la.foodblogging

Like most local foodbloggers, I got the press release announcing Zagat’s 2008 Los Angeles guide.

Included in the release were some interesting statistics about how we eat in Los Angeles. I don’t know the exact scientific method of their survey, so take the numbers with a grain of salt, but here are some of the highlights:

Average Restaurant Meals Per Week

• Houston - 4.2
• Los Angeles - 3.8
• NYC - 3.4
• San Francisco - 3.2
• London - 2.5

Average Meal Cost

• London - $78.57
• New York - $39.43
• San Francisco - $37.07
• Austin - $25.30

Not surprising to me, 72% of people are irritated most by service when dining out. Sadly, I have all but given up on having noteworthy service when dining out.

Italian was the favorite cuisine (25%) followed by Japanese and “American” at 17 and 13% respectively. Presumably, American includes both California style cuisine as well as steakhouses?

Here’s one for hot debate, the three LA Neighborhoods selected as having the “Best Restaurants” are (in order) Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. I loathe the idea of the term “best” when talking about restaurants. Too generic of a term to be applied to rating eateries.

92% of people said that the celebrity patrons have either no effect, or a negative effect on their decision to dine in a particular restaurant. Only 8% of people fessed up that they are star stalkers.

At least 62% of people drink red wine when dining out, 10% skip wine all together.

45% of Angelenos would drive an hour for a good meal (14% would drive more than an hour). That’s good news for this car culture.

Smoking is not coming back to restaurants. 86% of folks said they would eat out less if it did.

I like the Zagat guides for their comprehensive list of restaurants, I don’t put too much stock in their reviews though.

The Zagat PR person offered me (and I’m sure all other foodbloggers) a free book and a free subscription to their website. I didn’t take it.

What is your opinion of Zagat, do you use it? Do you generally agree or disagree with their ratings posted at restaurants?

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.