DiningBuzz! - When traveling what is your restaraunt review site of choice?

I assume I'm not the only one...
When travelling I tend to go to review sites to get an idea of very good restaraunts in the city I'm in to go and eat at.

Typically I would use tripadvisor and look at the rankings and go from there, but I've noticed lately that some businesses attempt to pad their stats on the site in order to get more traffic in their restaraunt.
And some restaraunts seem to move towards the "Lonely Planet" effect in which their prices skyrocket when they are high up on the site.

I've tried Urban Spoon and Yelp, but haven't settled on a good "go to" site which I can find excellent dining options without putting in hours of research.

Any suggestions or tips?

I use to trust tripadvisor and yelp, but with so many sites where people post they will write reviews for $5 for a business I don't have as much faith in them anymore.

For $5 for example:

My team and I will write 5 reviews on Google Places/Maps for your business. All reviews will be from real people (not bots) and will look genuine.All reviews are hand written by real persons. We can write all 5 reviews in one day or do 1-2 reviews per day, or as per your requirement. If you want the reviews to say anything specific, do let us know. If you want more reviews, feel free to order the gig multiple times.

Lately, though it doesn't cover all restaurants, I've been liking the reviews in the rewards network/idine system (the airline dining miles program). I tend to think that if the people probably have actually eaten in the restaurant, I don't think you get the review link until your points post.

I like and generally trust Zagat. I have a selection of their hard copy books which are useful starting points (and I will read more online at Zagat, or on other sites) The comments tend towards 'pithy' (that is their aim) and could have been written by anyone, but the numerical rating, and costs seem to be fairly accurate IME and you get a general sense of the place. The hardcopy books make it easy to find the 'top' restaurants in a city, by 'best food', 'most popular' top by cuisine / by bruch that sort of thing.

What kind of food?

If it is high end gastronomy then Michelin guide or Zagat is pretty reliable. Pretty sure to get at least a decent meal and a empty pocket book going to a "star" restaurant.

As for normal regular restaurants, it is not so easy. By the time it gets noticed by a travel guide, it is quite often no longer a great eat or a great deal.

I balance things out with tripadvisor and asking the concierge at the hotel their opinion. Usually they give a closer, cheaper, better option once they figure out what kind of restaurant I wanted to go to.

I like Chowhound.

I like Chowhound.

I do too, but I take posts there with the same caution as reviews on sites like yelp - I have seen a number of negative (though IMHO fair) reviews vanish from their forums. Despite that, it's always my first stop when I'm looking for restaurant suggestions in an unfamiliar area. Their search function is terrible, though - so I always go to google and type in something like

sunday brunch pittsburgh site:chowhound.chow.com

Then use the google controls to narrow by date/etc... works pretty well.

1. chowhound for a large city -- where it has good coverage
2. tripadvisor for comprehensiveness
...
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99. yelp because i think most people on there are idiots

1. chowhound for a large city -- where it has good coverage
2. tripadvisor for comprehensiveness
...
...
99. yelp because i think most people on there are idiots

i think those on chowhound and tripadvisor and yelp are idiots, to give them the benefit of the doubt. some i think are paid. all in all, it is just random noise. they will complaine and poorly rate a restaurant for nonsense reasons.i like zagat as it is at least somewhat organized.

in europe, i find the fodors, stevens and the like a good first start.

in usa, most larger cities have their own foodie .BB. in the dc area,
don rockwell and tyler cowen are in a different league from chowhound and yelp.

for fine dining in europe, michelin is good.

If it is high end gastronomy then Michelin guide or Zagat is pretty reliableagreed, for 'down n dirty/cheap' ethnic or off the beaten path, I find Zagat worthless.
99. yelp because i think most people on there are idiotsgenerally agree, but yelp is very easy to use/search (especially while on the go/mobile). If I find myself using yelp, I look at the restaurant and read a few reviews. If the reviews quote specific dishes & WHY these dishes are good, I'm more inclined to go but I'll discount meaningless "this place is the best" type posts with no 'backup'. in usa, most larger cities have their own foodie .BB.exactly, these city focused BB's are where I start.

For Chicago: www.lthforum.com

If a city focused BB doesn't do it for me, I'll also look at foodie shows on TV listings such as No Reservations or Diners DriveIns & Dives if the show make a dish(s) look promising.
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It is very simple: Just look for the establishment with a lineup of local or in case of ethnic, lineup of people from that origin and get in line.

Never went wrong in 40+ yrs of using this golden rule worldwide.

It is very simple: Just look for the establishment with a lineup.........I give you credit for being able to determine local from non-local, I can't all the time.

As far as ethnic, your point is understood and I somewhat agree but after 3 times at a local ethnic joint that is PACKED, I can't get the establishment to serve me anything but westernized Asian food, so as a result I no longer go, so YMMV on this tactic.

I give you credit for being able to determine local from non-local, I can't all the time.

It is 40+ yrs of experience travelling and living world wide.

As far as ethnic, your point is understood and I somewhat agree but after 3 times at a local ethnic joint that is PACKED, I can't get the establishment to serve me anything but westernized Asian food, so as a result I no longer go, so YMMV on this tactic.

Usually a few chosen vocabulary: greetings, thank you and some on the other end of the manner scale, ie: what is this crap? I am not a dumb foreigner and remarks about one's ancestors would help. Let me know what part of Asia it is via PM and I can send you a few well chosen phrases in Phonetics.

I start with Google or Yelp "best restaurant" in wherever and then cross reference on Chowhound for larger areas and maybe ask a question in the forums on TA or Chow, but I would never trust the ratings on TA.

Zagat seems about three years behind for most of the cities I go to.

Thanks for the feedback, I usually hope to find somewhat hidden gems... high end dining I use Zagats.

It sounds like a bunch of you do the same things I do, cross referencing and such. I just became frustrated that it was taking me like 30+ minutes to find a restaraunt.

yelp can be useful once you filter out the non-locals or the people who don't know what they're talking about. once you read some reviews where people compare the place to something more familiar, then it's easier to rely on that review.

Depends in which part of the world you are looking.
In Germany i.e. I like http://www.qype.com

For Chicago: www.lthforum.com

Sweet Willie & I are both LTHForum.com fans. I'd also add that despite the fact it's a Chicago-focused board, many of its members are pretty well-traveled and some have actual relocated from Chicago but continue to post, sharing information about their new home towns. When visiting Tokyo and Hong Kong a couple years ago, I planned many of my meals based on reports I read on LTHForum.

I've used TripAdvisor for *some* cities, but I place more stock in its reviews for lesser-traveled cities. For example, last year I went to Dublin & never used TripAdvisor (but did use LTHForum). I also went to Morocco & found that TripAdvisor reviews were pretty accurate and local suggestions generally aligned with the consensus recommendations on TA.

I've also found a lot of value in the NY Times travel section's city guides. They review a *lot* of restaurants outside NYC, and one or two of my favorite meals in Tokyo came from a restaurant I discovered through the NY Times.

I like and generally trust Zagat. I have a selection of their hard copy books which are useful starting points (and I will read more online at Zagat, or on other sites)...

Since Zagat started charging for access to their website, I rely more and more on Gayot (http://www.gayot.com/).

I like Chowhound for modest eats and authentic flavors. Alternatively, if I have the time, I'll surf food blogs. After a while you get the hang of sniffing out promising places, and filtering based on how many tourists are lined up with guidebooks. Case in point: a highly touted falafel place in the Marais section of Paris, which I found overpriced and unexceptional compared to other places.

I use my Yelp Android app - click on nearby / restaurants / options: open now, within 5 miles. That's how I usually discover where I'm going to eat for the evening.

In Dallas Thursday (04/05/12) and Friday (04/06/12) - Lunch at Meddlesome Moth, one night at Nonna's and the next night at Oak - its the way I find restaurants when on the road probably 90% of the time.

Another vote for LTHforum's "Beyond Chicagoland" section. That's generally my first stop as I know the tastes of many of the regulars after being a member for 8 years - sort of like how I can sort through opinions on the FT hotel forums.

For mid-size and smaller cities, I'll use Yelp although I focus on total number reviews and the number of 2* through 4* reviews. Usually I try to stick to one of the two most reviewed locations and pick the one with the lower percentage of 2* reviews. My success rate with Yelp is about 40% good choice , 40% "no worse than asking the hotel staff," and 20% "I should have gone to a chain."

If I'm dining alone, I'll also look up what DDD has done in that city - they're by no means perfect, but they're usually good enough.

I love Urbanspoon or Yelp... good resources!

It is very simple: Just look for the establishment with a lineup of local or in case of ethnic, lineup of people from that origin and get in line.
.
as a domestic counterpoint, i see americans fill up bad restaurants all the time :)

andyhayler.com is good for haute cuisine

Like many of you on F.T., I've traveled extensively for a very long time.
I've been to some cities so many times I could move there tomorrow and feel right at home.

If I've been to a city so often that I know most of the restaurants, then I just dine where I know I like from years upon years of experience.
If I want someplace new, I ask business colleagues that live there. They never steer me wrong. I do the same for new cities or towns that I've not been to before. I ask colleagues and associates where they dine. Some hotel concierge have directed me well. Yes, I know these directions can be fabricated, but it's a good benchmark in many cases.

I'm not a huge fan of online reviews, as was previously stated, they can be biased.

I check yelp and tripadvisor.

I love Tripadvisor. I have never gone wrong with it for anything, restaurants included. I also try to review every single place I go to, on tripadvisor so that I can give back in a way and help others.

Foursquare is really pretty good for this. I always try to leave a tip for the next person as well.

If I want someplace new, I ask business colleagues that live there. They never steer me wrong.quite a statement, personally I'd take very few dining recommendations from the clients & business colleagues I know as most are steakhouse or Italian oriented which is quite boring to me.

It is very simple: Just look for the establishment with a lineup of local or in case of ethnic, lineup of people from that origin and get in line.

Never went wrong in 40+ yrs of using this golden rule worldwide.

Gah! I took your advice when visiting Seattle. I found a bunch of people who were clearly Seattlites at this place called McDonald's, and I didn't think the food was all that great! :(

(okay, okay, so I keed on that example, but I am honestly skeptical of your advice, no offense. I've traveled quite a bit, and I've seen locals eat at really crappy places and locals eating at really good places. Had I followed your advice I'd have eaten a LOT of really bad food.)

On any site of customer reviews, you have to read very critically. If you do, it becomes second nature to spot reviews written by stupid and/or paid 'critics' and you learn to dismiss them quickly.

However, this also means you often have to discount the overall (aggregate) ratings and dig a bit deeper. A plus is that with the extra effort you can recognize reviews which emphasize those aspects of a hotel or dining or touring experience which are most important to you. It does take time, so it helps if you enjoy it.

+1 tripadvisor. asking the locals works well too.

It is very simple: Just look for the establishment with a lineup of local or in case of ethnic, lineup of people from that origin and get in line.

Never went wrong in 40+ yrs of using this golden rule worldwide.

I agree, p,us I always ask local people for advice.

Neither of those methods works too well for me because 1) I hate waiting in line and 2) I certainly don't trust the testimony of random passers-by. I will agree that 1) works well though, especially if the queue is short!

I like the following: 1) Chowhound 2) Roadfood 3) Tripadvisor 4) Yelp. I usually use Roadfood for lunches or simple dinners.

For a regular meal, look for a busy place with police care parked out front.

Hopefully it's not getting robbed. But anyway, cops gravitate where the good food is.

The "look for where the locals are eating" tip is useful when you get to your destination, but not beforehand when you're planning your trip.

Chowhound or Yelp (or the local Yelp ripoff when abroad). Chowhound for pre-trip planning, Yelp app to show me what's nearby. Just read with a discerning eye or let reviewers' pictures speak for themselves.

Also, food blogs. ^
Preferably by expats who aren't as enthralled as the locals by Chili's and Johnny Rockets. :rolleyes:

The "look for where the locals are eating" tip is useful when you get to your destination, but not beforehand when you're planning your trip.

And even so, it requires that the locals have reasonably good taste in dining. I know of many places where that's not true. Same goes for cops and truck drivers--not necessarily legendary for their gastronomic discrimination.

I'll check Chowhound, yelp or zagats app. Then sometimes I'll just do a general google search.

I've used UrbanSpoon with some success. Had some good meals in the UK thanks to their app.

More recently, and this is a bit of a different tack, but I've found some good places using Foursquare. Not high-end dining of course, but it's been very helpful finding lunch spots.

If you "mine" the review sites such as Urbanspoon and roadfood and are looking for cheap, good and frill less you can search for cash only or a place with limited hours. If they have been around for a few years you have found a gem. Any place that doesn't take credit cards, and is only open a few hours a day is more concerned with their food than anything else.

You'll probably get the owner serving you so don't expect to be pampered by anything other than the food, as he/she is too busy running the business to pamper you with service.

Problem with reviews on restaurants is some of the reviews focus only on the service while some only on the food. I'll put up with a lot more on the service end if the food is good. Bad food with great service doesn't really impress me when I am trying to just get a meal on the road. However if you are trying to impress a client on a lunch you might be looking for the over the top service, or a server with other attributes than bringing you a good lunch.

Asking locals/front desk people is a risky proposition, as sometimes they tell you where they think you want to go, and point you to some over hyped place they have never been because they have heard all the hype.

Personally I like the non-chain, locally owned single restaurant where everybody goes automatically because there is no gimmick to get them to go other than the good food. They are out there, but the problem is they don't advertise much, as they don't need to, and people don't send you there because everybody knows about it, and since you are from out of town, you want something special.

If in a city of any size I use Zagat. No use for Yelp at all

+1 tripadvisor. asking the locals works well too.

Ditto that.

It's always good to ask (at least in some countries) where the hotel staff like to eat. One of the best tips I received in Vancouver in terms of a sushi restaurant was from the reception ladies.

I was addicted to TripAdv until I read the options on this site.
Thanks due for some useful pointers.

The best thing about tripadvisor (and yelp) IMO is being able to use them in a new city on a smartphone with a distance screen, so it's not just "what's a good restaurant" but "what's a good restaurant in walking distance" (and could give me a map there as well, thank you very much).

Being able to do that makes up for a lot of having to sort thru semi-useless reviews.

+1 on TripAdvisor.

I've found some interesting places using recommendations on FourSquare as well or asking hotel staff and friends/family.

:)

I usually ask someone, I like to live dangerously, otherwise I use Yelp.

I go for McDonald while traveling as they exist almost everywhere with same quality and taste.

I tend to rely on the hotel concierges for recommendations.

Trip Advisor and Yelp, but you have to have a great filter.

If I have been to a city where Anthony Bourdain has been, I will usually go to the places he went to. Otherwise, I look in the local paper or do Google searches for "Best Of..."

I'm a member at Ratebeer.com, so I use the forums over there a lot. Most of the people there are like-minded and know where to find good food and beer.

I like Yelp for domestic travel. The filters on the smartphone app are fast and easy (narrow your search by price range, distance from where you are, user rating) and you can link through to Open Table to make a reservation.

Like anything else, you should take the reviews with a grain of salt...I favor well-written reviews from long-time members versus one-star rants from an angry customer who had one bad experience.

I find Zagat mostly uninformative and UrbanSpoon annoying. Have not tried TripAdvisor for restaurants, but I will be traveling internationally next month and will give it a shot.

I go for McDonald while traveling as they exist almost everywhere with same quality and taste.

What's the point of traveling then?

I will get off my high horse and admit, usually without fail during an international trip, a situation will arise where I end up at McDonalds once. But I do have a rule- get something not the menu that I can't get at home!^

I feel your pain, OP. Sometimes it feels like the only option for finding "excellent dining options" with any consistency is "putting in hours of research."

I'm always looking for good eats in my city. I have lived here a decade, been a concierge at a major hotel and I follow the local food scene through friends, blogs, rating sites, deal sites and local newspapers (with the occasional look at various smartphone apps). I've been steered wrong by every last one of them a number of times, and I have given advice that turned into sour experiences for them more often than I'd like to admit.

The one piece of advice I've always undertaken while traveling is to eat light and local. I'll run out of time to try all the places I wanted to anyway, but I will do so feeling less bloated and more fulfilled than I would have without keeping portions minimal. My second mainstay of travel eating is to vary my sources so that a difference of palate doesn't ruin more than it has to. Other than that, you have to just read, eat, document and repeat. ^

Personally, I use Urbanspoon and I like their mobile app. I also write the occasional user review there.

Since certain sites are better than others depending on where I'm traveling, I tend to cross-reference all of these: Michelin for high end, Zagat’s, Chowhound, egullet, and yelp. I am a huge fan of tripadvisor for the hotel reviews and forums but find their restaurant recommendations to be routinely horrible.

Google is also my friend. I also always try to find food blogs local to where I’m traveling since those will have recent new openings. So after referencing all these sites, if I see a certain restaurant name appearing frequently, I will google it to find random food/travel blogs that have written about it.

Time consuming, yes, but DH and I are really into food and through this diligence we tend to love all our dining on our trips whether it be Arpege in Paris or street meat in Hong Kong or Cuzco.

I like to do some research before asking for recs so I usually start with chowhound/egullet to compile my list and then I scour the web for local food blogs. I also subscribe to national sites like Eater that pull from multiple sources.

During my recent trip to China and Hong Kong I used OpenRice.com.

I search a lot of them. I find "gayot" very good and reliable - I then cross check with the hotel concierge.

Yelp first, then I doublecheck with Urbanspoon and Zagat.

trip advisor internationally... veja o melhor da cidade for Brazil... Guia Oleo for Argentina