"When you like a critic, you trust his judgment not because he has a Doctor of Food Letters, although such things do apparently exist. He's proved himself over a long period. You know what he (or she) likes or dislikes. You get him (or her). Maybe you don't always agree; but when you're looking at getting a babysitter and maybe dropping three bills on dinner, you need to minimize risk. For that, the user reviews on Citysearch or Yelp are beyond useless – faceless and contradictory; and the same goes for the blogs. (The blogs at least sometimes take pictures.)" -This comes in a Defense of the Critics Piece. [...]