Meet the Nicest Man on Yelp

I'm halfway into a mediocre meal with New York City's most prolific Yelper. Our appetisers arrive an hour after we ordered them: Japanese milk bread with aged ham and braised tofu skins. The bread is identical to the complimentary rolls that came at the beginning of the meal, making me question the $16 price tag. The tofu skins are fine but not a dish I would catch myself fantasising about the next day. Meanwhile a table that was seated after us receives their entrees and the suspicion that ours have been forgotten creeps in. As the amateur food critic in my head rambles on, my dining partner shares his impression: "I'm already pretty sure what I'd rate this place," Mike Chau says. "I'd probably give it a four. Maybe a three—we'll see."

That seems generous to me, but I have no reason not to trust his judgment—the 33-year-old Queens native has reviewed more restaurants in the past year than I can hope to visit in the next decade. Mike Chau, known on Yelp as Mike C., is one of the reviewing site's elite members. Yelp doesn't share explicitly what users must do to achieve elite status, but his number of reviews (about 1,300), photos (more than 41,300), and friends (5,000, the point at which Yelp caps it) probably don't hurt. Chau's coherent and upbeat tone also set him apart on a site known for attracting jaded customers who are confused about how caps lock works. Out of all his reviews, more than 1,000 featured four- or five-star ratings. The majority of his five one-star reviews are for crappy movie theatres.

The site wasn't always a positive outlet for him. Like so many members, Chau originally turned to Yelp as a place to vent his frustrations. In 2012 he was charged with choosing the restaurant for his friend group's next outing. His selection, the now-defunct Pink Teacup in Manhattan, resulted in one of the worst dining experiences of his life. "The service was awful. You could tell they just did not care about the customer at all," he says. "I felt the need to make my opinion heard in hopes of preventing it from happening again."

But unlike many new members, he didn't stop Yelping after unleashing his rant on the web. He had recently moved to Manhattan, and Yelp provided a lens through which to examine the city's vibrant restaurant scene. Growing up across the river in Queens, Chau's relationship with food had been complicated. He struggled with weight issues for most of his childhood. "When I was 12 I weighed more than I do now," he says. After jumping on the Atkins bandwagon and losing 70 pounds in one summer, he adhered to a strict diet from that point forward. Chau went on to earn a degree from Boston University, marry his high school sweetheart, and land a job as a software developer in Manhattan. It was only after moving to the island that Chau reevaluated his attitude toward eating. "Living in the city surrounded by so much good food, I said, 'Why would I deprive myself of all this good stuff?' So I started going out more and I just enjoyed it and kept doing it."

Thanks to regular cardio and healthy meals at home, Chau was able to stay trim while completing his transformation into a full-blown foodie. He began taking photos of every new dish he tried and treated Yelp like a public food diary. Eating out became a sport, and he kept tabs on food blogs to see which new restaurants were opening each week. So far he's racked up about 650 first-to-review badges.

As his Yelp hobby veered into obsession territory he decided to start Instagramming on top of it all. His early work was pretty par-for-the-course (lots of poorly lit photos of ice cream cones), and then one day he experimented with including his newborn son in the background of his food shots. The formula of decadent plates combined with an adorable baby was instant social media gold. His account steadily grew in popularity, and after it was picked up by several outlets, it exploded over the course of one week. One new baby girl and 136,000 followers later, @foodbaby ranks among some of the best-known food Instagrams based in New York.

A photo posted by Food Baby (@foodbabyny) on Dec 30, 2016 at 4:29pm PST

Due to his social media fame, Chau's experiences don't always align with the typical Yelp user's. He's occasionally recognised when he goes out with his kids, both by restaurant staff and fellow diners. He's met pretty much every big name in the New York City food crowd you can think of (David Chang, Elizabeth Falkner, Mario Batali) and has even managed to befriend a few of them. He started hanging out with Danny Meyer's daughter after she reached out through Instagram, and before meeting me for dinner he'd just had lunch with Nom Wah Tea Parlor owner Wilson Tang.

Despite being embraced by the world he's built so much of his life around, Chau still feels insecure. "I'm always so scared about Yelp, because I still don't think people will take me seriously," he says after cutting our burger in half and photographing it from every angle. (I was right; the kitchen had forgotten about it.) "They [the food world] just see someone that does Yelp as someone that should be dismissed for not knowing anything about food."

Chau is all too aware of the stigma that surrounds his chosen hobby. He tells me he shares the opinion that Yelp isn't always the best place to go for thoughtful criticism. Like so many social media platforms, it provides a soapbox for people to air half-baked opinions that no one asked to hear in the first place. "But I guess I'm one of them," he says, "so it's weird to say."

When I ask if he's ever considered blogging professionally, Chau tells me he doesn't think he's a very good writer, "I never had any training or anything like that."

So instead he continues to post 20 to 25 reviews a week on a site with built-in traffic flow. His words aren't given the same weight they'd receive in a respected food column, and his photos aren't instantly validated with thousands of likes (though his two kids, Matthew and Samantha, often do make appearances). But when you invest as much time and effort into Yelp as Chau has, it rewards you in other ways.

"Whenever we go to Queens Comfort for brunch, people come up to us off the line and are like, 'We came here because of you!' That happens a lot," he says. "It sounds self-important, but I do feel like I have a responsibility. People have said, 'Oh, I won't go if you write a bad Yelp review for it.' So it might be small, but it does make a difference."

He takes his obligation to his fanbase seriously. While his ratings generally skew high, he isn't hesitant to deliver a blunt but fair review to his readers when he feels a restaurant deserves it. When the check for our underwhelming dinner finally arrives a full two hours after we first sat down, Chau can say what he'd rate this place for certain. He's committed to a three—a harsh judgment coming from him.

I look up his review the next morning and see that he doesn't sugarcoat the experience. The odd location, the absent-minded service, and the more puzzling menu items are all mentioned, but the end of the review takes on a different tone. Already thinking of new ways to appease his relentless hunger, he writes: "Maybe breakfast is better, as the menu seems to have a number of sandwiches that sound great. I might return to try those."