How to Find Good Food While Traveling: Tabelog, Tourists, and Transience
Dear Friend,
What does it mean for a food to be “authentic”? Does it have to do with the honesty of the preparation? The respect for tradition? Or simply being food made by locals, for locals?
While travelling, I often hear this word being thrown about: “I’m looking for the most authentic X”, or, “Y seems to be the most authentic restaurant around”. I understand the urge to get off of the beaten path and to immerse in an “authentic” version of cultural expression: cuisine. Most travellers want to consume food (and other things to be sure) that allow them to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Food made for the people that inhabit the place you’re going. And they probably want the best possible version of that.
And my friend, I am no different.
Hopefully, this letter can impart some of what I've learned through copious amounts of trial, error, and travel on to you, and therefore reward you with both a culturally enriching and unique culinary experience on your travels.
In the process of writing down my thoughts, I’ve come to realize I use a sort of elimination method. A series of strategies in which if the superior one is unavailable, I then move to the next. With each method, however, comes very important qualifications.
Home cooked meal
Tabelog
Ask a local
Critical mass theory
Google maps and friends
To make this easier to parse, think about it as a 5-step decision making process. That may sound a bit excessive, but, if like me, you consider food a driving force in the WHY of travel, it's a small price to pay.
Option 1: Eating with locals
If you have the opportunity to eat with a local, take it. Obviously, getting to meet and interface with local people is a contender for the best part of (culture focused) travel. If offered a home cooked meal, know that it is the holy grail of food options. If going out to a meal together, it is important to specify what it is you’re looking for. Are you looking to try what's popular with the people there? Your host’s personal favorite? Casual? Fancy? Don't be afraid to share. Like any host, they are looking to make sure you enjoy yourself. This can also lead to an interesting situation, one I have found myself in a few times. One of those times was on a trip to Thailand where the friends I was staying with brought me to a series of (marginal at best) Italian restaurants, which they later admitted to not even liking much themselves. It turns out that they had assumed that as a “westerner” I would be more comfortable, and therefore have a better time if I was eating something I knew. This assumption comes from a place of love and hospitality, but is not exactly an ideal situation.
Option 2: Tabelog (or other local yelp alternatives)
Ahh the wonderful namesake of this article. This tip is country dependent. Here, I am using one of my most well travelled countries as an example: Japan. On a previous trip to Japan (I was quite young at the time, 17 or 18 I believe), I began to wonder why all the reviews on yelp, google, and apple maps were in perfect english, from people with names like Karen and Sheryll. It didn’t make sense, especially when fluent English is such a rarity in Japan. So, I began to research. Luckily, I spoke enough Japanese to look online in Japanese and find out that it is not the case that no one in Japan writes reviews, in fact, quite the opposite. I found an absolute glut of reviews. Just not on an American site. I found them on Tabelog. Tabelog is essentially Japanese yelp, with slightly different functionality (for example, it will baseline sort restaurants by most reserved, not highest rated. Potentially a cultural insight?). It was incredible. It seemed like every restaurant I looked at had thousands of long, in depth reviews. Pictures, critical analysis, personal anecdotes, all included. In addition to being incredibly useful (think accurate hours, current menus, and includes the 4-seater mom and pop shops not on google maps), it also tells you a little bit about how people think about eating out in Japan. For example, an average review score of 4 stars is nearly unheard of. When I say this, I mean a restaurant can have myriad mini essays in the reviews singing its praises and still have a 3.7. Even those essays will probably give it a 3.7. [[SHOULD I INCLUDE AN ANECDOTE FROM TABLEOG HERE?]]. My friend, if you can find a version of this in the country you are visiting, make good use of it (check local publications as well! They often have directories and local recommendations).
Option 3: Ask a local
This one is pretty self explanatory… they’ve likely eaten at more restaurants in the area than you have. But be careful. When I say this, my friend, you must know I mean it in an objective and non-pejorative way. I implore you, be careful about who you ask. Much like when at home, some people have a more selective palate than others. My recommendation? Look for people who know food. Chefs, cooks or servers at nice restaurants, etc. These types of people usually have recommendations for good food at different price points, so please don’t hesitate to ask, I'm sure they would love to share.
Option 4: Critical mass theory
This is for when you’re already on the ground, hitting the streets with no plan in mind. It’s simple really. If there is a restaurant or stall packed with locals, it is popular with at least one demographic and is usually on the safer side. This doesn’t mean it will necessarily be amazing, as sometimes the crowds are due to bang for buck or novelty. So be discerning here. There is one more caveat… you have to try to decipher who is a tourist and who is not. In theory, this sounds easy, taking into account appearance, language and fashion, but it can actually be deceptively difficult in places like Japan, where a large part of the tourism sector is made up of a country’s own citizens. In this case my friend, practice makes perfect, and I wish you the best of luck.
P.S when walking around, especially in touristy spots, sometimes servers will try to usher you into their restaurant, oftentimes calling out to you in english. I tend to avoid these places like the plague.
P.P.S I may have been a bit brash. My apologies. Sometimes, this is actually a cultural thing, like at bars in Vietnam, or people standing in doorways in Greece (oftentimes actually there for a breath of fresh air in a smoker heavy country). This is usually fine, albeit a little bit uncomfortable for people not used to it.
Option 5: Google or Apple maps, Yelp, and the other usual suspects
Be very, very careful here. On these platforms, it can be hard to tell if things are actually good or not. The taste of the many does not necessarily match the taste of the few. Take for example the miraculously high ratings of many Mcdonalds locations. Not everyone is looking for the same thing my friend. My advice is this: look at the food. Trust your gut. You can usually visually tell when something looks good or not, and if it is difficult for you, it is definitely a skill worth honing. You will definitely get there with practice.
Phew. No one could say I don’t care about food (maybe too much?). Hopefully this potentially un-neededly in-depth process will allow you to find authentic food while travelling, or whatever type of food or culinary experience you’re looking for. As always, I hope your travels are as rewarding as they are unique.
Wishing you well,
Best of Kin