On the Shores of Zhuhai: a Basic Guide to Guides on Searching for the Right Food
With contribution from Alice Huang.
Friends always ask me where to go to eat.
Maybe because they know I worked at one of the most famous restaurant guides, or that I am eating out a lot and am choosy, or maybe it is just easier to ask me because I seem to have an answer every time. But when it comes to me picking a new place to eat, like I did the other day, I couldn’t always call on a friend.
A couple of weeks ago, I was on a business trip to Zhuhai, one of China’s touristy coastal cities in southern Guangdong province, on the border with Macau. I am not without knowing that Zhuhai is famous for seafood, and like most places in the Guangdong province, for dim sum. But I was in-between meetings at an unfamiliar location and clueless as to where to go and have lunch.
There is now a plethora of guides available online, but I found out for myself that it is not always straightforward to get to the right one to use.
In the following, I provide a basic guide to a few of the more prominent restaurant guides in China and elsewhere.
Specifically, the more recently launched Black Pearl Restaurant Guide from Dazhong Dianping and Ctrip’s Meishilin Guide in China, the popular and high profile MICHELIN Guide from France, the World 50 Best Restaurants from the UK, and the Forbes Travel Guide from the US.
The Black Pearl Restaurant Guide 黑珍珠指南 , Dazhong Dianping, China — Language: Chinese
For those who can read Chinese, the fastest and easiest way to help you make a choice of where best to eat in China given a location and what your mood might be, is to grab your mobile phone, open up the Dazhong Dianping (literally translated to mean the general public’s opinion) app. It is China’s most extensive and comprehensive phonebook ever.
Check their recently launched Black Pearl Restaurant Guide and take your pick. The guide covers a total of 330 restaurants in 22 cities in China, and favourite destinations for Chinese travellers including Bangkok, Singapore, New York and Tokyo.
Their selection is listed by cities and rates restaurants on a scale of one to three “black pearls”. A one pearl restaurant would be good for a friends reunion, two pearls would indicate an establishment suitable for life’s special occasions and three would be a once in a lifetime experience.
Interestingly, a long-time user-generated guide like Dianping has now turned to professionally curated content to respond to users’ increasing lack of trust towards the quality and genuineness of ratings produced by the general public. The same type of criticism is also leveled at well-known user-generated guides including Tabelog in Japan, Openrice in Hong Kong, Zagat, Yelp and Tripadvisors in the US.
Launched at the end of 2017, the Black Pearl guide is perfect for you if you are a regular user of Dazhong Dianping, especially if you are looking for good restaurant options in Chinese cities, where international guides have not yet set foot. I find their selections for Chinese cities in particular to be more spot-on than those in other countries.
The Meishilin Guide 美食林 , Ctrip, China — Language: Chinese
Once called Shimeilin (which literally translated means “food and beauty forest”) it is now called Meishilin (literally translates to “gastronomic forest”). If the new name echoes the Chinese name of Michelin (which is mi qi lin), it is likely coincidental.The Meishilin Guide is a giant guide, listing more than 15,000 restaurants in 120 cities in the world.
Launched in 2016 and published by Ctrip, China’s largest online travel agency, this guide’s geographical coverage of restaurants is the largest available in the Chinese language. It clearly aims to contribute to the growth of Ctrip’s business by helping Chinese travellers solve the existential issue of finding where and what to eat while overseas.
Their ratings are based on a compilation of votes by 500 people from or related to the food industry: chefs, journalists, food critics and influencers. The ratings are divided into three different categories: the first is the star category, which encompasses the prefered restaurants of the jury (the restaurants in this category are ranked from one to three stars, three being the highest rating and indicating that these restaurants would offer a lifetime experience, two for a restaurant that is worth a trip, one for a restaurant that would add fun to your journey).
Then comes the “superior category” (zhen xuan in Chinese) that includes a variety of restaurants selected for their “finesse” (it is not very clear to me how this compares to the starred ones). The last category called feng wei in Chinese (roughly translated as “distinctive flavours”) is awarded to local, small eateries popular among locals.
Since the Meishilin Guide covers a large number of cities in the world and is compiled by Chinese gourmet experts, I would recommend that you use this guide if you are looking for decent Chinese restaurants to go to while outside China.
The MICHELIN Guide, Michelin, France — Language: local language, some guides are translated into English.
This guide advocates itself as an authoritative voice in restaurant ratings given its more than century-long track record. The MICHELIN Guide was born in 1900 in France and those behind it essentially invented the idea of rating system for restaurants. Michelin introduced the use of stars in 1933; using one star to mean very good cooking in the category of the particular restaurant, two to mean excellent cooking, worth a detour and three which are reserved for restaurants that produce exceptional cooking, are truly unique and worth making a special journey for.
Firmly rooted in Europe, the MICHELIN Guide started to internationalise in the 2000s by first putting a team in place in New York. It then expanded to Asia in 2007 with the establishment of an office in Tokyo. It has since extended its coverage to encompass Shanghai, Bangkok, Singapore, Seoul, etc. And a brand new guide on Taipei has just been launched on March, 14th.
Its team of full-time inspectors visits restaurants anonymously and regularly, giving this guide the reputation of being one of the most consistent and trustworthy guides on the market. Their ratings are pegged against five criteria: consistency, cooking techniques, quality of the ingredients, creativity and value for money.
It is the guide you’d want to refer to if you want a consistent and safe choice of restaurant. It also has an interesting list of local street foods in some Asian cities.
World 50 Best Restaurants, William Reed Business Media, UK — Language: English
The World 50 Best Restaurants was originally created 16 years ago by the team behind Restaurant magazine in the UK. The voters are a mix of restaurateurs, chefs, gourmands and food critics. It positions itself as more than just a listing and describes itself as a “celebration of the universality of cuisines”. This guide has a strong social media following of over 1 million food lovers.
Divided into 27 regions, with a regional chairperson highly knowledgeable about their local restaurant scene, the list is formed from a compilation of votes casted by each region’s 40 members. There is no nominee list, which can serve to highlight restaurants that may be under the radar for the moment but are up-and-coming. As its title does not suggest, it in fact lists 100 restaurants but highlights the 50 best.
Most admirable about this guide is that the team behind it has created a must-go event for chefs, socialites and foodies. Its annual awards event is like the Oscars of the food world. It is quite an event, is extremely well publicised and helps raise the general public’s awareness and interest in good food.
After hosting the awards ceremony in London for 13 years, the World’s 50 Best Restaurants embarked on a global tour and in 2016 took its awards ceremony to New York, and in 2017 to Melbourne. The 2018 event will be held in Bilbao, Spain. It is almost impossible to miss the yearly announcement of the list, except maybe if you are locked up in a monastery for a zen retreat.
This guide is perfect for you if you’re looking for a place to eat that appeals to your need for flair, novelty and adventure. Some of the listed restaurants are situated in unexpected locations, so if you want to be surprised, this guide would offer you many great choices to pick from.
Forbes Travel Guide, Forbes, US — Language: English
The Forbes Travel Guide, previously known as the much less sexy-sounding Mobil Guide, was launched in 1958 by the major oil company, Mobil. The change of name follows the licensing deal to Forbes for running the guide. It is the oldest travel guide in the United States.
The guide which covers over 50 countries, defines itself as the “verifier” of luxury. Their rating system is based on an impressive total of 900 objective criteria; they refine their rating standards each year and the guide is advised by a Standards Advisory Committee that consists of experts in multiple luxury sectors from around the world.
A team of professional inspectors is deployed to travel the world to rate hotels, restaurants and spas anonymously, they use a system that rates the listed properties as recommended, four-starred or five. They also have a section on properties soon to be rated, giving a preview of what to expect in the next edition.
Forbes Travel Guide’s ratings emphasise on the quality of services. The team believes it is how a place makes you feel that will make you remember it most. Everything is audited, from what is on the plates to how you are served and in what environment. I picture these highly trained inspectors as having one of the best jobs on Earth; after a good meal and wonderful spa, they would enjoy a good night sleep in luxury hotels.
This is the guide for you if you want more than food recommendations, if you care about service, the environment and the total experience of where you want to indulge yourself — especially when money is no object.
Back to Zhuhai. Strolling by the seaside on an avenue lined with palm trees, my stomach was growling. I whipped out my phone and searched on Dazhong Dianping’s Black Pearl Restaurant Guide. I was disappointed to find that there was no selection at all for Zhuhai. Next, I looked up Ctrip’s Meishilin Guide and found a complete selection of restaurants and picked the nearest in their “superior category” that was serving dim sum. It was a good choice, and it solved what was definitely an existential problem for me at the time!
It is clear that there is not one guide that fits all. Each guide has its own coverage and a set of criteria on what a good restaurant is, some of them may meet the expectations of a broader audience, but each has its unique perspective. I tend to keep an eye out for the process and methodology the guides employ for selecting and rating venues — in my view, expertise, anonymity and independence are key.
Anyhow, what’s your guide to the best guides for finding the right restaurant?
