Sunday, April 22, 2012

I’m a fan of using what’s new to reconnect with the old.  So what do I mean by this?  There are those who, when considering where to go eat, turn to bigger franchised restaurant chains.  Me, that’s not my style.  My thrill comes from discovering little hole-in-the-wall locales. 

There’s nothing more exciting than finding some forgotten or easily overlooked food establishment that still incorporates old-school philosophies from everything involving food prep to sincere quality service.  Too oft, when dining at bigger more well-known establishments, I walk away feeling as if I’ve been tricked into believing the staff actually cared about doing a quality job.  Instead, I sense they were merely doing a job, not for the love of it, but rather to help pad their bill/tip.  For this reason, whenever possible, I seek out little-known places to dine.

So how do I go about finding these gems?  Easy.  I turn to the Internet.  Doing so allows me to type in wherever I’m at, or will be, and sift through a list of restaurants, which include more modern ranking means than were in practice when many of these establishments first came to be.  Amongst other things, these include what letter grade the restaurant received along with posted customer reviews.  By skimming through the list, I identify, with fair accuracy, which places to try and which to avoid. 

Thus far, there were only a few places that didn’t measure up.  The rest enchanted me with how dedicated the owners of the restaurants were.  How each of their staff members truly cared about the quality of food and service provided to customers.

I enjoy finding these less frequented dining establishments for an additional reason.  I’m a huge fan of supporting littler mom-and-pop establishments.  Wish there were more of them and that less would fall victim to more commercialized chains that take over “their” customers.