Enjoy a Treasure Hunt for Your Tastebuds

By Eve Carr

When people find out that I'm a food and travel writer, they invariably ask me one question: How do you find great restaurants?

In order to answer that question, I try to find out what people mean by the phrase “a great restaurant.” Just because I like one restaurant, doesn't mean that someone else will like it. One diner’s feast can be a fiasco for another, so it’s important to match people with the restaurants that will meet their expectations.

For some, dining out means being seen in the trendiest places, being surrounded by—and being willing to pay for—lots of style and panache, and nibbling on the latest designer food. If that’s what people want, I tell them to read the critics’ reviews and follow the crowds.

But following the advice of restaurant critics does not necessarily guarantee that you’ll enjoy the cuisine. While many dining critics are true professionals, offering customers valuable advice to help them make wise choices, some are on egotistical trips and feel that it’s necessary to be ultra critical to show their knowledge. This is not helpful to the person in search of a restaurant.

If it’s not important to you to be seen in the trendy new spots, you can have a lot of fun discovering your own restaurants. True, there is trial and error involved, but I think that it’s much more fun, I feel, to swim upstream and find the restaurants that you really love yourself—rather then going to ones that you’re supposed to enjoy.

Finding the restaurant that is right for you is like looking at art or drinking wine. While you can listen to the opinions of others, if you want a meaningful experience, you need to be honest with yourself and zero in on what you like. Besides, it’s just more fun to discover a delightful restaurant on your own. It’s like a treasure hunt for the taste buds. And, of course, when searching for the right restaurant, it’s important to think about your current mood. If you’re have visions of a spicy Pad Thai in your head, then you won’t want to go to a steakhouse.

My definition of a great restaurant is similar to James Beard’s philosophy of “gourmet food.” It doesn’t have to be exotic or fancy. To prove his point, he used a simple baked potato as an example. Properly prepared, he said, a baked potato could be considered a gourmet food.

So my ideal restaurant, whether it’s a deli or an up-scale five-star restaurant, is one that uses quality ingredients, where the staff prepares them with enjoyment and a solid knowledge of cooking, and serves them pleasantly—with no pretense.

Like anything else in life, searching for and finding a great restaurant is a matter of trial and error. You see a listing on this site, a review, you get a recommendation from a friend. You look at the façade of the restaurant, and it seems to appeal to you. You glance over the menu posted outside, find that it suits your tastes and wallet, and see people inside apparently enjoying themselves, so you check it out.

Sometimes you’re lucky—sometimes you aren’t. But at least you have tried something different—and have made your own decision about coming here. In the long-run, you are the best restaurant critic, deciding which restaurants you want to return to and recommend to others.

About the Author:

Eve Carr is a full-time food and travel writer and photographer who absolutely enjoys sharing with others her knowledge of food, wine and restaurants that she discovers on her national and international travel.

Article courtesy of Suite101.com.