If you are like me, you probably start researching the food scene of cities you are visiting before you even book a hotel. I have had one two many bad experiences, foofy or just plain bad food when deciding where to eat with the classic "walk around, see what catches your eye" wisdom. For me, each meal should be an attraction as much as any museum, park, etc that you visit, and thus deserves pre-planning. Always.This raises a dilemma, though. I will use NYC as an example since I am en route to there as I type this on my phone. With larger cities such as New York, how do you filter through all the noise to pick your restaurant(s)?I typically start with the ol' top (xx) restaurants lists, continue to trusty yelp (except on ethnic food... It is very easy to pick an Americanized joint unless you have the time to read each post in depth to evaluate the reviewer's credibility... But that's subject for another post and I'm sure none of it would be new to you foodies anyways), and top it off with a few reads of restaurant blogs. My problem--if we will call it that--stems for being a perfectionist. I have been known to go 40 pages back in Yelp listings with a bazillion tabs open, then make several passes removing the flawed restaurants until 10 or so left.I guess what makes it harder for me is that my family and I aren't the biggest fans of the Masters in culinary arts-chefs small plates restaurants that top Yelp and related sites. There's a time and a place for those, but when I am traveling I go for the good food-large portions fare, which is a surprisingly small niche because most restaurant either suck or take the fineness of the food to such an extreme that you might as well eat your meal in one bite or two.I'm sorry for rambling and any phone typos, but my question is: "How do you research restaurants before visiting other cities?"
I just accumulate a list around the country as I watch local and national blogs and food forums and tweets and etc..., keep in on Urbanspoon, them use it to plan accordingly. This works very well for small and informal places but not always so good for a trip to NYC where you sometimes need 60 day out reservations for a splurge or risk having to try for a last minute opening or having a plan B.