[/caption]When I travel, my appetite kicks into high gear! All the moving around and constant change makes me hungry. However, getting good food in an unfamiliar city can be challenging to say the least. Everyone has different standards of dining when they travel. Personally, I'm not crazy about fancy restaurants at all. Paying high prices for small portions that look pretty and don't fill me up doesn't excite me. In addition, I don't drink alcohol, so the whole wine pairing thing means nothing to me.
What I like to eat is what some would refer to as street food or counter service place. Good food, cooked up fresh, cheap prices, and filling. Recently when we were in Barcelona, there were tons of fancy restaurants with expensive food. After asking around, a couple backpackers had turned me on to a little place called "Bo de Be". We got the address and found it tucked away in the corner of a winding little street. You ordered outside at the window, picked it up inside, and grabbed a table in the small (but cozy) dining area. You picked your meats, watched them grilled up right in front of you, then after the guy puts them in a warm fresh baguette, he loads it up with any fresh vegetables you want, and then puts in a variety of sauces and dressings bursting with flavor. Best part? The meals were only 2-3 Euros! We went back everyday!
So how do you find good places to eat when you travel? Not just the top ultra-expensive fancy restaurants, but the local favorites that aren't in the business of ripping off tourists. You've got a couple of options.
1.) Ask around! This is the simplest and easiest way to find out. How better to find out where the locals eat than to just ask one? Cab drivers, hotel clerks, store owners/cashiers, and even backpackers! Chefs are a good source of information also.
2.) Email a food blogger. There are bloggers out there who give in-depth reviews to all the food places in their city. Some newspapers even have a person dedicated to reviewing this.
3.) Make a friend. This is a little nontraditional. If you make a friend on Couchsurfing.org or another travel social network site, you might get invited over for dinner!
4.) www.localeats.com Excellent resource to see reviews of where the locals eat!
5.) www.roadfood.com Another excellent resource for restaurants that exemplify the regional cuisine.
6.) www.tvfoodmaps.com Has a restaurant in the area been reviewed on a TV show? Check it out.
Half the battle is knowing what you are looking for. If you're looking for a specific type of food, specific budget, or area, start looking from there!
Enjoy your meal!
-Jason of TWiBT
Bo de b sounds real good!
ReplyDeleteTry Yelp.com We find most of our off the wall places there.
ReplyDeleteGood idea, thanks! I'm in London tomorrow so I'll try for something there.
ReplyDeletewww.LocalEats.com seems to narrow it down a lot more than Yelp and requires less effort (I'm sorta lazy). Anything they show is good (according to them and from my experience thus far) because it's all curated content by foodies, etc instead of just relying on other people's reviews. My two cents...
ReplyDeleteWhile not necessarily in the spirit of the post, another good suggestion is to take a chance. You might not have a great meal, or you might stumble upon a new hotspot to post to yelp, local eats or the numerous other sights out there. Another favorite, is chow.com.
ReplyDelete