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Bill Rapaport's Buffalo Restaurant Guide

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[9/14/15]
It is with some sadness, but also some relief, that I announce the closing of my Buffalo Restaurant Guide.

I began it in 1988—long before the Web was a glimmer in anyone's eye—as a 2-page handout for an international conference that I hosted at UB.

I am gratified that it has grown to have a loyal following and many reviewers. But I have retired from UB, moved out of Buffalo, and now have other obligations to fulfill.

In addition, there are now many other Buffalo restaurant websites and Facebook pages.

To my readers and reviewers, many thanks! I apologize for a large backlog of as-yet-unpublished reviews. I will contact those reviewers privately and urge them to send their reviews elsewhere.

The guide will remain accessible on the Web unless its host, the UB Department of Computer Science & Engineering, decides otherwise.

Bon appetit!

-Bill

Have you just eaten in a [] wonderful [] restaurant?

Have you just eaten in an [—] awful [—] restaurant?

Do you know of a nice restaurant that you'd like others to know about?

Just send email to Bill Rapaport at rapaport@buffalo.edu
with Subject = "RESTAURANT REVIEW"

(clicking on the button, or my name, or my email above will do this for you automatically;
but, if you omit that "Subject" line, your email will very likely disappear into my mailer's spam mailbox :-().

If possible, please include the following information:

• Full name of restaurant

• URL of their website, if you know it

• Full address of the restaurant

• Phone number of the restaurant

• Your full name

• Date (at least the month and year) of your most recent visit
  (the one that you're writing about).

• Your review, positive or negative

• Give details about food, not just decor or service.
  • However, if there is something especially good or especially bad about the ambience, please do mention it:

    

• Please send review in plain text—Please do not use HTML or a word processor
  (e.g., especially not  MS Word).

REVIEWING POLICIES

1. I regret that anonymous reviews cannot be accepted.

2. I reserve the right to lightly edit all reviews.
   • I will publish as is, but flag, reviews that require more than a light editing!

3. And I do not (knowingly) publish reviews that have appeared elsewhere (e.g., Urban Spoon, Yelp, etc.)

4. Policy on negative reviews:
   • Sometimes I have been taken to task for publishing negative reviews.
     • We have published negative reviews almost since the beginning of the Web version of this guide (it was only a print version before the mid-1990s).
     • And many of those negative reviews were not simply reviews of disappointing meals, but comments on poor service or customer-unfriendly management.

   • There have been such reviews for a wide range of restaurants, including Asa Ransom House, Chester's Cajun Grill, Fanny's, Frank's Sunny Italy, Havana House, La Dolce Vita, O'Connell's, Trattoria Aroma, among many others.
     • Some of these are excellent restaurants that merely disappointed one customer.
     • Others were restaurants that were having problems at the time (as may be obvious in the case of some—but not all—of those that have since closed).

   • For some of the negative reviews, the management contacted me, either to request the opportunity to reply (and in some cases to explain or to apologize, such as Chester's and O'Connell's)—which I have always granted—or else to demand a retraction of the review (which I have never done, though I have offered those restaurants the opportunity to reply).

   • The early issues of this guide were intended to list only "good" restaurants.
     • As it became more interactive, it began to include "disappointing" ones, too.
     • I think that warning people of possible problems is almost as important as letting them know of good places to eat.
     • If a restaurant with many good reviews gets one or two less-than-good reviews, readers can determine for themselves how to interpret that.
     • If a restaurant gets many less-than-good reviews and few, if any, good ones, readers can draw their own conclusions.

   • That's why I welcome both positive and negative reviews.
     • It's also why I have a separate list of "favorite" restaurants, so that readers can know about the really good places.

   • Comments on this policy are welcome.

5. Policy on old reviews:
   • Sometimes I am asked why I keep old reviews on the site.
     • I agree that old reviews are less valuable than newer ones, which is why I date them.
     • And I publish them in reverse chronological order, so that the newer reviews are always the first ones that a reader sees.
     • Readers can decide for themselves how many reviews to read before deciding whether to eat at a given restaurant.

   • In the beginning, I did delete old reviews, but I reconsidered this practice because I find the history and evolution of the reviews to be of interest.
     • One contributor, who had suggested that reviews older than 3 years be deleted, agreed that "older reviews are two-edged: have they improved or declined, or [stayed] consistent; good point".

   • Another reason that I decided not to delete old reviews is that it's hard to choose a non-arbitrary cut-off—15 years may seem reasonable, but see my next point. Only 3 years, as some contributors have suggested? Why not 2? Or 4?—especially when choosing any such cut-off date would eliminate all reviews for some restaurants (see my next point).

   • In many cases, if I deleted old reviews, certain restaurants would have to be deleted because I have not received any newer reviews.
     • In some cases, this may tell you something about the restaurant (why has no one sent in a review in a long time?).
     • In other cases, I think that deleting such a restaurant would be a shame.
       • Just to cite one example at random, Stratford, ON (Canada)'s The Prune Restaurant, which has only a single review from 1996, is still in business and appears to be a fine restaurant. Why not continue to let people know of its existence?
       • Or consider San Marco Ristorante, clearly one of the top restaurants in the Buffalo area: If I deleted all reviews that were older than 3 years, there would only be one review left.

   • With chefs coming and going frequently, it would be very hard to keep track of which reviews are really culinarily current (even if chronologically recent) and which aren't.

   • Finally, in fact, I do delete old reviews!
     • But, of course, you don't see them after they've been deleted, so you may not realize that they're gone.
     • When a restaurant closes, its reviews disappear. (I keep them for the archives, but they no longer appear on the website.)
     • And when I learn that a restaurant has changed hands, I'll print the old reviews in smaller font, until I get a sufficient number of new ones to replace them.

   • Again, comments on this policy are welcome.

GRAMMAR NOTES:

For general notes on grammar, spelling, and punctuation, see:

1. "Some Rules of Thumb about Grammatical Issues" (§4 of my "How to Write").
2. Paul Brians's "Common Errors in English Usage"

AND REMEMBER…

A "compliment" is something nice that you say about the restaurant.
A "complement" is food that goes well with other food. :-)

• But just to confuse things:
  • "complimentary" can mean "free of charge"
    
  • "complementary" can mean "going well with something else"

A "dessert" is a sweet food you eat at the end of a meal.
A "desert" is a hot, sandy geographical location. :-)

Furthermore:

you're = you are: "You're going to the park; I'm not."
your = possessive of "you": "Your book is red; mine is green."

• For example, "You're going to your car; I'm going to my car."
  • This means: You are going to the car that belongs to you, and I am going to the car that belongs to me.

  For another example, click here.
  For yet another (unprintable) example, click here.

• N.B.: These should not even be pronounced alike! "Your" is /yore/; "you're" is /yoor/.
  Adapted from my "How to Write"

And please take this quick multiple-choice test:
Which of these is the correct spelling of "definitely"?
(Note: Each of these has appeared in a submitted review!)
(Hint:  The answer should be self-evident from the question :-)

1. defenintely
2. defiantly
3. definately
4. definatly
5. definently
6. definetly
7. definietly
8. definitely
9. definitley
10. defintely

    

And, although I still insist that ‘panini’ is the plural of ‘panino’
(‘panini’ means "sandwiches", so saying ‘paninis’ is exactly like saying ‘sandwicheses’),
I'm about ready to give up on trying to correct the mistaken American usage of it as a singular:

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