City Guide(S)?

[GreenArrow45]

I tried looking at the forums, maybe it is just my poor searching skills, but I didn't notice any topic that had already been started like this...so my thought was that we could make a topic listing some restaurants and/or bars in our respective cities that we would recommend to people planning to visit or move to said city. Obviously there are lots of guidebooks with this sort of information, but, at least for myself, on more than one occasion I have visited one of their higher rated establishments to find it was no where near the quality the book indicated.

So I was thinking we could list various things such as the type of food served there, maybe a recommendation such as a favorite item or two, and about how much the restaurant would cost.

Let me know what you all think!

P.S. --- I will post something on Taiyuan later, though, I don't expect many people to have plans to visit here hah.

[anonymoose]

The problem with guidebooks is that what's written in them is just the opinion of the author, and with people's perceptions of the same thing varying so widely, it is only natural that what the author finds good, you find not so good, and vice versa. And that's on top of the fact that the author is only likely to have sampled a small proportion of what's actually available in the city, and thus coverage will be skewed towards his/her own experience, whilst missing out all the other options on offer, particularly with things like dining venues when there are literally hundreds if not thousands of options in all but the smallest towns. I'm just wondering how city guides here would be any different...

On the other hand, I think factual information such as transport options to/from the airport/railway station, address of the Entry/Exit Bureau, location of bookshops, location of universities, and so on, would be useful for the kind of person likely to visit these forums.

[GreenArrow45]

I agree it would be good to get a list of bookstores, transportation options, unis, ect. Certainly something people could include if they'd like.

However, as to restaurants and what not - even though it may just be people's opinions - I imagine someone who is visiting the city might be curious to know what a person who has lived in said city can offer in terms of dining/nightlife advice. Afterall - when I look at guidebooks for cities I have lived in, they rarely include restaurants that my friend or I would recommend. In the end, I think whoever is reading it realizes its a matter of the author's opinion and would appreciate having other suggestions as to where to dine or go out after dinner.

[jbradfor]

What's wrong with wikitravel and the current on-line dining sites (besides that they are in Chinese)? Unless you are interested in places that are more "foreigner friendly"?

[GreenArrow45]

A lot of the current online dining sites don't really encompass a lot of the local restaurants that only those living in the city long-term find. Sure, there are a few that they list, but, at least from my reading on the cities I have lived in, their listings are solely "western-friendly" restaurants, not too many "hole-in-the-wall" restaurants listed. I mean hey, if other people aren't interested, that's fine, I just figured I would suggest it.

[jbradfor]

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just wondering what is different about it. I thought http://www.dianping.com/ is mostly by locals, for example?