Why?

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Why not? This is another metaphysical discussion with myself about this site. The blog started quite organically, after a belated New Year’s resolution to go and have lunch in different restaurants, as opposed to just going to the same places over and over again. One of the triggers to this was my work location changing to Helsinki center, where there is ample choice.

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Some of it was also stress control. In the midst of a hectic workday, walking to a new restaurant can be like a micro-vacation. And maybe there is some strange, ancient need to map my surroundings and write down the things I have observed.

I am most certainly no professional restaurant critic, but rather just a regular person having lunch and writing my casual observations on the experience.

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So, given all that, why on earth did I decide to rank the restaurants and give them “stars”? It’s simply due to the fact that I am a thoroughbread nerd and I started to look at the website from Google’s perspective. This resulted in a refactoring of the blog to fit the de facto standards (including schema.org and Dublin Core) and within this context, ranking the experiences is almost a given. And besides, the search results look more colourful, and who can say no to more eye candy?

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The rankings, as everything else on this site, is just as subjective and unreasonable as you can imagine the opinions of one individual to be. I love really hot and spicy food, value genuine service and I feel that Heston Blumenthals (et al.) concept of the “multisensory perception of flavour” is more or less correct.

Because of all this, I gravitate towards cuisines with a more fiery disposition. And I value restaurateurs who go all in with the dining experience and I look at more than just the food, although that obviously plays a big part of it.

Some places make the occurrence feel genuine without trying too much, and some just rub you the wrong way and then there are those that just go full hog and try to stuff you with food.

So based on all of that, the position of the stars and how I am feeling that day, I conjure up my ranking. You might very well see the experience in a completely different way. I don’t even pretend to have any absolute truths to tell, just my opinions.

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And has it worked out? Yes. Yes it has. For some reason, shouting out into the vast void that is the Internet has brought me joy. And this hobby of mine has broadened my grasp of my birthplace and I have visited many new locations during my jaunts.

My territory has expanded and the internal map has been brought into focus. It’s funny to visualise the city through it’s restaurants, but that is the topology of my life.

So welcome once more into my ramblings, I hope that you enjoy your stay as much as I do.

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