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Well, more than likely, you’ve been to quite a few restaurants here in Bakersfield. So why haven’t you reviewed them yet in the Inside Guide? It’s fast and easy. But where do you start? What makes one review better than another?

Here’s some example of a great review our own Jason did on Pho Vi:

 What is pho? Pronounced sort of like "fuh," it's Vietnamese beef noodle soup. It's actually a popular breakfast food in Vietnam, but me, I'll eat it whenever. I used to go to the Pho Pasteur chain in the Boston area whenever we were up there, and so I was so happy when Pho Vi opened up in Bakersfield.

While there are other things on the menu (and those big plates of fried pork chops over rice look mighty tempting, and my wife likes the salads of meat over cold rice noodles, called bun), the basic currency of a pho place is, well, pho. (They actually do have a chicken based version of the soup too.)

Listed by number on the menu are a whole mess of variations--basically, pho is a long-cooked beef-based soup, into which they drop a big spool of rice noodles, and then you pick your condiments, which is to say, what parts of the cow you want. The superduper combo one, which I think might be number 1 but I'm not sure, has everything from pieces of rare flank steak to slices of brisket to more interesting things like tripe and pleasantly gelantinous pieces of tendon. I usually go for the one with beef, tendon, but no tripe. (There are also ones with Vietnamese meatballs.) Don't worry, some of those numbered combinations are sans both tripe and tendon, for the squeamish.

Then you doctor it up. On the table is a beautiful platter of fresh basil leaves, bean sprouts, and limes, and a bunch of other condiments, like hoisin, chili garlic sauce, and sriracha. Put whatever you want, however much you want, into your bowl. You can also, if you like, mix sauces in a little bowl and dip the meat from the soup into the sauce.

There are 2 sizes, and though I go for large, small is pretty substantial too, and neither is very expensive. This is filling, hearty, and basic, good and warming--it's soup, it's noodles, it's beef--what else could you ask for?

To drink, try a Vietnamese beverage--freshly squeezed lemonade mixed with soda, or classic Vietnamese iced coffee (strong espresso over ice with sweetened condensed milk poured on top, yum). Next door, after you finish your pho, go grab yourself a boba tea. It's all good.

Jason’s got the mad reviewing skills, right? Well, here’s some steps offered by epinions for those of you out there without that need a little kickstart:

Talk about the food!

Now sure, I love hearing stories about good and bad experiences you've had. Sure, I'd like to know whether you feel the place is clean, or the workers are friendly. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But it seems, more often than I'd like to see, some people forget the most important part of a restaurant review: the food itself.

While it's always nice if the workers are good, you don't go to a restaurant to see nice workers--you go to eat. Yet so many reviews skimp majorly on talking about the food, or neglect it entirely! I don't expect you to list every single item, but do talk about those you've actually tried, whether or not you liked it, and why.

Don't confuse restaurants!

For the most part, what you are reviewing is the restaurant you're writing for. It's fine, and even encouraged, to make some comparisons with different places, but even still, the main part of the review should actually be the restaurant you're writing for.

Recently, I'd read a review where the person mentioned they didn't like Popeyes' honey-topped biscuits. There's a problem there: Popeyes doesn't make honey-topped biscuits. Churches does, and I'm sure some other chains I have not visited do, but Popeyes doesn't. This poses me a problem: for everything else in the review, I do not know whether you actually mean Popeyes, or this other restaurant. And I really can't find a review to be helpful if I don't know whether or not you're talking about the right place.

Don't overexaggerate!

Did you like something? Did you not like something? We want to know, and the more vivid the description, the better for those of us who may not know what the place is like.

But don't overdo it, either. I'm not going to believe it if you tell me that a certain menu item tastes like blood. I might believe that you found blood in your food (at a very unsanitary restaurant), but I'm not going to believe your food tasted like blood. Likewise, I'm not going to seriously believe that French fries taste anything like rice. You may not like how either tastes, but they're far from identical in flavor.

 
Don't complain about food you hate to begin with!

I'm not much of a vegetable person. I absolutely hate salad with a passion. So while I may mention that a restaurant has salad, I'm not going to make a big deal over it.

Why? Because I don't like salad to begin with. Being a salad-hater, it would do you, the reader, no good for me to complain about the salad at any specific restaurant. Obviously, if you loved salad, and you wanted me to warn you on which restaurants had the worst salad, I would not be the person to turn to, as I think every restaurant has the worst salad.

What it boils down to is this: if you don't like salad period, don't complain about the salad at any restaurant. If you don't like hamburgers period (a favorite food of mine, personally), don't complain about the hamburgers at any restaurant. It's pretty simple, really.

More opinions, fewer facts!

There's nothing wrong with telling us what's on the menu at any restaurant. There is something wrong, however, if you don't give us your opinions on those menu items, even if it's as simple as "I haven't tried this before." In the days of the Internet, it's pretty simple to just go to any restaurant's website to see what they offer.

But you can write a review that offers something their website cannot: an unbiased opinion on the food. Aside from food, you can give your opinions on other aspects of the restaurant as well, like the service, the prices, and the decor. But however you do it, be sure to give us some opinions with the review, and not just a long laundry list of facts.

 

If it’s your first time writing a review, start somewhere simple. Like Starbucks, McDonalds, or Red Lobster. You know you’ve been and you either love ‘em or hate ‘em.

Leave a comment and let me know how it goes or let me know if you can’t find a business you want to review.

Happy reviewing!