Introduction:
The holidays for many are the perfect time to travel. Students of all ages are on break and bosses are a little more lenient with giving you vacation time. However, this year traveling is definitely more challenging than years prior. International travel for most is not allowed, however, many are still traveling domestically, whether it be cross country road trips or flights to Florida and Hawaii.
In my family, good food is probably one of the most important factors of a great vacation. We want to try the best food that a place has to offer. In reality, walking into the restaurant connected to your hotel, or taking a seat at a random spot you just walked by, will not always leave you pleased nor satisfied. Instead, you might formulate a false idea that the food in the area is lackluster. Every location, even the smallest towns, has some hidden gems and some high-quality restaurants dishing out local grub, but it’s really up to you to find them. In this post, I will be discussing the way I seek out great restaurants in new places.
The Many Resources Already Available to you:
To begin with, you need to know that there is an abundance of resources already available to you. A quick google search on “the best restaurants in the city” will bring up tons of articles and blog posts regarding some of the must-try restaurants in the area. Free apps such as Yelp and Tripadvisor are also quite useful. They provide you with many restaurant options relative to your location, which is very convenient. As a general tip, use Yelp more for locations within the United States and Tripadvisor more for international travel. You have so much information regarding the food scene in an area available to you at your fingertips. Now, the next step is to put it all together.
The Step By Step Process:
Make Use of Articles and Blogs
Alright, let’s talk about the actual step by step process of finding great restaurants in a new area. After doing a google search of the “Best restaurants in the city”, pick out 2-3 articles or blog posts that seem reliable and catch your eye. Make sure to actually read what the articles have to say. A list made by a local blogger living in that area for 10 years, is a more trustworthy source than a list that just has pictures of each restaurant with an unknown author. Usually, I will go with an Eater Essential list, a list of the best restaurants in a city made by the popular food conglomerate Eater, and about two local blogs. After reading through your sources, make a list of restaurants that look and sound particularly appetizing, and of restaurants that are referenced multiple times across the articles and blog posts.
Check a Restaurant’s Reviews
After doing so, you can now move on to comparing this list of restaurants with their reviews on Yelp or Tripadvisor. In smaller cities, any restaurant with a 4+ star rating and over 100 reviews is great. For a larger city, you are looking for restaurants with at least 150 reviews and over a 4+ star rating. Once you have compared your restaurant list with their concurrent Tripadvisor or Yelp reviews, you can make your decisions on which restaurants you would love to visit on your trip and which ones you would like to skip.
For smaller cities, the amount of information about the restaurant scene will be significantly smaller. In this scenario, make use of the few posts and articles available to make your initial list prior to looking at reviews. If absolutely no articles are available, you will have to rely solely on restaurant reviews on Yelp and Tripadvisor following the same rating guidelines I mentioned above.
Blackbelly Market in Boulder, Colorado shows up in “The 38 Essential Denver Restaurants” by EATER and has a 4.5 star rating with 480 reviews on Yelp. This would be a great restaurant to dine at.
Conclusion:
By no means am I stating that you must research every single restaurant that you go to on your trip. Feel free to walk into a random restaurant for lunch if it looks good to you and if you meet some locals or a guide during your stay, take recommendations from them also. However, if you are dead set on visiting the best restaurants that a specific area has to offer, this research method will take you straight to them.
If you enjoyed this post, check out my Coffee Glazed Doughnut Recipe.
