Google Plus Reviewing

So I've been investigating Google+ and some of the features of my profile that I barely use. I wrote a couple of vague reviews, one detailed one and some positive blandly worded ones to combat some dubious comments by others.

I'm no amateur at this though. I want people to know what reviews I've left because I like to know who leaves reviews myself. If I find someone who had the same opinion about a place as me they might have some other top tips for places to go. It's a great way to pick new restaurants, but you just need to remember, the sensible thing to do it never own up to a restaurant review when you leave less than three stars.

Feel free to leave an "it was okay" review, they're usually "I enjoyed it but [insert small area of improvement here]". "I liked it" reviews are my bread and butter reviews, if I'd go there again with friends they get a four, they don't really need any improving apart from tiny things that were probably one-off errors. "I loved it" reviews I save for the I-would-use-this-for-special-occasion restaurants.

Are you thinking of writing a review? Got your picture on that profile? If you don't live in the area, say you're just there on holiday, or you're visiting family then you can probably get away with one or two star reviews with no repercussions. Live in that town? The sort of person that will give a restaurant another try after an amount of time has elapsed? Maybe just take a pause about how rude you're going to be about said one or two star dive.

We had a restaurant that opened, a Mexican, it was average but never really anything to write home about. It was a low three and very close to a two. We just stopped going there. It closed and reopened as a different Mexican restaurant, so we decided to give it a go. We walk in and it's the same owner, same decor, same table cloths and same menu. Maybe he'd got a new chef, we'd give it a go and give him the benefit of the doubt. We had to have improvised cocktails as he didn't have half the standard alcohol needed, amusing when you have a large cocktail list. So when we discovered it was pretty much the exact same we stopped going there. So that one closed too. Starting to get a bit predictable now. OPENING SOON! A new Italian restaurant... well finally something new so we'd try that one... same guy, same decor [minus the sombreros] and different table cloths. Everything's the same colours though, I think that might be the only reason for choosing Italian, so he didn't have to repaint.

That guy recognised us every time we went there. "You haven't been in for ages! What have you been doing?"... erm... going to other restaurants?! If I'd have given him that original bad review, with his good memory I'd have had to seriously think about every mouthful I took each time I went back.

The moral of this story? A pissed off chef/barman/waiter never forgets.