Hell Hath No Fury Like Nerdfury

By Laura Oppenheimer in Food on Nov 13, 2007 3:00PM

There's a fun little story that's been making it's way around the internet over the past few days. Blogger Rob Donaghue went to hear bigtime Chicagoist crush Anthony Bourdain speak last week in New York. Bourdain, ever-wry, suggested that the best way to find a great restaurant in today's internet savvy age, is not to read Zagat or Michelin guides, but rather, to provoke the nerds. He writes,

His answer was to take the city you want to go to and just google up some restaurant names that serve the dish you're after. Then got to Chowhound or another foodie site, and rather than asking about restaurants, you put up an enthusiastic post talking about how you just had the best whatever you're looking for at one of these restaurants. At that point... the nerdfury will begin. Posters will show up from nowhere to shower you with disdain, tell you how that place used to be good but has now totally sold out and - most important to your quest - will tell you where you would have gone if you were not some sort of mouth breathing water buffalo.

We love the term "nerdfury"; to us it sums up perfectly the type of vitriolic debate that can occur on sites like this one, LTHForum and Chowhound. In fact, we think LTHForum's Great Neighborhood Restaurants could aptly be described as organized nerdfury; a bunch of foodies debating which under-appreciated neighborhood restaurant is the best, until they decide that all of them are worth visiting.