The Blackened Out Rating System

Rating restaurants serves no beneficial purpose. There is a philosophical theory that one can never cross the same stream twice. In much the same way, one can never have the same restaurant experience twice. Restaurants nightly are wholly different creatures, an individual's tastes change, and sometimes well crab just is not in season. Socialism is better in practice than rating restaurants.

Some of New Orleans' best restaurants may be nothing more than deli counters or taco trucks. One can not label them as Five Star, 4 Bean, or Excellent because they do not fit the typical mold of dining. Last night in a moment of clarity or confusion or both, the Blackened Out rating system arrived in my conscious on the wings of skate and the angelic breath of pig.

Golf courses and golf holes receive a par score. Par, essentially denotes, how many shots the average golfer requires in order to make it in the cup. Birdie and eagle denote scores that were more impressive and bogey and double bogey represent my score after some clever mathematics. The Blackened Out rating system will function much the same way.

Taking into full account the food, atmosphere, service, price, and other intangibles, one can easily arrive at a score for a restaurant. Such a score will either be par, birdie, eagle, bogey or double bogey. Here are the guidelines.

Par: Totally decent, average, and expectable.
Bogey: Ok, but probably will not receive a return visit or certainly not going to recommend it to any one.
Double Bogey: Terrible, only to be used in cases of extreme emergency.
Birdie: Wow, surpassed my expectations. Food, service, atmosphere clicked. Would definitely bring out of towners, co-workers, friends here.
Eagle: The pinnacle, the best, top dog.

Let's use po-boys as an example: the standard roast beef po-boy. For arguments sake, Parasol's will be Par for the course. Great po-boy, bar, tons of history, etc... A bogey would be a serviceable but not very good deli around the corner from work, Serio's. A birdie would be Radosta's or Liuzza's (Domilisie's, a par somedays a chip in birdie others) and an eagle in my book would be Parkway. A double bogey is a roast beef po-boy from Arby's. Now you have a scale that judges each type of restaurant against other's of its caliber rather than pit a burger joint against August.

I hope this explanation cleared up whatever problems you have in your life right now.