Does Google understand the concept of Polish cuisine?

Cafe Society
1

A few weeks back I was in a conversation with some friends about various restaurants and I mentioned that while there were still good Polish restaurants in Buffalo there were none left in Rochester. And a couple of people mentioned some restaurants I hadn’t heard of and said I should check them out.

I didn’t write down the names but I figured I could always find them later. And I was thinking about this today so I googled “Polish restaurants near Rochester, NY”. Here are some of the top recommendations Google gave me:

Chang Lung Restaurant
Stromboli’s
Campi’s
Dogtown (they serve hot dogs)
Charlie’s (they serve hamburgers)
Itacate Mexican Restaurant
Shamrock Jack’s
King Foo
El Latino
John’s Tex-Mex Eatery
Golden Dynasty
Tokyo Japanese Restaurant

I somehow doubt I’m going to be able to order pierogies and golabki at any of these places.

(On the positive side, they did recommend Polska Chata.)

2

Google thought you were asking for polished restaurants. I bet all the ones listed are nice and shiny!

3

No, I’ve been to Charlie’s. That’s not it.

4

How would Google know any restaurant’s ethnicity? My guess is that they just go by what restaurants self-identify as. And some restaurant owners have figured out that they can game the system by describing themselves as everything.

5

Do you have some weird settings turned on? Out of curiosity, I searched too. When I google Polish restaurants near Rochester, NY, I get 5 links for Polska Chata, one link for YellowPages.com for Polish Food in Rochester, two links for European Meat Products & Deli in Rochester, one link for justdial.com for Polish Restaurants in Rochester, and one link for Prosit Reaurant.

Then I looked up Rochester in Google Maps. Then I googled Polish restaurants, and it zoomed into Polska Chata. Even when I zoomed out to see more of the map, it didn’t list any other restaurants as choices.

6

If Google can’t find close or exact matches for something, it’s more likely to suggest things that don’t fit. So it might be thinking “I don’t see any polish restaurants, but here’s a bunch of other restaurants. Maybe you’ll like those.”

7

Is it counting “any of these words”? Sounds like it.

8

did you use quotes in your search? Did you notice whether the words you were searching for appeared on the pages Google returned?

9

I may have confused Google. I was originally looking to see if a new Malaysian restaurant had opened yet. So I typed in Malaysian restaurants near Rochester in Google maps. Then I remembered an Indian restaurant I had seen last week and wanted to check on them. So I deleted Malaysian and typed in Indian and researched. This reminded me of the Polish restaurant conversation so I deleted Indian and typed in Polish and searched a third time. Perhaps searching like this three times in a row creating some residual effect.

10

You’re lucky it didn’t hook you up with the nearest legal weed emporium.