How do I use my metadata in photos to track down a restaurant to review?

May 18, 2018 2:20 PM

I want to write a bad review for a sushi place in Shanghai but I can't find it. Long story short, I got a bunch of food I didn't want and was charged a ton for it. Tried to fight it on the card, no dice. (have a feeling the owner's done this before) So I'd like to warn off people on TripAdvisor but I can't figure out where it is. But l I have two photos to go off of. Help me find this sushi place.

The first is from outside the restaurant.
Pic 1

The second is a QR code from inside the restaurant. (Also I thought this was FOR the restaurant but it's not).
Pic 2

Other notes. It was in a multistory building and on at least the third - but maybe fourth - floor of the building. And there was a hot pot place in the building I think UNDER the sushi place.

Also all this took place in December of 2016

posted by rileyray3000 to Travel & Transportation (13 answers total)

The MINGR jewelry store in that picture appears to have an address of 388 Najing Rd.(E). Google says there's a few sushi places nearby - Gatten Sushi, Helv Sushi, and Kamii Sushi Bar are all on the same block. Any of those ring a bell?
posted by hanov3r at 2:45 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I downloaded the second photo and put it through an EXIF decoder.

The GPS data recorded in the photo is 31°14'16.5"N 121°28'35.5"E, which comes up here.

Google Street View is a little lacking, but this should help you narrow it down.

oops sorry for the dupe jamaro
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:02 PM on May 18, 2018

Does the credit card statement show the name of the restaurant?

There are at least three sushi places very close to the building in the photo (although I can't really tell from Google Maps if they are in the building): Yuan Lu sushi (this one seems the most promising because there's a hot pot restaurant on the 3rd floor, and because it seems to be the closest to the building in the photo); Shimizu-chou sushi (which is on floor b1 of a building - not sure if that's the basement?); and something that just appears in Google Maps as "fresh takeaway sushi" (of which there are a lot - I'm not sure if this is a chain or just a very common description).

None of those seem to have any presence on the internet, even in Chinese; the TripAdvisor page for Yuan Lu sushi is empty, and I can't find any reviews even in Chinese.
posted by Jeanne at 3:12 PM on May 18, 2018

I think the location metadata may be off in your photos. Google Maps doesn't have Street View in China, but I'm very sure that this is the location in your photo - it has the same Wang Kai Photography and the same Wedding House on the bottom. That puts it near the intersection of Nanjing Road and Shanxi S Road, about half a mile away from the location shown in the metadata.
posted by Jeanne at 3:28 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Gatten sushi looks like another possibility, and it at least looks like it definitely exists rather than showing up on Google Maps but nowhere else. Does the restaurant in these photos look familiar?
posted by Jeanne at 3:55 PM on May 18, 2018

I think Jeanne has it:

Here's another angle I've clipped comparing their street view with your picture
posted by nikaspark at 4:04 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Technically, you're not supposed to make a TripAdvisor review for a place you went more than a year ago. If you can find the place, perhaps look at the recent reviews as it may have changed hands or changed practices since then.
posted by Cheese Monster at 4:05 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Because these photos were taken in China, you cannot rely on the GPS coordinates recorded by your camera or smartphone there. Good answers here are going to rely on people who know Shanghai well, rather than the compromised technical metadata of your photos.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 4:09 PM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

You might want to check sites that specialize in local data for China, e.g. Baidu Local, or 大众点评 to figure out where you were. Then you can take the entity data to Yelp / TripAdvisor along with your review.
posted by batter_my_heart at 4:29 PM on May 18, 2018

Response by poster: So on the credit card it comes up as JIU ZHOU WU RES (which I assume is for restaurant). That wasn't something I could find at the time. Does it match with any of the metadata?
posted by rileyray3000 at 10:09 PM on May 18, 2018

Found it. Jiuzhouwu, or Kyushu House, which oddly enough doesn't show up on Google Maps although it seems to still be in business. Couldn't find a TripAdvisor page for it either. (There is another Kyushu Restaurant in Shanghai, but that is NOT the correct restaurant - it's somewhere else in the city entirely.)
posted by Jeanne at 9:16 AM on May 19, 2018

Response by poster: That's great! Is there an address for it? Looks like I'll be making the listing and adding it on yelp.
posted by rileyray3000 at 1:57 AM on May 20, 2018

4th floor, New World Leisure Harbor, 479 Nanjing Rd Pedestrian St, Huangpu Qu, Shanghai Shi, China, 200000
posted by Jeanne at 6:40 AM on May 20, 2018