Restaurant Hopping
At home, we eat out usually once a week and occasionally do take-out. We have our favorite places, some chains, some independent.
All that changes when we travel, which happened twice last month.
We usually ask at the front desk of our hotel for suggestions. They are always eager to share their favorite places to eat. Often they have a list of places that are highly recommended. These last are often upscale, whereas we just want a casual meal.
So we turn to Yelp. Actually, my husband turns to Yelp, then runs the ones that look interesting to him by me. It has worked quite well for the most part.
We look for smaller places and we've come across some good ones . In Reno, after going in circles trying to find a place listed as a diner, we eventually found it inside a casino. That wasn't appealing to us, so we did the search again and the nearest place was called Archie's. It was right on the edge of the university and the second floor was stuffed with young people having a wild and noisy time. But we, and one other couple, had a great meal on the nearly deserted first floor.
On our next trip we ate at Two Fellas. An odd name--there were no fellas anywhere in sight, not counting my husband. It was off the beaten track and had very few patrons, but good food.
My hands down favorite was Grumpy's. I'm not sure I would even have slowed down and checked out the menu if I had been searching, but my husband did. Why would anyone think that Grumpy's was am appealing name for a restaurant? I suppose it is attention-getting and I hasten to point out that the staff was extremely un-grumpy. We had a delicious meal.
We have a a disappointing meal at one of these small, independent places, but it's rare. I wonder if it's because they're trying harder to keep up with the big guys. You know, like Avis.
I used to make a note of a good place so we could find it again if we're ever back in the area. Eventually I stopped bothering since we rarely return to the same area, and if we do, the place has closed. Naturally.