EATING ON VACATION by Armen Pandola
OK, so you've arrived after a plane ride that did NOT include meals and you are looking for a place to eat. Good food at reasonable prices. Where?
Most articles about eating on vacation will recommend restaurants, but I am a believer in the old adage - if you give a hungry person a fish to eat, you have fed her for a day, but if you teach a hungry person to fish, you ...
So let's talk about how to find good places to eat anywhere.
Online there is a wealth of information - most of it only as good as the people who posted it. There are many sites like Yelp that will rate restaurants. Here are Yelp's top-rated restaurants In Philadelphia, a town I know, and not one of the top 30 would I recommend - ok, Reading Terminal because you are bound to find something you like there. Most sites will tell you what the majority of raters like. McDonald's is the most popular restaurant in the world. Do you like to eat at McDonald's? Then those sites will tell you the restaurants you should go to.
If Mc Donald's is not your favorite eatery, then more research is in order. Like I did with Yelp, I suggest you ask the site the best restaurants in your hometown and see what the site comes up with. If they recommend the places where you like to eat, bingo! This is the site for you.
If not, think about looking up not restaurants but luncheonettes, delis and hoagie shops (subs) or if in Paris, boulangeries. These places sell excellent sandwiches and other food to go - things to eat like hoagies or steak sandwiches or quiche. If the weather is good, there are lots of parks and public places to eat in every European city and most American ones.
But you don't want a sandwich - how can you tell the folks back home that your first meal in Paris or Barcelona or Disney World was a great sandwich. You want a nice dinner, not too expensive. There are sites that specialize in naming the best restaurants in major cities, like Michelin. In New York City and other places of that ilk, restaurants vie for a Michelin * - the best get 3 stars. I have been to one of those (there are only 5 in all of NYC), Le Bernardin. Yes, it was great - and rather expensive, dinner for 2 with wine - around four to five Cs.
OK, so you want to have a great time but not to where you are going to lose the house. Tripadvisor has a nice break-down of restaurants - seafood, Italian, Chinese, BYOBs - so you can pick a type of food and then see what their readers think are the best. Here, again, beware - they list the 17 best BYOBs in Philadelphia and I can recommend a couple on the list but the best BYOB in Philadelphia is not on the list.. No, they don't take reservations and the wait is long enough without you showing up.
So where does that leave us? The human touch. Wherever you go, many people will speak English, especially Europe. Why? Because Europeans take language education seriously and the second language they all learn is English for obvious reasons. So, when you are standing in line and two locals are chatting in French or German, politely ask if they speak english and where they are from. If they are from that city, ask them where THEY eat. Or ask a cab driver or the ticket taker at the museum or - you get the idea. Sure, you might be asking someone who likes McDonald's but then she will tell you that and you can move on. Ask about lunch places - the intruded-upon foreigner is more likely to give you a true answer if the meal is a common, ordinary one, like lunch.
In the end, you have to go with your gut - literally. Look in the window at what people are eating and see if it looks good to you. Does the pasta stand up or is it smothered in sauce, looking like Jake LaMotta after a few rounds with Sugar Ray Robinson? Is the fish bright and clear? Is the veal hidden by a half-gallon of something that looks like it just was cooped up out of the lagoon? And remember, hunger is the best sauce.