Choosing a restaurant within your hometown for any meal — a Sunday breakfast with the family, lunch with colleagues, dinner with the spouse, or even just dinner and coffee to savour on your own — is always a considerable challenge. You know you have your favourites, and there are some places that you have tried once and sworn never to visit again because there is simply nothing to love about the food they serve.
And while your go-to restaurants certainly provide filling meals and satisfy your cravings on a regular basis, you're sure to have that nagging feeling that there may still be plenty of dining destinations in your area that you have yet to try — and you may just discover new places that you can visit to enjoy good food, great drinks, a wonderful ambience, and a fully satisfying dining experience.
How would you be able to find the best local restaurants? Here are some simple tips to set you off on a fun gastronomic journey:
Ask for personal recommendations. There's nothing like hearing descriptions of food quality, customer service, and overall satisfaction from a restaurant from someone who has actually been to the place and sampled the food. If you have relatives or family who love trying out restaurants, approach them and ask for their recommendations for specific factors, like the cuisine (French, Thai, Creole, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, fusion, etc.) or the ambience (for romantic dinners, family dining, business meetings, etc.). If you know the referrer's personal taste in food, then you can be better able to gauge how good a local restaurant is by their standards.
Foodie blog reviews. You'll undoubtedly find dozens of blogs by foodies — people who absolutely love to look for new places to eat and share their experiences (complete with menus, prices, business hours, contact information, and personal ratings) from different foodie hotspots. From fine restaurants to food trucks to hawker stalls, these foodies pride themselves in seeking adventure by trying everything they can find to be able to tell the public about their discoveries. You'll find a wealth of helpful information from these blogs.
Website lists. A simple Google search for the "best restaurants (insert your city)" will yield several pages of websites that offer their top 10, 20 or 50 lists for the best restaurants within the vicinity. These sites will explain their criteria for ranking the restaurants, which will include price, accessibility, ambience, customer service, food quality, and reviews, among others. Some lists are also quite comprehensive, covering a wide range of cuisines or outlining the strengths of a restaurant overall.
Mobile apps. There are free mobile device apps that you can download and use to find the restaurants closest to you that offer a particular cuisine or food item. It's a great way to learn if there are new places you can check out, to find out how close a restaurant is to you and how you can get there, and what you can order (and whether you can order takeaway or get food delivered).