Restaurants and branding

While writing the previous post, it occurred to me that restaurants are another category deeply affected by the blogging phenomena. Bloggers can literally (pun intended) make or break the good reputation of a restaurant. Gone are the days when you went to a restaurant and shared that experience only with your companion(s), however good or bad. Now, armed with camera-phones, bloggers can share that experience with the whole world. Bad wine? Blog it. Excellent rib-eye steak? Blog it.
In Singapore, food is a national obsession (if good bread is hard to find, one can’t complain about the variety of restaurants here), and there is a number of good bloggers writing about their gastronomic experiences. Here are some of them, whom I visit frequently to peek at the review of a particular restaurant I’m planning to go: Nibble & Scribble, Chubby Hubby, The Skinny Epicurean, and The Travelling Hungry Boy, and this is just a few of them. The good thing about these blogs is that they don’t write only about the fancy restaurants. They can write about the small eatery just down the corner, as well as about some hidden specialty restaurant you wouldn't find anywhere else.
For restaurant owners long are the days when they could get away with lots of advertising to promote their restaurants. Now patrons are more and more aware of the quality of the experience, even before they enter the restaurant.
PS: the picture is of a delicious chocolate cake I had at Il Lido, in Sentosa Golf Club.