Introduction to Restaurant Reviews 2012

From today, we will start thinking about Restaurant Reviews, our #7 essay. These are interesting and fun, but we need to take our time and do a good job. I would like to publish ALL of your restaurant reviews on a special blog site for that purpose, so they need to be GREAT!

Please don't begin writing a restaurant review yet! I need to tell you what to do first!

To begin this unit, let's look at some Japanese restaurant information on the Hot Pepper site. Please click on this link: Hot Pepper: Places that Girls Like In Kanagawa

Now we'll do an activity with the above page only.

1) Check out all the restaurants on that page only.
2) Choose one.
3) Write some information about the restaurant in English on Google Docs. Don't write the hours or address or phone number; write something about the food or atmosphere or specialties that identify the restaurant. However, don't write the name of the restaurant!
4) What you write is supposed to be a hint for that restaurant.
5) Copy and paste what you wrote from Google Docs into the comment box. Please write your own name. Other students will try to guess which restaurant you wrote about.
6) Read the hints other people wrote. Try to identify which restaurant it is. Reply to the comment with your guess and your name.
7) You should try to guess every hint that's posted. Be sure to write your name every time!
8) Tell Kevin secretly what restaurant you wrote a hint about.
9) If you complete this activity, you will have written one hint and about 25 guesses. (The number of guesses will depend on how many students are in class.)

Besides this activity, I will explain what you need to do to write a restaurant review. Here are the main points you need to include:

1. Restaurant name
2. Restaurant review title (not the restaurant name only)
3. An original jpg photo of the food, interior or entrance (You must send the photo to my email as an attachment.)
4. What kind of restaurant is it? Chinese, Italian, Korean, yaki niku, ramen, buffet, sandwich shop, family restaurant, etc.
5. Information about the menu, favorite items, service, staff, specials, atmosphere, prices, etc. If the owner is interesting, tell us about her or him.
6. Complete address of the restaurant (including postal code)
7. Phone number of the restaurant
8. Business hours and holidays
9. Access information (closest train or subway station; how many minutes on foot; simple directions)
10. Web site URL if available

Also, be sure to read the restaurant reviews from last year to understand how they should generally look.

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At the beginning of class, I will ask students to read the Sample Change Essays posted on the blog post of Oct. 17. You may have already read the first one, but there are now two more. The two essays about love have very different viewpoints, so it's interesting to compare them.