp sautéed in white wine, olive oil, basil, garlic, and tomatoes.  Yes. It was awesome.  As were the sides of stir-fry veggie. 

One cannot leave Royer's without having pie, so Rachelle and I decided to share a piece of peach pie with vanilla Amy's ice cream.  It was a piece of Texas Summer on a plate. Eat it and be glad that we still have a little time before bikini season.  We didn't eat ALL of the pies in the picture above.  I also cannot end this post without including various photos of the menu and decor.  Please note that this is just a little taste of the fun that is Royer's Round Top Cafe.

This letter was signed "I am a fat blob! Thanks! - Mary Matalin" 

I'm a social psychologist.  This appealed to me.

I told you the menu was funny.  Now you know the menu is HILARIOUS!  Don't eat the rolls. Buy pie$.

Get the ice cream. Or pay an extra 50 cents.

They are serious about service.   I'm mean VERY serious.

After our meal, Bud sent us off with directions to check out Festival Hill.  I've never heard of Festival Hill, and boy was I glad to see it.  It is a non-profit venue that hosts weddings, concerts, and get-away weekends.  After skipping around the grounds for a few minutes, both Rachelle and I decided that this place is awesome.  I'm coming back. 

Yes, this is in the middle of Round Top, TX, population 77.

Stone eagles and stone saints.

Castle and gardens.  That is so Texas.

That's very wizard-y looking.

That's pretty cool. But I don't think they had THAT type of medication.