My review system - Aramis

Before I post my first restaurant review, I'm going to describe how I'm going to break it down for everyone. It will be a very detailed review, but I hope it'll capture my complete experience of the restaurant. If this format works well, hopefully the other dudes will follow the same format. This of course will still be a work in progress...

1) Intro - this is going to cover any basic comments as well as the overall score of the restaurant. I'm putting the overall score first for those who like skipping to the end of a book (or review) to find out what happens. We are a society that enjoys instant gratification and this will help those who don't want to read the whole review.

2) Dish - i'm going to cover every dish and what i liked and did not like. The categories are listed below and their percentage impact to the overall dish.

• Flavor 40%
  
• Texture 30%
  
• Aroma 10%
  
• Presentation 5%
  
• Price 15%

The percentages will show you what I really thought about the dish. As you can see the biggest influence is on flavor, but of equal importance is the texture. That probably stems from my love of pasta where the texture or al dente-ness is as equally important as the flavor. Presentation is nice, but for me it plays a smaller part of my overall enjoyment of the dish - I can only see so many squeeze bottles and ring molds. Price, however does play a large influence. If an entree costs $40, I'm going to expect more flavor/texture/aroma/presentation. If the price is less my grades will be more lenient. The overall dish score may not be an average, however the categories above will guide the overall score. A 70% out 100% score will be a borderline between an enjoyable dish and one that I would not want to eat again. 80% is very good and 90% is excellent.

3) Overall Restaurant Experience - this will include

• Food 50%
  
• Service 30%
  
• Atmosphere 10%
  
• Price 10%
  

The percentages overall will represent what I thought about the overall restaurant experience. The #1 criteria is obviously the food. I will try to use the ratings for each dish to guide what I thought about the food. I gave a large percentage to the service since we've all been there when a meal has been exceptional, but the service ruined the overall experience. Atmosphere will include decor as well as the noise level. Price again plays an interesting role since it will drive up the expectations of food, service, and atmosphere. The percentages will be similar to the dishes, since the score may or may not be an average. Also, 70% and above is a good restaurant that I may or may not go to again. Below 70% I would never go again. 80% is a very good restaurant, and 90% being an exceptional restaurant.

As I said before, this will be a work in progress, but I'm hoping this will give you an insight of how my ratings will work.