Sunday, March 30, 2008

The Forest Cafe - and online restaurant commentary

Last night, we had dinner at The Forest Cafe - a now venerable Cambridge institution. This place, for those who don't know it, is a neighborhood bar and Mexican restaurant. It's never been a fancy environment. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it was for a long time an absolute dive. But that made it all the more interesting when Jim Fahey started cooking sophisticated Mexican there some twenty two years ago. In the interim, Fayhey left, and has since returned. The decor has been somewhat updated, and we've become stuck in Iraq. But that's another story.

Anyway, for the record, our dinner last evening was enjoyable. The thing I wanted to write about here is not our dinner, or even this restaurant per se - but the peculiar phenomena of the write-ups this place has garnered on the web. Before going over there last evening, I chanced to read through a bunch of diner-generated comments on Yelp . I was astonished at the number, variety, and vehemence of the comments about this place. I can't recall seeing another restaurant that's attracted such a varied lot of comments. I would love to hear from anybody who can help me understand how it is possible for people to be so broadly distributed and impassioned in their perspectives on an inexpensive neighborhood joint. Any insight would be most welcome. Thanks.

1 comment:

Jewish Odysseus said...

Nice blog, Dan, I hope you don't give it up!

I don't need to go into work early tomorrow, I'll be making fried matzo w/homemade shmaltz for the family breakfast... ;- )

My Dad was a grocer and deli guy for many years, in Mass. I live in FL now.