In some places Olive Garden may be as good as it gets. ;)

To a point, but you need the phrase the question carefully. Asking the 21 year old working at the Hampton Inn in Vestal NY, he's going to reply that there is a new Olive Garden or Wild Wings. Ask him where he went after graduation with his parents or his prom and you might get an entirely different and better response.

The problem with asking them is that they usually are minimum wage employees and they can't afford to eat out, so they really can't help.

At times I ask them this: if it is a very special occasion and you are taking your mother out for her birthday, where would you go. Sometimes it works other times it doesn't. They'd say my wife would cook or whatever.

I rarely want a special occasion place when traveling, but I agree that lower level staff in the US is unlikely to be able to afford to eat out much. That's not necessarily true outside the US, depending on the country.

One of the best meals I've ever had while traveling was a staff potluck in Thailand. Our resort was empty (there were only two rooms occupied out of about 20) and the staff invited the guests in both rooms to come to the staff potluck and party just down the beach. The home cooked food was the some of the best Thai I've ever had.

Back to the OP: can you give us an example of a place where you've had a hard time finding a good place to eat because of "foodies?" I'm having trouble understanding your issue.

I'd prefer to have the opinion of multiple people, just with the useless reviews removed. And this doesn't help much if I don't speak the same language as the taxi driver :)

Maybe what we really need is a Yelp for the reviewers themselves.

Bumping to see if there are any other suggestions.

I tend to avoid looking at online reviews and go where the locals go, ask on places like couchsurfing or just ask people you come across in day to day conversation/life. I try to wait until at least two people recommend the same place and I've never really been lead astray.

I have to say that I find it easier to find good places to go when on vacation than it was, say, 10 years ago. There has been a huge resurgence in interest in food and a move away from bland pap - with the exception of middle America where I find it next to impossible to find anything good.

My technique is simple. Buy local restaurant guides and avoid those aimed at tourists. Look at local websites and avoid American import ones. Go to residential areas and avoid business districts. Look in the window and see how busy the place is. Look at the menu (and this is difficult in particularly far-flung places, but most should be able to at least get some idea in French, Italian, Spanish and German as a minimum) - be very suspicious if there's an English translation. Very quickly it starts to make sense - and don't get too despondent if there's an occasional miss.

Review clutter from foodies makes it hard to pick a decent restaurant? I don't have that problem.

My method for picking a restaurant:

1. I start with crowd review sites. My current favorite is Yelp. As with any crowd review site, I do a quick mental filter on the reviews based on how they're written, e.g., ignore overly nitpicky complaints and unreasonable expectations, discount raves that lack specifics, and discount reviews from people with only 3 reviews to their name. (One reason I like Yelp is that their filters automatically do the latter.)

2. Get recommendations-- but be specific. E.g., "Can you suggest a restaurant nearby that serves ___ style ___ food and costs less than __." Know what kind of person to ask based on what you're looking for.

3. Size up the restaurant based on its appearance, menu, and clientele before you go in. One key thing I do when visiting an ethnic restaurant is look at the ethnicity of the people eating there. Particularly if there is a local ethnic population. For example, where I live the population is 40% Hispanic. There are lots of Mexican and South American restaurants. Predictably, most of them are popular with Hispanic customers. But there's one Mexican restaurant near me that only ever has White people eating there when I look in the window. I tried it one time and guess what... it served inauthentic Mexican food with bland, Midwestern taste.

Ha ha; this reminds me of that remark of Yogi Berra's: no one goes there anymore because it's always so crowded.

But seriously, folks (try the veal), going online to scout out dining options before I or we go on a trip is a big part of the fun of trip planning for me. I don't even take a day trip downtown (Chicago) by train without researching where I'm going to eat after I've seen the thing I went to see.

On those occasions when I don't have a plan for where to eat in a place we've wound up, I will use Yelp on my smartphone to find us a good spot. A summer or so ago we discovered a lovely neighborhood steak place in a small town in upstate New York using the phone, complete with address, directions, and hours, and menu.

normally i ask around and try to go with a 2+ recommendation .. never has lead me astray :)

i find that much of the best food ends up being street food or at hole's in the wall that almost anyone could afford...

Everyone on the planet is a 'foodie', so the whole question is a bit off.

Finding a nice restaurant isn't that hard. Given that you're looking for something comparable to a very expensive restaurant in Paris, you could just look at the most expensive restaurants in the particular city you're in and cross-reference that with the review sites.

That a restaurant in Paris is 3*, generally means (IF you agree with Michelin's reviewer) that it is "exceptional" = expensive also (unfortunately). Sometimes a 2* or even 1* can be a restaurant with a 3* chef "waiting in the wings". In the US (and most other places, besides France) food does not play a major role. So expensive may NOT be the sole criterion.
Reviews and complaints (thanks to the internet) are much more current than in the past, but could still lag behind reality.
Using NYC, say, as an example, in the "touristy" areas many restaurants aren't too concerned with repeat diners...so if one wants good (and reasonably priced food), local and ethnic neighborhoods might be a good starting point.

Nope.
Yes, it is, especially when travelling.
Decent food & decent service != expensive. And you're totally missing the point on online reviews. I'm saying that they're polluted with people that are comparing every restaurant to basically their best dining experience ever.

I think 2 things are certain. Everyone thinks they have a good singing voice (even though most people have horrible voices) and everyone thinks they have great taste and recommendations when it comes to food.

Not sure how you can say its difficult to find a good restaurant when you are traveling. There are so many options and reviews that its rather simple to pick a good restaurant in any city you are traveling to.

Also confused by the other comments where people think you have to go to "local" and "ethnic" neighborhoods to get good food.