While visiting new restaurants can be part of the fun of exploring a new city, you also don’t want to have a bad experience. So, how do you make sure you’re choosing a great restaurant and spending your money wisely? We’re going to take you through 3 tips for choosing a good restaurant while travelling, so you can merge into the food culture seamlessly.
Get a Guide
You may not have ready access to your smart phone’s internet service when you’re on vacation – and even if you do, picking up a physical book guide can be a great way to locate the best restaurants in the city. Purchasing a travel guide is a great way to find the best of the best in your temporary home’s town or city, while also giving you a great little souvenir to take home.
Howstuffworks.com expands on why they would recommend getting a guide:
“As soon as you know what city you are visiting, start researching restaurants. The most obvious place to turn to is the Internet, but with millions of reviews and Web sites dedicated to food, it can get a little overwhelming. Head to the library or a local bookstore instead and check out the travel section there. Travel guides like Fodor’s and Lonely Planet offer a good overview of must-try locales, but they do tend to highlight popular tourist spots over local flavor. In addition to large travel books, many cities publish their own “best of” guides that will tell you which restaurants are considered the crème de la crème in their town. Search online to see if your destination offers a guide or if the local paper has a restaurant section.”
Read Local Publications and Posts From Local Food Bloggers
If you do wish to hop on Google, you can easily find posts from local bloggers (hopefully translated into a language you can understand!). These sorts of reviews are great, as they’re just like getting advice right from the locals, as well as other travellers who have been in the same position as you. On top of it, they’ll definitely be recommending some tasty dishes that you can try.
TravelZoo talks about why they would look to local publications for advice:
“Add some fun research to your trip planning by reading up before you go. A treasure trove of posts from local food bloggers and reporters is a quick Google search away, and the writers’ bread and butter is finding the hot spots and spilling secrets on the hidden gems. It’s easy to save all the addresses to a Google Map or print one out and highlight the intersections worth visiting. Some regional magazines or newspapers even have yearly dining lists that take a lot of the guesswork out of a visit.”
Follow the Locals
Why we don’t necessarily mean to follow individual locals right into the restaurant (you don’t want to be that person), we do mean asking the locals themselves where the best places to eat around town are. Also, if you notice that a particular restaurant is popular and seems like a place where the locals are heading, it would be worth giving it a shot.
Roamright.com tells us why they would look and see where the locals are heading:
While we may not have the menu prices for that little bistro you just passed by in Italy, we do have dozens of top restaurant menus and their prices all in one place. Take a look at our selection here!
