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Everyone with Internet access is a critic, but some forms of amateur criticism have higher standing than others. Amateur literary critics, like Dylan Lucia, an Amazon reviewer who gave one star to “Fahrenheit 451” (“Bradbury is a good writer [I’ll give him that], but I HATE his writing style”), may lack a nuanced understanding of the English language; some amateur film critics, like the IMDB reviewer who gave 10 stars to “Wrath of the Titans” (“i never saw a movie this good before in my life”), may have never seen another movie before in their lives. But all of us with a tongue and a functioning digestive tract are authorities on food. After all, we have a commanding range of experience to draw from: we eat, according to one study, an average of 4.9 times a day. When it comes to food, everyone is not just a critic — everyone is a connoisseur.

In such a competitive field, how does the amateur food critic distinguish himself? There are popular review sites like Urbanspoon and Yelp, but they can be egalitarian to a fault. In New Orleans, for instance, Urbanspoon ranks Café du Monde as the city’s top restaurant; it may have the best beignets and chicory coffee (many natives will scoff even at this), but it serves little else. Yelp lists Joe’s Falafel in Studio City as Los Angeles’s best restaurant. (“Pita bread and Gyro is the way to go!!! Well done Joe’s” — Calvin K. from Marina del Rey.) The true culinary obsessives go elsewhere. They go to Chowhound.

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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/magazine/los-angeles-goat-stew-city-usa.html?pagewanted=1&ref=todayspaper