lwildernorva

Not familiar with the first but very familiar with the second, and my guide for my trips to DC, northern Virginia, suburban Maryland, and Baltimore. Of course, as with any board, I try to get familiar enough with the personalities to determine which posters share my tastes.

I also follow Tom Sietsema and Tim Carman in the Washington Post, but one of the advantages of a dining board is that you can get an update on a place that a newspaper critic that I respect last dined in almost a year ago. Changes in management or in the kitchen can definitely make a really good place mediocre in months. Posters help inform me of those changes.

slawecki

cowen is a faculty member at george mason, and a pretty famous economist. his list is pretty short. completely "ethnic" food. a while back, he comment on sietsema's review of the restaurant "present", "by the time sietsema got around to reviewing it, the food had already gone south" he was correct. i was very disappointed in the place.

ElmhurstNick

For Chicago, lthforum.com is very good although a little off of its game from a few years ago. The focus is on neighborhood and ethnic places, with some discussion of higher-end places. Stickies exist for visitors, and they have an ongoing and updated awards section.

Sunny 1

I second the gayot.com reviews as being helpful. I also appreciate the advice of my hotel's concierge.

tcl

Chowhound forums are generally ok but it takes a lot of time to read through everything and many of the threads are old. There is some bickering about the merits of certain restaurants within a thread, but that's usually a good sign as you get a feel for both the restaurant that that particular contributor.

I've generally not had much luck with either Urbanspoon or Yelp, one having sent me to a food court kiosk serving machine-made sushi staffed by a 50+ year old in an anime-ish costume. & no there was not a Comic Con nearby.

I like individual food blogs such as Kevineats when I can find them, but sadly they are not always available for some of the areas I travel to.

If you're into roadfood, roadfood.com has some dive-y stuff that might be interesting.

BuildingMyBento

I never take interest in what the reviewer says; rather, I want to know what foods are available, and if the restaurant has seasonal offerings. That's where Chowhound and menupages food search have helped me out. For the former, one can type in nearly anything food-related and a response will probably appear within 24-hours (but likely sooner, depending on the forum). With menupages, I'll type in, say "tagliatelle" and it'll show me which eateries offer it (tested that out for Chicago; seems reliable since the restaurants that showed up are mostly if not all Italian).

gungadin

Any review site is only as good as the way you read it. I use all of them, but look for people who have some experience in the subject--ie--no I never eat mexican food but ..... I look for reviewers who are interested in the same things as I am. I look for details in which I am interested. No one review site or reviewer is ever perfect because reviews are by nature biased.

SFWineGeek

Working in the restaurant industry, I tend to take all reviews with more than a grain of salt. As things go these days, almost everyone who has a bone to pick will find a way to find their opinion heard. Yelp is the absolute worst, but the are good to get a trend of where a restaurant stands.

I find Chowhound, on the whole, to be best informed and most informational. When researching restaurants, I tend to group things together. If people have mentioned it more than a few times, and the review is generally positive I will go. If the positive review is echoed in TripAdvisor, or here, or Zagat, even better. Obviously the criteria is different, but as long as the name is good. If Michelin likes it even better.

Sadly, because food is a very personal experience, it is really hard to get one hard and fast ideal interpretation of what is good.

lucky99

Two other interesting places i like to go:

--eater (which has heat map lists of top restaurants in many major US cities). i often like to start here to see what is generating buzz, and in SF I find it to be a solid representation of what's good now.
--if in NY, the new startup called taste savant (tastesavant.com) they curate content both from your network as well as from newspaper/magazine/blog reviews. keeps you from placing your trust in the average yelper

essxjay

FT is my go-to source these days. I've grown to trust the judgment of various DBuzz! regulars -- Sweet Willie for Chicagoland spots, missydarlin for Seattle eateries and PremEx for steakhouses anywhere in the world -- as their tastes jive with my own. At home I know which local reviewers are likely to hit the mark given my preferences and which can be safely ignored. I sometimes refer to portlandfood.org as a backstop for the couple of restauranteurs with long track records of fair and equitable opinions on everything from food cart spots to bling affairs.

United747

It is not really a website, the restaurants are almost all very upscale, and it is fairly limited; but I like the Michelin Guide. Otherwise I use Zagats. But I do not really like Zagats because you do not even need to eat at the restaurant to be able to rate it.

Delta747

Sweet Willie

thanks, so when can we expect a visit to Chicago??? we've had some very good Dinner Do's@:-)

BTW, I agree, I've got some websites I look up, but have generally been very pleased with FTer's suggestions. An example being an FTer from San Luis Obispo CA, posting about a pizza place in no-where country Indiana (off the radar for most anyone, even those of who have driven 'near-by' for decades), I decided to try the place, excellent pizza & turns out I used to work with the owner in a past life. Pretty small world sometimes !!

Mountain Trader

Has Zagat fixed its app? I bought it a couple of years ago but wound up getting my money back as it always crashed and had only a small portion of the info on the regular Zagat site.

TWA884

It's free now if you sign in through a Google+ account.

ryanthekiwi

In YVR dinehere.ca is excellent.