While travelling, find a good restaurant is a must do. I would say, having a nice meal in a restaurant is more important than deciding which hotel to stay, or which shop to go. Believe me or not, sometimes I can spend a whole day to do restaurant research. In this blog post, I’m going to tell you how do I find a good restaurant.
One day, Curry Boy asked me what did I do during the day. When I was recalling my memory, he’d already said: “Looking for a restaurant?” “How did you know?”I was surprised. “Of course I know! You will check all the details, including the review, even who wrote that review! Honestly I think you can teach people how to find a good restaurant!”
Well, I never had this thought, but, why not? So here I am.
Step 1, get to know the local food
I always want to know what’s other country’s people eating everyday. So after I’ve booked the flight tickets and hotel, I’d like to begin with knowing the local food by searching “country/city name with local food keyword” on Google. For example, I will go to Croatia this summer, then I will search “Croatia local food”. I’m sure there are lots of blogger already blogged this, you can have a quick look of those unknown food and see which one interest you most.
Step 2, have a look at TripAdvisor(or other similar website)
When you go to a popular city, there will be many different kinds of restaurant. So, where to start?
In my case, I often look for a proper dining restaurant for my trip, hence I will spend more time on looking at “moderately price” restaurant. And “fine dining” is not really my type, “cheap eats” like hamburger, kebab, pizza, can be saved for lunch. After browsing for a few pages, you already have an idea which restaurants are popular. You may also want to make a memo, or simply use “save to my favourite” feature on TripAdvisor(log-in required). Here, I don’t read review on TripAdvisor because personally I prefer Google reviews more which has a larger pool and more updated.
Step 3, take Google reviews for reference
Now, open google map. Zoom in the city you will stay, and search the area with “Restaurants”.
Then use the filters located above to do advance search if you want. Usually I filter the rating by 4.5 stars or above.
Remember the restaurants you’ve checked on TripAdvisor? Are they there? Check them out first.
Note: Bear in mind that Google won’t show you all the restaurants. The closer you zoom, the more restaurants it will show. However, all those on advertisement will constantly showing to you.
Step 4, Look into details of the restaurant’s website
If the restaurant has a proper website, most of the time there will be a menu. There are few things you might want to take a closer look.
Menu examination: Food range, Set/Tasting Menu, Price, Additional charge?
Even though the menu is only a sample, you might still be able get a taste of what do they provide. The first thing to check is: how many kind of food do they serve?
Diversified menu or small menu?
Some restaurants have a book-liked menu, long and long pages, cover all the popular cuisines. The good thing is, everyone on the group can get at least one or two things they like. The bad thing is (I assume), it’s difficult to cook all different dishes to perfect if you have so much to handle. So I guess the quality of the dish won’t be very outstanding. On the other hand, a small menu allows chefs to focus on what they cook, and I definitely prefer good food good cooking during the trip.
Do they have set/tasting menu?
Set menu is not equal to tasting menu. From my point of view, set menu is tend to be not changing often, perhaps the chef/owner would put the “classic dish” into a set with a more affordable price. On the other hand, tasting menu would be more focus on the food quality, menu changes according to the seasonal ingredients. I’d like to try tasting menu because I believe the dishes being offered are the best. But if I like the set menu combination, I won’t rule out the option either.
Golden Rule: an expensive dish ≠ tasty dish
Sometimes, price can goes really crazy. I mean, a steak turns out is just a steak. You’d say, “hey cook a steak into perfect is not easy!” I agree, and steak itself costs a lot too. However, the higher the price is, doesn’t mean it’s tastier. It’s a golden rule. A pretty looking girl doesn’t mean she is a nice girl. Full stop.
Any hidden additional charge?
Before closing the tab, take a closer look at the menu. Pay attention to the bottom, I’m sure you can find some tiny little texts there. Besides allergy blah blah blah is written there, any $ dollar sign or “additional” or “charge to your bill” these kinds of text are there? Sometimes, the restaurant will charge $1 more to your bill on behalf of you, to donate to some charity. I’m not saying it’s a bad practice of the restaurant. Just to make everything clear, are you ok with that? Better to be no doubt before you chose that restaurant.
Step 5, see some reviews and real pictures
Now, you have some restaurants on your list, time to go back to Google review again.
Try to look at the newest reviews first. Are the customers are happy recently? Leave those few years back bad reviews there, let them sink, I believe people make mistakes, and people correct mistakes too. Check the restaurant’s latest performance is more important than digging the past.
As a restaurant review, some are good, some are bad, and usually it’s the bad one got our nerves. You might think, ummm……that bad one……maybe it’s just a one time bad experience?! Maybe yes! However, if there is quite an amount of bad reviews which got your attention, definitely there is room to reconsider go or not go I guess?
And don’t forget about the pictures taken by customers. They are real experience and reflect the truth. Are they in good presentation(if you care)? Is the portion big enough(maybe you are a big eater)? Last but not least, do they make you mouth watering? Do you want to make a reservation right now?
Step 6, make a reservation
OK, now you can go ahead to make a reservation!
Nowadays, most of the time you can make reservation on the restaurant’s website. But for those small restaurant, they may only have a Facebook page. If you don’t/can’t make a phone call, try to check if they have an email address mentioning on the Facebook or Google. I saw somebody would request for reservation via Google as well! If they can see it, you are lucky!
A few more things to consider
I’d admit, sometimes I look into super details even Curry Boy wonders: “Are you Sherlock Holmes?” 😛
Who wrote that review?
Let’s say you want to go to a Chinese restaurant. You saw some reviews from Westerners, some are from Asian, which one you will take into account more? If that person wrote a nice piece of review, I mean he/she sounds like how to appreciate food, maybe I’d check out his/her other reviews also!
How do the restaurant respond to that bad review?
I know, review can hurt. Some restaurants would respond in a polite way, saying “thank you for your feedback, sure there is room for improvement, hope you can come back and we will make it right for you next time.”
Some restaurants just turned it into a fight: “You came to charge the phone, used the toilet, not ordered anything and didn’t say thank you?”
Well, what had happened back then, only that customer and the staff knew. As outsider, we can’t judge anything. However, we can see how do the restaurant handle a bad review. That’s the image of a restaurant.
Perhaps you will say: “So many steps to find a restaurant? Come on, just pick one!” I wish I could do that! Sometimes I just can’t help myself. 😛 Looking at different restaurants’ websites and menus could be a pleasure to me. But I also learnt my lesson, the more effort you put to finding a restaurant, the higher expectation you will have. If the meal turns out not satisfied enough, a little disappointment will be left. Sometimes, without doing any research, just walk-in to a restaurant could be a nice surprise too!
