About our Ratings

07/27/10 by

Let’s face it. Some reviewers get caught up in trying to impress their art school buddies. They complain about shallow characters in action movies, or name-drop exotic foods like creme de la creme creme, while thinking: I’m so smart!

We have a different approach at Boston Events Insider. We review restaurants so you can make decisions about where to eat. And we are you. Our reviewers haven’t been to culinary school. We just “insiders” who love to discover the best places and then tell our friends.

Our ratings are based on expectations and surprises:

        1. Let’s say it’s “Korean BBQ”. What would you expect and assume?
        2. Go to Joe’s Korean Smokehouse.

      Was this Korean BBQ place better or worse than expected?

That’s why an average pizza shops is rated 3, and an average fancy restaurant rated 3, too. It’s all relative to their direct competitors. To be clear:

1 Star. A place to be avoided at all costs.
    2 Stars. Underaverage, but accepable.
    3 Stars. Average, exactly what you’d expect.
    4 Stars. The insider’s choice for this type of food!

 

Generally speaking, we break down restaurants into the following categories:

  • A Fast food place is very commercialized. It has no table service and sometimes no tables. A hole in the wall.
  • A Cafe / Pub has tables and may or may not have table service, but the emphasis is on socializing rather than an intimate experience. So there may be televisions or a bar that dominate the space.
  • A Restaurant is a sit-down experience where you don’t have to dress up or pay more than $25 a plate. They don’t have televisions.
  • A Dining Experience is a bit of a theater where they not only feed you but make you feel like one of the elite, with cloth napkins and salad forks. They don’t have a buffet or salad bar.