CAE review

Review

Improving the eating out experience

We have numerous restaurants in this area, so it can be hard for people to decide where to eat. That's why we want to publish reviews of restaurants. We’re particularly interested in why you had certain expectations of a restaurant, and whether your experience in the restaurant was better -or worse- than you had expected. 

Send us your review of a restaurant where you've eaten, explain what your expectations were, and give your reasons for your opinions. 

Review of Lanterns Lanterns is the most expensive restaurant in this area and its advertising stressed its upmarket characteristics, with photos of well-dressed guests, candles and linen napkins on the table for instance. You can hardly blame me for expecting everything to be first class: the venue itself, the food and of course the service.	Introduces the restaurant, giving readers who don't know it a clear idea of what it is like.  Addressed the reader directly, to make them feel involved.
I took my parents to Lanterns to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary, intending it to be not just a meal, but a special occasion that we would all look back on with pleasure for years to come.	The first person I emphasizes the personal nature of the review. Makes it less formal.
Unfortunately, our  evening was nothing of the sort. Admittedly the atmosphere of the restaurant seemed very welcoming when we arrived, as was the waiter who greeted us, but we stood waiting for several minutes before being shown to our table. And waiting was the keynote of the evening: a long pause before we were given menus, and a long enough wait for each course to make us think somebody had been sent out to buy the ingredients.	Informal phrase Linking expression to indicate that what follows contrasts with what is said in the previous sentence.
The food itself was pleasant enough, but bland. I know not everyone wants salt in their food, but some pepper, herbs or spices wouldn't have gone amiss.
As I paid the extremely large bill, the waiter asked if we’d enjoyed the evening. I said the service had been slow, expecting an apology. Instead he tried to justify it, saying that most guests are not in a rush. Well, neither were we, but we still felt we’d been forced to stay considerably longer than we wanted to. Lanterns certainly won't be seeing me again.	Informal word suitable for the personal tone of the review.

 Review 1

In every imaginable category there are so many great films to watch, both old and new. The trouble is , there just isn't time to see all of them. So to help film lovers make informed choices, we regularly post reviews comparing and contrasting movies. Send us your review of two films of a similar type of any age, together with your recommendations, and we may well post it on our site. 

Write your review 

Example

Two must-see Bond movies

Skyfall, directed by Sam Mendes, is a massively-popular action film featuring agent James Bond. Just as, almost fifty years earlier, Guy Jamilton’s Goldfinger was, too. 

In the older film, Bond has to prevent aptly-named gold smuggler Auric Goldfinger from stealing the US gold reserves in Fort Knox, following narrow escapes from death in England and Switzerland. In Skyfall it is the Secret Service itself, in particular Bond’s boss M, that is under attack. The action takes place in superbly-shot locations as far apart as Istambil and Macau, Shanghai and Schotland, and 007 battles Javier Bardem’s utterly evil Silva. 

These frequent changes of setting help maintain the pace of both films, holding the viewer’s attention throughout - as for the highly-accomplished actors who play Bond. Other similarities include the magnificent title songs, sung by Shirley Bassey and Adele respectively, that famous suspense-building incidental music, and even the same Aston Martin car. In both movies, Bond faces genuinely scary opponents, particularly Goldfinger’s deadly assistant Oddjob, although Skyfall keeps the excitement level a little higher by having longer action sequences. 

One key difference is that Skyfall’s M is a woman, brilliantly played by Judi Dench. This, unfortunately, does not reflect any real change in the role of female characters in Bond films, even after half a century. Another criticism is the amount of violence, often shown in rather unnecessary close-up. 

To sum up, both films are certainly worth watching, but for today’s audience, accustomed to the non-stop action of movies like Mission Impossible, I would probably recommend Skyfall. 

Task 

Nowadays there are so many box sets of TV series on sale in the shops and online that it can be difficult to know which to choose. Our reviewers section aims to help people make those choices. We therefore invite readers to send in a review comparing and contrasting two different TV series.