Message: | I'm entirely for Zagat's Marketplace guide.
This is coming from someone who despises the Zagat's LA restaurant guide with all his heart.
Zagat's is a survey. It's knowledge is as good as the people who use submit. I remember the Boston Zagat's, which was absolutely perfectly spot-on for Italian, and a truly pathetic thing for Chinese. Makes sense, given Bostoners.
I tried using the LA Zagat's and found it depressing. My theory is that the average LA restaurant-goer is trend-impressed and lo-fat-impressed and non-taste-bud-centric. But the LA Zagat's Marketplace submitter - I figure these are hard-core food people. The people who dedicate themselves to *cooking* are quite a different crowd from those who dedicate themselves to restaurant-going.
Anyway - unlike with the LA restaurant guide, I have found the market guide immensely useful. It's spot-on for ethnics, too - I've found really fantastic places for Indian spices, Chinese ingredients, Thai ingredients. In the end, a well-stocked cooking supply shop is a well-stocked cooking supply shop - it's not that hard to put together a guide to them, and I can't really see how bad taste and trend-orientation can interfere too much with that. And they were spot on about who had the freshest and cheapest spices.
-thi |