CHAPTER 4

Restaurant Reviews

Objectives

 Learners are expected to be able to evaluate the quality of food or restaurant’s

 Learners are expected to grasp the cultural manner in the field of food and restaurant
 Learners are expected to collect and master vocabluraries and expressions from reviewing
 Learners are expected to understand the output of review text

A. LET’S BEGIN

Task 1

Which words would you see in a restaurant review?

Choose the six correct answers. ()

Mains ( )

Side ( )
 Order ( )

Receptionist ( )

Service ( )

Tip ( )

Check Out ( )

Reservation ( )

Order ( )

Task 2

Vega, New York Reviewed yesterday Great mains, pity about the chips Came for lunch with
my sister. We loved our Thai-style mains which were amazing with lots of flavour, very
impressive for a vegetarian restaurant. But the service was below average, and the chips were too
terrible to finish. When we arrived at 1.40, we had to wait 20 minutes while they got our table
ready. OK, so we didn’t have a reservation, but the restaurant was only half full. There was no
reason to make us wait at all. We ordered the chips as a side dish and they looked delicious. But,
when we tasted them, they were overcooked and swimming in oil so we left most of them. We
expected a lot more for $10!

When the waiter asked if everything was OK, we said we really didn’t like the chips and he
said ‘That’s funny, I love them’ and that was it. He didn’t offer us anything else or take them off
our bill. Also, when we didn’t leave a tip, he looked annoyed. I was really excited about visiting
Vega, and the mains were just fantastic, but the rest of the experience was really disappointing.

1. The review overall is ...

a. Very Positive.
b. Partly Positive, Partly Negative.
c. Negative.
d. Very Negative
 2. The best thing was ..
a. The Service.
b. The Side Dish.
c. The Mains.
d. The Place

3. When they arrived at the restaurant, the problem was ...

a. They Had To Wait.
b. They Didn't Have A Reservation.
c. The Restaurant Was Already Full.
d. The waiter isn’t ready

4. The Chips Were ...

a. Delicious.
b. Overcooked And Oily.
c. More Than $10.
d. Too Cheap

5. They didn't leave a tip because the waiter was ...

a. Annoying.
b. Slow.
c. Unhelpful.
d. Helpful

Task 3

Complete the review.

Arrived Service Menu Try

Bill Delicious Ordered Dishes

 Sandy’s café: a good option for a quick lunch

My colleague and I decided to try out this café near our office. The staff gave us a warm
welcome. We asked about the ingredients of the (1)……………………………… , because my
colleague can’t have anything with nuts in, and they were helpful. He (2)
……………………………… a vegetable curry and I went for a toasted sandwich.
Unfortunately, that was off the (3)……………………………… , so I had a four-cheese pizza
instead. The food (4)……………………………… fast! The pizza was (5)
……………………………… .My colleague liked his curry too but it was quite spicy for him.
The (6)……………………………… for both of us came to £20 including the (7)
……………………………… charge, which we thought was reasonable. I’ll be back to (8)
……………………………… that toasted sandwich some time.

Task 4

Put the words in the correct group.

Amazing Overcooked Below Average Fantastic

Impressive Disappointing Terrible Delicious

Positive Negative

B. REVIEW TEXT CONTENT

Task 5

Read carefully the review text below.

The Sichuan Restaurant

China Canteen, off Hungerford Drive in Rockville, Maryland, is known to its Chinese customers
as 老四川 : Old Sichuan. The restaurant has planted itself on the border of a nondescript strip
mall for eighteen years — old indeed for an area where restaurants surface and sink in droves.

Between the inked horse paintings and specials handwritten in sloping green Expo, the restaurant
wears its age plainly. Chinese parents and kids are seated in cracked maroon booths, deftly
breaking apart bamboo chopsticks and pouring steaming cups of tea. Even our broad-shouldered
Hispanic server has waited tables here for over a decade. He takes our party’s orders in
Mandarin.

We first try a traditional dish, 夫妻肺片, which translates literally to husband-wife-lung-slices.

It’s not really lung, the menu coaches us, but the marriage of thinly sliced beef tendon and chili
oil, constellated with peanuts, is nevertheless a breathless one.

The Sichuan fish is electric. Filleted tilapia simmers under a blistery rain of peppers. Its spice-
bombed fragrance, lightened by bean sprouts, infuses the room; our neighbors turn to ask us
what we ordered.

To the chef’s credit, milder dishes don’t erode against the numbing ones. I find myself reaching
again for the pi pa tofu: silken tofu beaten with shrimp then gently fried. The size of a toddler’s
fist, each ball is soaked in a delicate broth of shiitake mushrooms and bok choy. For $17.99, we
share a platter of tea-smoked duck, which arrives wreathed by sprigs of green onion and airy
buns painted with sweet bean paste.

As with many Chinese joints, however, the bowls of white rice have become something of a
chef’s shrug. And skip the scallion pancakes: the cumbersome dough all but smothers the pale
ringlets of scallion. Lunch specials will set customers back $7.99, but they sport none of the
traditional plates that charge the rest of the menu.

The restaurant is run by two brothers and their father, all from the Sichuan Province. Mr. Yu, the
younger brother, who greets regulars and recommends dishes to new diners with a Buddha-like
warmth, says they have no plans for renovations. Every three years, they’ve renewed their
license; if business is decent, they see no reason to change.

Of course, it might not be so simple: Along Rockville Pike alone, China Canteen must train its
steady firepower against nearly-translucent soup dumplings, A&J’s dense, chewy noodles, and
sunny, Instagram-happy newcomers like the pan-Asian food hall, The Spot.

But the Yu brothers brush those thoughts aside. For now, they’re most comfortable in the
kitchen, braising fish, cubing duck blood, dicing chicken, slicking the wok with red oil and
peppercorns.

And I, for one, am not looking for anything else.

Answer the following questions

1. Which descriptions did you find to be most inventive or surprising and why? How did
they affect you as a reader?
2. What else do you notice or admire about this review? What lessons might it have for your
writing?

Task 6

Find the meanings of the following words based on the review text above

Braise (v)
Fillet (n)
Gently (adv)
Tendon (n)
Simmer (v)
Delicate (adj)
Broth (n)
Steamed (adj)

C. SUMMARY

A.     The Definition of Review Text

Review text is a text that used to review something, review something, or explain something.

B.     The Purpose of ReviewText

There are two goals that need to be known from a text review :

1.      Giving information to readers about the product details that delivered.

2.      Giving criticism and suggestions for the products that are being reviewed.

C.    Characteristics of Review Text

The characteristics of the Review text

1.       A new review, criticism, and review of a work.

2.       Have a structure in the form of orientation, evaluation, interpretation, and summary.

3.       Using the Present Tense

4.       Many use adjective words.

D.    The Generic Structure of Review Text

1.      Introduction: Contains information or general description of works or objects. It contains a
general explanation of job or object that will be reviewed. It could be the name, usefulness, and
so on.

2.      Evaluation: Contains more detailed information about the work being reviewed. It provides
a general explanation of the details of a work or object which has been reviewed. It could be
parts of the work or object, its uniqueness and quality. The term used in this paragraph of the
second paragraph is not far from the "good" or "not" words of the work or object.

3.      Interpretation: Contains the author's view of the work being reviewed. The writer gives his
own opinion of the work or object which has been reviewed of course this phase is done after a
sufficient evaluation of the work or goods. It is very often to support and reinforce the author's
view of the work or object which has been reviewed, the writer compares the work or object with
a work or that has similar object.

4.      Summary: Conclusions that usually explain whether the work or object being reviewed is
valuable or not to the reader. The author gives conclusion to the reader of the work or object that
has been reviewed. After giving an explanation in the evaluation and the view of the writer in the
interpretation, it is time for the writer to give some comments whether the work or object which
has been reviewed is valuable or not to prospective buyer.

D. REFLECTION

1. How was the learning process?

Fun v v v v
boring

2. Could you reach the goals through this lesson?

Yes No
 3. From this lesson, what techniques have you learned? Give the number 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1
after the sentences below.
o Learners are able to criticize and review the quality of something (…)
o Learners are able to state the purposes of review text. (…)
o Learners got new skills in terms of reviewing something (…)