Finding a Good Restaurant While on Vacation
Back in the day, it may have been hard to find a great restaurant if you were traveling or visiting another city. You could try a fancy looking restaurant down the street from you, but what if you spent a ton of money on dinner and the food is terrible? You’d really have no way of knowing at all. Asking for recommendations from friends and family usually helped, but in today’s day and age finding a restaurant you’ll love while on vacation has never been easier. Use these tips to find a restaurant when traveling. Who knows, you may end up recommending it to someone else!
Search for Online Reviews
It’s never been easier to find what the masses think of a restaurant. Simply search a restaurant you’re interested on any sort of online search engine and it’s likely that hundreds of reviews will pop up. Lots of websites even review specific entrees, so if the restaurant has a dish that you may be interested in, be sure to check out the reviews to see what others are saying about it. You can find reviews on all different kinds of things about the restaurant, including service, food quality, price, and a lot more. Reading online reviews can also be entertaining, as some people really like to have their voice heard!
Download their Menu Online
Download and print. Choosing to review a restaurant’s menu online before you go will ensure that there will be something you like before you wait 45 minutes for a table. If you’re looking to try a certain type of cuisine, consider printing a bunch of different menus from restaurants in the city you’re in, circling things you like, and discussing with your family which one has the most entrees that sound delicious to them. Compile a list of restaurants in the city you’re visiting by checking out websites like Yellow Pages United and you’ll be on your way to good eats!
Follow the Crowds
If you feel like being really ambitious, you can easily find a popular restaurant by just simply seeing where the crowds go. If it takes you a hours to get a reservation, you’re probably in for a delicious dinner. It wouldn’t hurt to search for reviews or download the menu of a popular restaurant though, just to be safe you’re going to find something you like.
Ask a Local
If you’re looking for a good restaurant, it won’t hurt to ask a local. Whether it’s the front desk at your hotel, your cab driver from the airport, or even a random person on the street, getting recommendations straight from the source will ensure that you find a delicious restaurant. Locals obviously know the city a lot better than you do, and their recommendations usually come very high regarded. Be sure that you ask them what their favorite local dish is too, so you can get a true taste of the city that you’re in!
Asking a local is great advice. I’ve been doing that for years. Whenever we travel, we try to stay away from the proverbial “tourist” spots. We seek out the local joints. Kinda like that guy on Food Network, Guy Fieri and his Diners, Drive-ins and Dives show. Eating in the local hangouts provides a better flavor (pun intended) of the area.
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LikeDislikeI always visit a restaurant’s online presence before venturing out to a new place. Read online reviews, too, although I take them with a grain of salt. I traveled to a town that had one neighborhood consisting of a very high religious Jewish population. I was interested in this Italian restaurant and read some online reviews about it. Several said that the place was “dead on Friday night,” a “bad sign” especially since it was mostly a pizzeria. However, the fact that the place was not crowded on Friday night had nothing to do with the food or the service. The neighborhood celebrated the Sabbath starting sundown Friday night and did not go out to restaurants. Had I not known that before hand, I would have passed this restaurant over. But being in the know — which also echos what Schmoopie said about asking the locals –I went anyway and had an amazing pepperoni pie!
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LikeDislikeSo I don’t know how many people have heard of opentable.com. My mom swears by it. The thing I like about it, is that A LOT OF RESTAURANTS are on it. opentable.com lets you make a reservation online but it also shows you what restaurants are around you, how expensive they are and any comments left by other users who went to the restaurant and of course the menu. By using the website you also start to rack up points which can later be redeemed for gift certificates to restaurants. its http://www.opentable.com and even if you decide not to make a reservation through it, its a pretty good reliable site.
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LikeDislikeI have heard of open table but never used it — a bit late to the party there, I guess. Will definitely give it a try. Thanks for the url.
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