'It wasn't what I expected' vs 'It wasn't what I expected it to be'

Question

Can you please tell me the difference between these examples?

it wasn't what I thought

it wasn't what I thought it was

it wasn't what I expected

it wasn't what I expected it to be

I feel like 1 and 3, and 2 and 4 are pretty much the same.
here is my understanding
ex) I go to a restaurant which I found online and got a great review, and it turns out to be a bad restaurant. Then I can say, "it wasn't what I expected or it wasn't what I thought."
And one day I went to a restaurant and it was great. A few months later, I revisited the restaurant and found it really bad. Then I can also say, "it wasn't what I expected it to be or it wasn't what I thought it was."
am I right?

ldegraaf · Answer

I agree with your understanding of these phrases.
However, here are some other phrases that you could use that would be more casual/relaxed:
Scenario #1: "You could say "That restaurant didn't live up the the hype." or "I don't know what everyone was talking about, that restaurant was awful."
Scenario #2: you could say "I'm not sure what happened, but that restaurant isn't as good as it used to be."

'It wasn't what I expected' vs 'It wasn't what I expected it to be'

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