Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A reliable guide to finding excellent food in the UK, 6 Oct 2001
By A Customer
The Good Food Guide 2002 follows the format of previous Guides; the introduction (which this year has a ten point checklist on what NOT to do to win custom) followed by reviews of each restaurant - outlining the meal, environment and experience, with a detail section including marks for cooking, wheelchair access, vegetarian options, name of the chef and proprietors, and so on. Restaurants are ordered alphabetically by name within London, followed by the rest of the UK alphabetically by location. There are some good colour maps, with the locations of featured restaurants marked - I have already used this to find somewhere new on the fly while out in London, and had a fantastic meal as a result! There are three £5 vouchers which can be used at many of the listed restaurants, which both tempts you to try somewhere different, and recoups the cost of the book. The Guide is thorough and reliable, as I find that most of my experiences at restaurants mirror that of their inspectors' - which means I can trust their judgement and enjoy finding new and interesting places to eat. The best guide of its kind!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The UK Food Guide You Have to Have, 9 Dec 2000
By A Customer
A bit quirky and not by any means totally reliable in relation to the points it awards, the GFG is still THE invaluable guide for the diner-out in the UK.The old 5-point system was hopeless because the lack of granularity it gave meant a change of one point (always a subjective judgement) led to a radical change in diners' expectations. Tom Jaine soon found 5 points weren't enough, anyway, and doubled them by introducing the asterisk. The newer, 10-point system just rationalises it. For me, the even older system of points out of 20 was better still: now, you wonder whether a 1 is worth visiting, whereas nothing rated 1-7 would be listed under the old regime. Clear? Written in good English, the GFG now employs people who seem to know that calves' livers are big enough to make it unlikely the calf's liver you'll be served will come from more than one calf. NB Consumers' Assosiation: i) It is madness to put the maps in the middle of the book, separating 'adjacent' entries by several pages--please return maps to the back. ii) You've still got your apostrophe in the wrong place. The Michelin red guide is the only other important food guide to the UK but it doesn't give enough info about food quality: only a few restos are starred and it's only the stars that relate specifically to the food. Biffo
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
highly erratic marking system, and variable reporting, 26 Oct 2000
By A Customer
One wonders about the kind of people who bother to write reports for this guide. Once a fairly quirky but well-edited round-up of Britain's best restaurants it now seems to be floundering around, unsure where to position itself. Just looking at places in central London, there's a huge disparity between the markings of restaurants which I know are good, compared to those I know aren't. And, even when the reports fit reasonably well with my own opinions, I am completely baffled by the marking system. How on earth does the River Cafe only deserve two more points than a bistro in East Anglia, for example? Beats me. The GFG was far better under the editorship of Tom Jaine, who at least appeared to know what he was talking about. Also, he used a marking system out of 5, which produced a much better indication of the chef's abilities than this current points out of 10 nonsense. I mean, if a restaurant is only worth 1 point, why is it in the Guide at all? Presumably it means they know how to turn the gas on. Back to the drawing board, Consumers' Association - this ain't working.
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