I spend a lot of time looking for good food options when I travel. What’s your strategy for finding great places to eat?
I usually check this forum. Locals here often recommend places, so it’s mostly trustworthy unless it’s a tourist trap like Angus Steakhouse in London.
I also use Google or Google Maps in the local language to avoid tourist spots. If the reviews are in the local language, you can definitely find some good meals.
Making friends with locals is a great way to discover hidden gems. I sometimes ask servers or baristas for their favorites too.
@Adair
I thought Google automatically translates reviews.
Do you find it leads you to different places when you search in the local language in places like Thailand, South Korea, or Japan?
Oaklan said:
@Adair
I thought Google automatically translates reviews.
Do you find it leads you to different places when you search in the local language in places like Thailand, South Korea, or Japan?
I mostly use Maps since I have saved collections for each city, and it’s easier to plan. You will see slightly different results on Google, but not a huge difference.
@Adair
So do you enter the names after using Google Translate in apps like Apple Maps?
Oaklan said:
@Adair
So do you enter the names after using Google Translate in apps like Apple Maps?
That’s right.
Oaklan said:
@Adair
So do you enter the names after using Google Translate in apps like Apple Maps?
That’s right.
Cool
@Adair
In my experience, recommendations from this forum have only about a 50% success rate.
Florence said:
@Adair
In my experience, recommendations from this forum have only about a 50% success rate.
True. You should take everything with a grain of salt.
Florence said:
@Adair
In my experience, recommendations from this forum have only about a 50% success rate.
True. You should take everything with a grain of salt.
Sometimes the restaurants have too much salt, though. This forum often suggests really fancy and expensive places or just burger joints, which isn’t what I look for when traveling.
@Florence
I agree about the pricey recommendations. Most of my research usually leads me to decent spots. I tend to notice names that come up frequently and go with those.
@Adair
I find this forum useful if you check a thread that has a lot of views and pick the choices mentioned by many people.
However, this usually gives you a few restaurants, and you may need to travel to them. It’s not as effective if you’re looking for options in a specific area.
In places where Yelp is common, I think it’s the most reliable for tasty food, but ONLY if the restaurants have 4 or more stars and over 100 reviews, preferably over 1000 reviews. The main issue is with new restaurants where ratings are often from family and friends. Sometimes there can be good restaurants in the 3.7 to 3.9 range, but they typically have some major flaws like unfriendly staff, which I might tolerate for better food. I always read the Yelp text reviews to catch common themes.
But Yelp isn’t available everywhere. Then I switch to Google Reviews, but I find them quite unreliable. I’ve gone to 4.5+ restaurants only to find the food lacking while people seem to rate based on views and decor rather than taste. If I have no other options, I use Google but I try to skip the touristy spots with good locations to find better-rated restaurants that are less known. It’s still hit or miss, though. I think regular folks use Google Maps, while foodies are the ones who download Yelp just for restaurant reviews.
I just wander around and hope for the best while waiting for my food.
Ask a local! They usually have better suggestions than Google or Yelp.
Bryn said:
Ask a local! They usually have better suggestions than Google or Yelp.
Specifically ask, where would you take your relatives visiting from out of town?
Look for busy spots with no fancy decor and basic seating. If they tick those boxes, you’re likely to get good food.
Walk around and see where the local people are actually eating. Empty spots usually mean overpriced or bad food.
Consider trying food tours.
Hopefully, there’s a food tour that offers a small-group, off-the-beaten-path experience. You’ll get to taste good food on the tour itself, but finding good restaurants that can handle groups of tourists is tricky sometimes. Still, it’s a great way to get introduced to local cuisine. Plus, you might meet a guide or other food-loving participants.
Over time, you start recognizing who gives good suggestions. Speaking from an American’s perspective, you often want to skip over recommendations from other Americans. To be fair, this usually extends to folks from Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, and a few other countries too. Nothing against those countries, their food preferences just aren’t aligned with mine.
I prefer local recommendations, but that depends on where you are. For example, getting suggestions from locals in Colombia might lead you to great arepas or street food, but finer dining could be trickier.
I ask locals for recommendations — my host, a worker at a coffee shop, a server at a diner, or just someone I chat with on the street. I usually ask, where do you like to eat that’s typical of your region?
I also wander (usually off the tourist paths) checking out menus posted outside restaurants. Then I do a vibe check by peeking through the windows to see if the food looks appealing and if the diners seem happy. My instincts rarely fail me.
I used to rely on Google and Trip Advisor a lot, but now I’m more skeptical of fake reviews. I’ve visited places with great ratings but poor food and service. After looking through the one-star reviews, I’d find they echoed my experience but were drowned out by fake feedback.
My friends love TikTok and Instagram for recommendations, but I think there’s too much hype on those platforms. Many spots get attention more for their visuals than for their taste.
I generally have two strategies: first, I go to a busy street and see which places have a lot of customers. Secondly, I pick from Google Maps based on visuals that appeal to me and have good ratings.