How can you figure out where the good places to eat and hang out are in a place you’ve never been before? I’ll share my tips and what I do to research restaurants, coffee shops, and bars in a new place.
I use a combination approach when looking for new restaurant options. I use tools such as trip adviser, Google maps, and food websites/blogs. Unless I am searching for something specific, I start my search in very general terms. Google something such as “top restaurants Tacoma”, and a list of top rated restaurants will appear from trip adviser. This is my first stop. Below I will run through the steps that follow!
Sometimes-If you are visiting a large city- a food critic, food tour company, or food blogger will have written an article highlighting some local favorites. If this is the case, I always start by vetting these options first.
Research Steps
Step 1: Open up Google and Google Maps
Step 2: Google something to the effect of “top coffee shops in Tacoma” or whatever you are looking for. Another search could be “top restaurants in Lancaster”. If you are in the mood for Thai food, consider searching “top Thai restaurants in Seattle”.
Step 3: Browse through the top lists from trip adviser and compare the user reviews to Google user reviews – more on this below.
Step 4: (OPTIONAL) Use the explore function on Google maps and have a little fun exploring! It’s a seriously great feature.
Step 5: Create a list in Google maps, and save all of your possibilities.
Step 6: Reference this list when you want to go out to dinner!
This is what my map looks like after going through the process for our trip to Seattle. All of the little green flags are places I found through researching online.
This is a simple process, and can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour depending on how deep into the user reviews you go. Keep in mind that, especially on Google, review star ratings are inflated. A while ago I noticed that nearly every single restaurant in my search was scoring higher than 4/5 stars, which led me to question how this is possible. As it turns out, its a psychological phenomena of human behavior. One is more likely to leave a positive review than a negative review due to our social nature as humans. Thus, rating inflation becomes an issue. I’m not sure if this means that there is a massive difference between a 4.2 star and a 4.8 star restaurant, but it’s something to consider. Generally speaking, I use the star rating more as a screening tool. If I find a place I like, I will read a few of the comments to determine the most popular dishes and menu items.
Online research is great, and will allow you to research larger, more popular restaurants in an area. Small coffee shops and bakeries, mom and pop counter serve or window serve, and food trucks/stands will rarely appear in trip adviser/Google lists. More often than not, these kinds of places end up being my favorite. The only way to find these places is to walk around the neighborhood and explore on foot. Not online, on FOOT. I know that may sound insane, but it’s true! Many mom and pop establishments maintain business entirely on reputation, sans websites and social media presence. Occasionally these kinds of places will work their way into Google and trip adviser lists , but their lack of online presence limits this as a possibility. Get out there and explore the area you are in, and you may be surprised at what you find!
King's Barbeque
King's Barbeque is one of those places that is not easily found online. Mr King, as he is known in Jacksonville, parks his food truck and smoker in a corner parking lot and begins smoking every Saturday morning. If I wouldn't have biked past many times I would have never known of this awesome place! Mr. King himself and Hannah (my house-mate during Jacksonville clinical) are pictured here with me.