I’ve been reviewing restaurants on Yelp and Google for years. A lot of years. There’s a backlog over there with detailed notes on hundreds of meals, and most of those reviews are going to die when Yelp finally goes the way of every social platform that ever existed. So I’m bringing the ones I want to keep over here, where I control the URL.
This section is where they’ll live. Old reviews ported over, new reviews as we eat them, and the occasional travel review that wants its own home.
What goes here
Reviews of restaurants I’ve actually paid to eat at. Atlanta-area places, since that’s home. New Orleans places, since I love that city and we’ll be going back. Texas places, since that’s where I’m from and I get back when I can. Iconic restaurants, the ones everybody asks about. Hidden gems, the ones nobody knows about. Both kinds are worth writing about for opposite reasons.
The detailed-notes format I’ve been writing on Yelp for years, with the same level of specificity: what we ordered, what arrived, how it tasted, what the service was like, what the room felt like. Honest assessments instead of marketing copy. Old reviews ported over will link back to the original Yelp or Google review when relevant; new reviews live here first.
About 90% positive. I write about places I love because I want them to keep existing and I want you to go to them. The other 10% is honesty.
What does NOT go here
Comp’d meals. No sponsorships, no pay-for-play, no “we’d love to host you for a review” arrangements. I review things I pay for. If a restaurant ever does offer me a meal and I decide to write about it, that disclosure will be in the first paragraph; and being offered a free meal doesn’t guarantee a review either way.
Travel posts that happen to mention a restaurant. The line: if the meal is the subject, it’s Restaurant Reviews. If the trip is the subject and the meal is one moment in it, it’s Travel. Some posts get cross-referenced when both pieces are doing real work.
This isn’t a rating system. No stars, no scores, no rubrics. The review is the review. If I wouldn’t go back, I’ll say so and tell you why. If I’d go back tomorrow, I’ll tell you that too. You can read the post and decide.
The 10%
I want to say something about the negative reviews specifically.
I don’t write them often, and I don’t write them for fun. The two situations that earn a negative review on KaraCooks are: the meal was genuinely horrific, or the review can be constructive and useful to other people who might be considering the same restaurant. The clearest example is Antoine’s in New Orleans. It’s an iconic restaurant, people make reservations there because it’s on the list of NOLA classics, and the meal we had in 2024 was a tourist-trap experience that wasn’t worth the money. That’s the kind of negative review that earns space on the blog: somebody is about to spend hundreds of dollars on a bucket-list meal, and they deserve to know what they’re actually walking into.
The negative reviews follow the same rules as the positive ones. Specific. Evidence-based. What we ordered, what arrived, what was wrong with it. No theatrical takedowns. No piling on. The food is the food, the service is the service, the review is what we ate and what happened. If the restaurant deserves another shot in a few years, I’ll go back and try again. Sometimes I have.
How to read this section
Pick the restaurant. Read the review. Argue with me in your head if you disagree (lots of people love Antoine’s; that’s allowed). Trust your own taste over mine; that’s the whole point of reading other people’s opinions, you get to weigh them against your own.
If you’ve been to one of these places and had a wildly different experience, the comments are open. I’m genuinely curious when that happens. Sometimes restaurants have a bad night and one of us got the bad night. Sometimes they have a great night and you got that one. The reviews are snapshots of specific meals; they’re not pretending to be omniscient.
P.S. The Yelp port-over is going to take a while. Years of reviews, written one at a time, edited into something worth keeping. Bear with me.
P.P.S. Yes, I’m aware that having strong opinions about restaurants is a personality trait. I am the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of women who had strong opinions about restaurants. The apple did not fall far.
P.P.P.S. If you’re a restaurant owner who recognizes a review and disagrees with it, the comments are open to you too. In good faith. Same rules as everyone else. And I’m always happy to come back and give a restaurant another shot when something has genuinely changed; but that’s a meal I’d pay for like any other, not a comped invitation. The no-pay-for-play rule stands no matter who’s asking.