The Perceptor

August 3, 2005 11:19 AM

Do restaurant reviews leave out too many details for you to get a feel for a place? For the last year, a chowhound with the handle perceptor has been sharing beautiful pictorial restaurants reviews (mainly in L.A.), to the delight of many. Here they are: (* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *) [MI]
posted by 김치 (40 comments total)

I couldn't find a propoer index of perceptor's work, so I've indexed them by name.

1. 2117 Restaurant
2. AOC (#1)
3. AOC (#2)
4. Afternoon Tea at the Beverly Hills Peninsula Hotel
5. Alto Palato
6. Amuse Cafe
7. Beach House of Laguna Beach
8. Blue Marlin
9. Boule Pre-Opening Party
10. Cafe Del Rey Sunday Brunch
11. Chadaka Thai
12. Cheebo
13. Chicago: Avec
14. Chicago: HotChocolate
15. Chloe
16. Chosun Galbi
17. Cobras & Matadors
18. Cynthia's
19. Dumpling 10053
20. El Cholo
21. Empress Harbor Seafood Restaurant
22. Father's Office
23. Gaja Okonomiyaki
24. Grace
25. Grilled Cheese Thursdays @ Campanile
26. Gyu-Kaku
27. Jin Patisserie
28. Kappo Ishito
29. Kiyosuzu
30. L'Orangerie
31. La Terza
32. Luna Park
33. Manhattan: Norma's at Le Parker Meridien Hotel
34. Mario's Peruvian
35. Maurya
36. Max
37. Morel's Steakhouse
38. Musha of Santa Monica
39. Nyala
40. Orris
41. Patina
42. Porterhouse Bistro
43. Project by Project Food and Wine Benefit
44. San Francisco: French Laundry (#1)
45. San Francisco: French Laundry (#2)
46. San Francisco: Gary Danko
47. Sea Harbour
48. Shik Do Rak of Garden Grove
49. Sona
50. SooWon Korean BBQ
51. Spago Chef Tasting Menu
52. Spain
53. Sushi Kokyo (#1)
54. Sushi Kokyo (#2)
55. Tama Sushi
56. The Hungry Cat
57. The Ivy
58. Torafuku
59. Uncle Bill's Pancake House
60. Urasawa
61. Wat Thai Temple Weekend Food Fest

posted by 김치 at 11:20 AM on August 3, 2005

Please don’t do that again. The thing with the *s, I mean.
Thank you.
posted by signal at 11:26 AM on August 3, 2005

good jesus god christ
posted by Satapher at 11:33 AM on August 3, 2005

Nice post, 김치! I will definitely make use of this....
posted by mr_roboto at 11:37 AM on August 3, 2005

time for some good ol' fashioned hazing
posted by Satapher at 11:37 AM on August 3, 2005

This type of review is fantastic... I like it far more than the average chowhound or zagat review.
posted by mosch at 11:37 AM on August 3, 2005

my god, it's full of stars moderately upscale food boutiques.
posted by moonbird at 11:40 AM on August 3, 2005

I was going to bitch about the stars but then I saw you posted an actual index.

Thanks.
posted by selfnoise at 11:40 AM on August 3, 2005

What the ****!?
posted by Robot Johnny at 11:41 AM on August 3, 2005

just discovered chowhound myself - and this guy is gold! thanks 김치 !
posted by killy willy at 11:45 AM on August 3, 2005

This is awesome. The pics from the French Laundry make me glad I was too afraid to eat there. (tiny tiny tiny food)
posted by ColdChef at 11:47 AM on August 3, 2005

Comprehensive is one word to describe this post.
posted by heavy metal ümlaut at 11:48 AM on August 3, 2005

Good initiative, piss-poor judgement.

But thanks for the index.
posted by jsavimbi at 11:51 AM on August 3, 2005

The afternoon tea at the Beverly Hills Peninsula Hotel (#4) - what an absolutely gorgeous thing. I feel like I should go put on a dress just to look at the photographs. Such precious, beautiful food in these photographs. And thanks for indexing these, although clicking on the stars is fun too, as I like surprises.
posted by iconomy at 11:53 AM on August 3, 2005

My advice is not to use st*rs, either in a post or a comment.
posted by Rothko at 11:56 AM on August 3, 2005

moonbird writes "it's full of stars moderately upscale food boutiques."

Huh. I was actually impressed by the variety: from very high end, to neighborhood ethnic places, to styrofoam-encased street food.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:05 PM on August 3, 2005

B*t R*thk*, st*rs *re s*perc**l!
posted by fenriq at 12:06 PM on August 3, 2005

This is a great post. I wish we had a chowhound like this working Chicago.
posted by Mid at 12:17 PM on August 3, 2005

[this is good]
Now stop it.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 12:22 PM on August 3, 2005

Thanks for the compliments; mea culpa on the stars. I had a difficult time trying to organize the post since none of the reviews had ever been collected in one place that I could link to. In retrospect, I probably should have constructed the post as follows:

Do restaurant reviews leave out too many details for you to get a feel for a place? For the last year, a chowhound with the handle perceptor has been sharing beautiful pictorial restaurants reviews (mainly in L.A.), to the delight of many. His reviews cover a variety of places from very high end, to neighborhood ethnic places, to styrofoam-encased street food. [MI]

posted by 김치 at 12:25 PM on August 3, 2005

I'm officially intimidated by this food. I live in Boston and the best we can come up with is clam chowder and a boiled lobster.
posted by jsavimbi at 12:30 PM on August 3, 2005

CafeSpot is also a nice place to find good local restaurants. It doesn't have descriptive reviews, but allows you to search by location, rating, tags, etc. Of course you can contribute too.
posted by arete at 12:31 PM on August 3, 2005

*
posted by fire&wings at 12:43 PM on August 3, 2005

****, *** ***** ***-*** "*****"! **** ** * ********, ****** (**** *** *******). ****** *** ******* ****; ***** *********.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:51 PM on August 3, 2005

-- .- -.-- -... . .-- . ... .... --- ..- .-.. -.. ..- ... . -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . .. -. ... - . .- -.. --- ..-. ... - .- .-. - ... ..--..

... . .-. .. --- ..- ... .-.. -.-- --..-- - .... --- ..- --. .... --..-- - .... .. ... .. ... --. --- --- -.. .-.-.-
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:03 PM on August 3, 2005

- .... .- -. -.- ... / --..-- / / -- --- -. .--- ..- / ..--.. /
posted by 김치 at 1:08 PM on August 3, 2005

Please stop filling the post with crap.
posted by Mid at 1:26 PM on August 3, 2005

I apologize for further derailing the thread but I've found Lush's post on Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities to be a very elegant way of providing multiple links in various categories.
posted by junesix at 1:27 PM on August 3, 2005

You fuckers can't make me translate that.
posted by graventy at 1:37 PM on August 3, 2005

Yay! I never knew that there were grill-your-own okonomiyaki and Korean BBQ places in this country. They were always my favorites in Japan, but I figured America was too sue happy to let people cook their own food in a restaurant (undercooked meat, burns, etc). If only I could find something like this on the east coast...
posted by Alison at 1:56 PM on August 3, 2005

So why put all of the stars in the FPP when you went ahead and listed the same information (in a much, much, much more informative way) within the thread?

I mean you went ahead and made a pretty good post into something we could bitch about. If there is anything Mefites love to do is snipe at each other, we really don't need the extra ammunition.

Admission of guilt noted, much better form.

Oh and those of you wasting even more bandwidth and time. Just stop it, it's childish and lame.
posted by oddman at 2:20 PM on August 3, 2005

Maybe I'm thick, but I haven't seen anything that actually constitutes a review. Are people really getting this excited over average quality pictures and a few uninteresting comments underneath?

To me, this would be like going to a website which purported to feature film reviews, only to discover amateurish screenshots with indifferent summaries of the plot.

In other words, why the excitement?
posted by Chasuk at 2:20 PM on August 3, 2005

... --- ... --- .-. .-. -.-- --..-- --- -.. -.. -- .- -. .-.-.- -. . -..- - - .. -- . .. .----. .-.. .-.. - .-. -.-- -. --- - - --- .-- .- ... - . -.-- --- ..- .-. .--. .-. . -.-. .. --- ..- ... -... .- -. -.. .-- .. - .... .-.-.- -- -- -- -- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- -... .- -. -.. .-- .. - .... .-.-.- -.. .-. --- --- .-..
posted by monju_bosatsu at 3:46 PM on August 3, 2005

.. -. ... - . .- -.. / --- ..-. / ... - .- .-. - ... ..--.. / ..- ... . / - .... . / ... .--. . .-.. .-.. / -.-. .... . -.-. -.- / -. . -..- - / - .. -- . --..-- / .--- .- -.-. -.- .- ... ...
posted by Kwantsar at 3:52 PM on August 3, 2005

Interesting, if you only want to look at the food. How does it taste? I could stand to read a little more text with the review.

I have some NYC restaurant reviews with photos on my site (click on "restaurants" on the right side), and the list is ever growing. When I can, I take pictures. I will try to add more pictures to future reviews as soon as my camera makes it back from the shop!
posted by nyc stories at 4:02 PM on August 3, 2005

Anyone have any good resturaunt review blogs out there?
posted by redbeard at 4:39 PM on August 3, 2005

redbeard you might find something of interest among this lot.
posted by peacay at 5:08 PM on August 3, 2005

.. .-- --- ..- .-.. -.. --..-- -... ..- - - .... . ... .--. . .-.. .-.. -.-. .... . -.-. -.- -.. --- . ... -. .----. - .-- --- .-. -.- ..-. --- .-. -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . .-.-.- ... --- .-. .-. -.-- .-.-.-
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:55 AM on August 4, 2005

One of the restaurants he reviewed, Gaja Okonomiyaki, looked very interesting to me. Hmmmm, Okonomiyaki.... I've never heard of the stuff. I googled to see if I could find it in NYC. It's available here. Has anyone tried it?
posted by MotherTucker at 12:01 PM on August 4, 2005

.. .--. .-. . ..-. . .-. - .... .. ... - -.-- .--. . --- ..-. .-. . ...- .. . .-- - --- - .... . -.- .. -. -.. --- ..-. - .... .. -. --. -.-- --- ..- ..-. .. -. -.. .. -. --.. .- --. .- - .-.-.- .. - .----. ... --- -... ...- .. --- ..- ... .-.. -.-- -. --- - .- .-. ..- - .... .-. . .. -.-. .... .-.. .-. . ...- .. . .-- --..-- -... ..- - .. - .----. ... ..-. ..- -. .-.-.-

-. .. -.-. . .--. --- ... - -.- .. -- -.-. .... ..
posted by mosch at 10:47 AM on August 6, 2005