know how the food there compares to the Kurds. Wouldn’t want to leave out any options to consider in Chicago.

I’ve never been out to Xinxiang, but have had it in Shanghai a couple of times. I am jealous of your trip (well, maybe not the Beijing part.)

The food is solid, and it is socially acceptable to get roaring drunk there.

The only ones on the list that I would consider taking a large group of adults for a festive party would be BaBaReeba or Carnivale.

In Chicago last year and had about 15 at Babarebee and couldn’thave had a better time.
Great place.

About the only thing that Sepia, Babareeba, Cindy’s, and Avec have in common is that they are located in Chicago and serve food and alcohol. I hadn’t even heard of some of those places.

I’d probably take a large group to Frontier, too, and do the whole animal thing. Otherwise, no on that list besides Babareeba.

And enjoyed it you will enjoy this place.

Emilio’s was ok. But it’s a personal prejudice.

If it's not in Spain, it generally sucks.

After that, even the best food is going to be a let down

San Chez is overrated.

Two strikes were enough.

If I like the goat cheese enchiladas (or whatever), I don't want to feel like an asshole for eating 2 out of the 3 of them that are on the plate.

All it means is small plates of food. All kinds of different varieties of food.

You only like big plates of food? You eschew appetizers? You don't like Spanish food?

"Oh, we're having tapas? Can we also have an overpriced pitcher of margaritas?"

...yeah, margaritas and sangria.

Can you put a price on happiness?

Also...what the hell tapas restaurants are you going to that sell pitchers of margaritas? There isn’t any tequila in Spain.

Did you mean to say sangria? I’ll agree that can get overpriced since the typical price in Spain is about 4 euro per pitcher.

You have a problem with that? So long as everyone is laughing, it is all good.

that you were going to go all bourgeois on me.

Please, make a date to come for dinner soon. We could easily con our better halves that we were talking nonsense all the while we were plotting the outlines of the counter-revolution, the counter-reformation.

¡Viva Cristo Rey! (Perhaps we’ll have to invite BeijingIrish into our plot, but he’s enough of a Celt to trust. ¿Verded?)

They'll be waiting

I have literally never had a bad experience with any restaurant that has been recommended on this board. The Back Room is batting 1.000, yelp approaches the Mendoza line...

Eater has rescued me quite a bit in the wilds of LAX, JFK, and MIA.

it is in fact very good.

Ethnic food is for hipster dorks. Nice instagram picture. Nicer bowel movement.

have done a healthy percentage of the Michelin top 50, and don’t live in St. Louis

One could make the case that the Himalayan Bistro (Nepalese/Tibetan/Indian) is the best restaurant in Fort Collins on the basis of consistent quality, ambience (linen tablecoths!), and service. The owner is a Sherpa, there everyday, really nice guy. His hot daughter is a waitress. I don't mind that they don't have wine because I prefer beer with South Asian food.

But shitty Thai is just that, and there are plenty of those around.

All those people who have been ironically living for centuries in the mountainous regions at the confluence of the Tigris valley and Asia minor. Huge hipsters.

So I think he covered that.

OK, that's not the name, but it should be.

with online review engines like Yelp etc. Everyone is a mini-Roger Ebert on those blasted sites. How many reviews have you read that start like this:

"I wanted to like this place....

and then systematically trash the place in a long winded tome that possesses gems such as "I waited for 5 mins to get attention from the server!!!" or "I felt the creme brulee was creamy but you could tell they used 2% milk instead of whole"

Give me a professional critic over these pseudo-intellectual wannabee gasbags with 6000 thousand Yelp reviews any day of the week.

Is to help find the best dish at a given restaurant. I never find any value in online reviews on the overall food quality of a restaurant because that’s too much an individual’s opinion. Having the restaurant’s dishes compared to each other is more useful.

This is why I never use online reviews to help me pick where I’m going but I will check them to disqualify if they’re not going to work for the group I’m bringing and to find what to recommend.

You know...any restaurant that serves anything other than burgers and hot dogs.

I find the value at “ethnic” restaurants is much better than steakhouses, Italian, or French restaurants because those places have highly inflated pricing due to moronic clientele that are paying solely for status and not for quality of food or service. I can’t imagine the idiots dumb enough to consistently pay the premium for uninventive food you can make at home...but apparently they’re out there. And now we elected their god to be president.

from the restaurants to later alter the reviews.

someone that the restaurant doesn't have enough vegan offerings.

Yeah, well, then maybe Texas barbecue isn't the best choice for you, ya moron.

The Comfort Inn that your big group is staying at.

when he’s not outside pushing trash down with a stick.

It tells you restaurants in the area (and they don't do all that great a job at that either), but the ratings are worthless.

I agree about the reviews themselves.