Welcome!

Welcome! You have found rabo's restaurant reviews.

You might have a couple of questions:

1. Who is rabo?
2. Really? Another restaurant blog?

The answer to #1 is rather simple. rabo isn't one person; actually, rabo is two people. The name came about from the combination of my nickname and my significant other's (from now on...SO) nickname. We'll both post on this blog. We'll try to keep it so that you can't figure out who is actually blogging...probably more of a challenge for us than for you.

Some info on us:

• We're both in our mid-20s.
• We live in the Boston metro area. And by "Boston metro area," we mean the area that stretches outward from Boston to about Providence RI, Worcester MA, and Manchester NH...that ought to give enough of a distance between us and the nearest stalker.

This idea for this blog came about last Sunday as my SO and I were eating brunch at a restaurant in downtown Boston. We realized that we go out to eat quite often and that we are quite opinionated about our experiences at various restaurants. We get frustrated at websites that have these lists of "restaurant reviews" for various restaurants, because we can't ever figure out if the great reviews are written by people affiliated with the restaurant or people who are paid to promote a particular eatery or if the bad reviews are written by the nearest competitor down the street.

Also, one of us (the ra of rabo) likes watching The Phantom Gourmet on television (if you're not from the Boston metro area....The Phantom Gourmet is a locally broadcast show in which a secret ("Phantom") person travels to different restaurants, and then scores them in various categories, like menu, service, cleanliness, value, etc.). However, this show has gotten particularly irritating recently, as it seems like some of the same restaurants are being "scored" in each episode, leading us to believe that the show is just one big advertisement for a small list of restaurants.

While we would love to be restaurant reviewers "in the real world," we both have our own ways of life (i.e. we have other jobs). So, the only realistic thing we can do is to start a blog.

In this blog, we will discuss our experiences at restaurants. Our discussions will be as close to the God's-honest truth as possible. We will comment when we think others might have a differing opinion. We will try to give as much of a variety of restaurants (cuisine, location, price-point) as possible, but this cannot be guaranteed, since most of the time, our stomachs and wallets do the talking.

Please feel free to ask questions if you want more information about a particular restaurant. However - be aware that if you post anything like "Restaurant X is the greatest restaurant ever!" or "How could you say such negative things about Diner Y? I had the greatest experience there!" - it will be deleted! Why? Because this is rabo's blog - not your blog. If you have such strong feelings, you can start your own restaurant review blog.

Well, actually - it's more because we don't know whether or not you are trying to promote or put down any particular restaurant. We are up-front in saying that we don't (I'm sure you'll see that soon enough...), but we want to avoid all of the issues that we find in other restaurant review postings.

So, that's our introduction. We'll begin blogging soon....