I started writing the “DiningOUT” columns two years ago. Over those two years, I’ve gotten very little feedback. Marty’s received some feedback from the pals that he runs into at “happy hour” time in Mt. Vernon’s watering holes but all in all, we’ve heard very little back from the people that we hope are reading these columns. What do you think? Do you find them useful? How can they be improved? Finding out what you think will help us to ensure that these columns provide the most value to our readers.

Given the print space that we’re provided with in Gay Life, we try to provide a lot of material in the formal “DiningOUT” reviews providing information which we hope covers what you’re interested in. We make an effort to include basic restaurant facts (address, hours of operation, phone number, website, whether they serve alcohol, if parking is a major issue and if reservations are a necessity for prime time), give you a feel for what the menu is like, what’s available and the price range by category, what we ordered when we were there and whether we liked it or not, and a feel for whether the service exceeds or falls below what we would expect.   Since we have vegetarian friends, we try to give you a heads up if the place works for vegetarians or vegans. We’re curious… Do these DiningOUT reviews provide you with the meaningful information that you want to know about? Is there any other information that we could include which would make these reviews more useful for you?

Whether a restaurant is a bargain or a wallet buster, a sense of value is important. We try to convey whether we thought that we got our money’s worth regardless of the size of the tab. Do you find that useful? Drink prices can dramatically impact the overall cost of dining out. We don’t cover these because often the drink prices tend to be in sync with the overall menu pricing. Is this something that matters to you?

We’re curious if our reviews have influenced you to visit (or not visit) restaurants that we’ve reviewed. What do you think about the range of restaurants that we cover? How do you feel about the mix of restaurants that we cover? We’ve tried to include restaurants on the fringes of the city as well as in the suburbs. Are there restaurants that you feel deserve our attention? 

We only get to eat out together on average at most twice a week a week and we are not reimbursed by Gay Life and pay for our meals out of our own wallets. Given these constraints, we try to compensate for situations where the review may be based on one visit by asking friends to join us (“dutch treat”) and soliciting their opinions.    When we do get to go to a restaurant again following a review, we’ve been chagrinned at how different a second experience can be.  Have you visited restaurants that we’ve reviewed and walked away with a different feel for the place than we did? We’d like to know about that.   We’ve taken the approach of annotating our original reviews with follow-up remarks and impressions from later visits.  FYI - All of the columns that have been published in the past two years including our annotated comments are available on our website (see below).

While the intent of the main “DiningOUT” column is to provide a detailed review of a restaurant that both Marty and I have been to, the “DiningOUT Too!” columns are far less structured and try to provide discussion of broader food-related issues as well as “mini” reviews of places that I may have stumbled upon on my own. What’s your take on the “DiningOUT Too!” columns? Do you find them useful? It’d be very interesting to find out what “DiningOUT Too!” columns you’ve found most useful or even maybe thought provoking (I can hope! <Wink>!)?  

Email us at diningout@baltimoregaylife.com or visit our special website at http://home.comcast.net/gaylife_diningout.

Editor’s Note: John and Marty would really appreciate hearing from you, so please show them some love and send in your thoughts. You can find the original print versions of “DiningOUT” at http://www.baltimoregaylife.com/ae/dining/diningout/index.shtml and “DiningOUT Too!” at http://www.baltimoregaylife.com/ae/dining/Dining_Out_Too/index.shtml