You have asked the qn which has been on my mind for several months/years.  I firmly believe that the answer is NO. Overall restaurant rating doesn't really matter a lot - unless its on the extreme and 90% of the time, 90% of the restaurants will fall somewhere in-between 2-4 (in a scale of 1-5),

The typical qn - 'yahaan ka kya famous hai' - i.e. review of menus is what makes it very interesting.

And what you are talking about is what Kevin Rose' Oink app is precisely solving this issue - i.e. rate discoveries. Do not rate places, rate things inside them.

Since different people rate things differently you can try making better ratings by comparing Mr.ABC rating of place X with our own rating for the same place and then apply relativity on the Place Y 's rating from Mr.ABC. And another good way to get rating is social ratings from people you already know. 

its better if you put up chicken 65  and select one restaurant from a list of restaurants in specific area.. those who rate a restaurant for chicken 65  that's going to solve the problem.  In India for every few hundreds distance, new language, new taste, new mode of living and etc etc. so its like in hyderabad, biryani is the best.. but in biryani  who comes first in taste, who comes first in rates, some people look for quality food for more money. but most people look for more food for a good affordable price  but that too quality but not like quality in Taj Hotel..thats where i love deals, i might get more varieties of food in a good place for some few hundreds.

  Best option is to rate restaurents based on food item and also according to location.. hope i didnt crossed the limit :)

Thanks

Sai

Nice Discussion. Restaurant Listings and reviews do help to an extent in terms of choosing where you would like to eat. But for some people it all comes down to trying out good Food. You may go to the best rated restaurant but servers the worst XYZ food.

So it depends on what the person is looking for. you cant totally dismiss the Restaurant rating after all.

I doubt if ratings or comparisons work at all. Now before you come at me with pitchforks (or kitchen forks since we are on the topic of food ... kitchen forks ... get it? Errrr ...) ...

By ratings I mean giving a certain restaurant/dish a certain number of stars or points. Eating-out and dining in my opinion are holistic experiences. Aside from the fact that there is no real qualitative way to rate a dish etc the ratings aspect falls short of conveying what will be the experience of eating at that place ...

Also by experience I don't mean some jazzy ambient space necessarily. I remember having beef rolls at a hole in the wall sort of place near Brigade Road - the place was filled with smoke I couldn't even see what I was eating - it is the best rolls I've ever had ... I dunno if something can be done to convey that via an app or a site :)

I'm surprised you guys are saying no. In the USA, Yelp ratings and reviews are an amazing source of information and definitely heavily influence the new restaurants I try.

Reviews yes. The point was the ratings become less useful, over time, as one doesn't really know the other people rating stuff, and their tastes. In a more (subjective) review - you can pick out the "people like us" crowd, and go with their reviews.

No absolutely not. Its like telling all Indians are brown. EVERY restaurant I have gone to and patronised has a few awesome and few awful dishes - you cant compartmentalize it.

This is apart from the comments above by @sinha and @sagar.

A nice related note on how choice works (best) http://plus.maths.org/content/mathematics-marriage-and-finding-somewhere-eat

very good point @harshamv. I have also had few bad experiences at very good restaurants because I did not ordered what was best there. This is the problem I am trying to solve via eattr android app. 
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.eattr  

For me, Most of the times, its the menu. I do have a few apps of zomato and bakasura. But most of the time i prefer to check out what they have to offer in terms of the menu & variety. 

@ subrat, 

Dear friends,

I usually take advice from Zomato for restaurant outings. I rely on it for prices and cuisine, ofcourse the genuine comments from its editors and few of other members are also handy. 

@buddhasource, very nice idea! I agree with you that restaurant discovery apps should use Facebook social graph and provide food/restaurants in a beautiful manner. Most of the existing restaurant reviews website have reviews but those are not linked with FB social graph.