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“The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

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Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#101

Post by arccy »

crazygringo wrote: post #29
dietr1ch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reviews probably have too much noise. It's not only the food that gets rated and people taking the time to rate a place might be doing so because of a particularly good or bad experience they just had. It's not really a day to day thing.

Not true -- restaurant reviews have a lot of signal. Generally an average score is quite reliable once you hit 100 or so reviews. Even 50 reviews is a pretty decent signal.

not always... the data is skewed by non natives, e.g. a high concentration of americans will typically result in junk food scoring too high, high scoring asian food in the west tastes nothing like what it should, for authentic tastes the scores will be quite mid

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#102

Post by imgabe »

btilly wrote: post #42

Many years ago I came up with a rule of thumb. Restaurants have three basic strategies, be a known quantity (chain), have a good location, or be actually good. I've found some gems by looking for the third category. Given that "near the train" is a good location, that would support this theory.

My only rule is that restaurants in hotels are usually mediocre to bad, which fits with your theory. If they have some built-in customer base they don’t have to work as hard at being good.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#103

Post by janalsncm »

btilly wrote: post #42

Many years ago I came up with a rule of thumb. Restaurants have three basic strategies, be a known quantity (chain), have a good location, or be actually good. I've found some gems by looking for the third category. Given that "near the train" is a good location, that would support this theory.

The formal terminology is “selection induced negative correlation”. If a quality score is the sum of two factors, those two factors will tend to be negatively correlated.

Mathematically a trivial example is the equation 1=x+y, where 1 represents some cutoff and could be any value. Clearly x and y are inversely correlated.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#104

Post by sthatipamala »

aqueueaqueue wrote: post #98
chadcmulligan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rule for finding a good restaurant - if it doesn't look that good and/or is in an out of the way place but seems to be busy, its probably good.

My rule. Check TripAdvisor!

Is being well-rated on TripAdvisor a positive or negative signal? I could see it either way.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#105

Post by potato3732842 »

acaloiar wrote: post #94
asah wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not mutually exclusive. Counter examples: - Katz's deli in NYC is incredibly famous, in a great location, and actually has kickass pastrami. The trade-off are relatively high prices and lines down the block - restaurants with exclusive relationships. - restaurants that make money another way, e.g. gambling. - family owned restaurants with legacy rent deals. - restaurants that cater to niche audiences e.g. sm…

Comments of this quality are getting frustrating. The grand parent post clearly stated it is the poster's "rule of thumb". By definition they are aware that the rules are [likely] "not mutually exclusive". Starting with "these are not mutually exclusive", is what makes this comment so unnecessary. Don't be proud of having listed exceptions to someone's rule of thumb. Had you started with, "I like that; these are a fe…

>Comments of this quality are getting frustrating.

Yeah I'm not a fan but it's orders of magnitude less frustrating than the people that try to take a very lossy rule of thumb with a fat "better safe than sorry" factor baked in and then do mental gymnastics to try and plug all the massive gaps.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#106

Post by arccy »

immibis wrote: post #78
bitwize wrote: post #7

I've observed the following: 1) An alarming number of regions in the world have a pizza joint called "New York Pizza", "Manhattan Pizza", or similar. 2) The similarity of the pizza therein to the actual thin, greasy slices served up in pizza joints from actual New York is inversely proportional to the location's distance from New York. So, the New York Pizza in Boston -- pretty close. The New York Pizza in Brisbane,…

I've heard that the farther you go from Italy, the more adventurous ingredients you can find on a pizza. I used to live in New Zealand.

we must invade italy and show them the true enlightenment that is pineapple on pizza

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#108

Post by handoflixue »

anamexis wrote: post #84
robot wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

these examples are all exceptions. how much do the exceptions contribute to the discussion?

> how much do the exceptions contribute to the discussion? A fair amount, if the number of exceptions are such that the rule of thumb isn't useful.

I really don't think the 5 provided examples do much - I can't even imagine how "Katz deli in NYC" would be a useful data point at all.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#109

Post by fknorangesite »

acaloiar wrote: post #94
asah wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not mutually exclusive. Counter examples: - Katz's deli in NYC is incredibly famous, in a great location, and actually has kickass pastrami. The trade-off are relatively high prices and lines down the block - restaurants with exclusive relationships. - restaurants that make money another way, e.g. gambling. - family owned restaurants with legacy rent deals. - restaurants that cater to niche audiences e.g. sm…

Comments of this quality are getting frustrating. The grand parent post clearly stated it is the poster's "rule of thumb". By definition they are aware that the rules are [likely] "not mutually exclusive". Starting with "these are not mutually exclusive", is what makes this comment so unnecessary. Don't be proud of having listed exceptions to someone's rule of thumb. Had you started with, "I like that; these are a fe…

"Getting"? HN has always been like this.

Christ this website can be so full of insufferable pedantry. I don't know why people think that such comments are a good contribution.

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