What to Consider When You’re Going to Dinner in a New City

Listen to Chrystina discuss how to thrift shop for items to make beautiful table settings in Episode 42 of the Party Ideas & Logistics with Chrystina Noel podcast, above.

If we don’t know each other in real life, you might not know yet that I’ve hit the road again. Out of the past seven years at my job, four of them have had me on the road Monday to Thursday. After two years working from Philadelphia, I’ve packed my bags again and have headed back to the Bayou.

In this transition, I’ve gotten the chance to say hello to a lot of familiar faces, and gotten to know some great new folks along the way. One of the new folks that I’ve met is named Tom. He’s been on the road traveling for work for years. So if anybody has this travel thing under his belt, it’s him. He also really loves going to new restaurants. (Clearly, he and I were going to get along.)

On my way out the door this week, which took about 30 minutes, because once you get one of us talking, we can’t stop, he started telling me about the last time he was traveling to Louisiana for work. And this specific story was sparked from the fact that there is no best restaurant in a large city.

His story started –

Tom stayed at the same hotel each week and made excellent friends with the bartenders. When a wandering hotel guest would stop by the bar to ask where they should go to dinner, if these bartenders were too busy making drinks to answer the question, they would point down to Tom, at the end of the bar and say, “go ask him, he knows the restaurants better than anyone.”

He continued. “I would ask them a series of questions to find out where I should direct them.” And he started listing off a series of questions. Before he could even finish his list I said, “WAIT. I need to write these down.”

You see. When you travel this much for work, and need to eat out three times a day, you need a methodology to choose your dinner location. That’s because you learn very quickly, there is no best place, there’s only a most compatible place. (I also feel this way about dating. But that’s a story for another day.)

And while you might think, Chrystina, this is great and all, but I don’t have a job where I travel all the time and need to choose a dinner location every night, I realized that I use a very similar line of questioning to Tom’s (although I hadn’t formalized it just yet) to answer this question when tourists come to town and ask, “where should I eat?” Because there is no right answer. There’s only what you’re craving in that moment.

So whether you yourself are a tourist or you are guiding others in their own tours, below is the series of questions Tom chooses from to folks who ask him where they should go to dinner in a new city (with commentary from yours truly).

How long are you in town?

I never even would have thought to start with this question. It’s such an excellent question. If you’re only in town one night, you want to make sure that you hit thee place that you’re supposed to go in town. If you’re in town more than one night, it gives you a little more play. Also, if you’re in town during a specific festival or event that’s happening, that may also affect the answer.

What kind of atmosphere are you looking for?

SUCH a good question. Some nights people feel fancy, and some nights people want to sit at a dark hole in the wall. This a huge differentiator in choosing a location.

For my birthday dinner last year, I had my choice of any location in the city for dinner. Want to know what I chose? Good Dog. A hole in the wall place with the best Mac and Cheese, a great beer list, a super cozy environment, and throwback music. That will be my choice in life 95% of the time over a fancy location. Super important to know about yourself – and the person to whom you’re giving recommendations.

Are you a foodie?

This is pretty similar to the last question, but has a different implication. From my interpretation of what Tom described, you’re trying to decide if they want to try the “must try” foodie locations in town, or if they’re just looking to eat. This also helps figure out if you’re good with something like new and innovative fusion tapas location where you order food off a virtual menu and it’s brought to you by drone as opposed to an appetizer-entrée-dessert location.

What’s your price range?

This one’s pretty obvious.

That said, as someone will more local knowledge, you might be the person who is able to help someone figure out how to do one of the fancier restaurants for cheaper. (For example, if you know that all of the portions are double as large as they need to be, or the best part of the whole menu is the appetizers so that’s all you actually need to order.)

Also, shameless plug, if you’re looking for tips to keep your travel costs low, I’ve got a post for that.

What’s on your bucket list?

At first I didn’t really understand this question, but then I remembered the unavoidable, “where can I get a cheesesteak” question. (Not my favorite question for the record. There are seriously so many better things to eat. Unless you’re drunk.) If there is an item at the top of someone’s bucket list, you’re going to want to make sure you help them get it. If you’re in Maine, people probably want the best lobster. If you’re in Maryland, you’re looking for crabs. If you’re in Texas, you’re looking for steak. If you’re in Colorado, you’re looking for a burrito smothered in green chile. (Wait, not a thing? It totally should be. Get your butt on a plane and go find a burrito smothered in green chile.)

Help your new friend get what they’re looking for. And help them do it the local way.

Also. Cheesesteaks? If you must. Jim’s.

Is there a specific cuisine you’d like?

This is actually the first question I usually ask people when they’re looking for a place to eat. Which, after getting Tom’s list of questions may have been misguided. I think there are many more useful questions I could ask before I get to this one. (I’m working on mentally adjusting my methodology permanently.)

Here’s another story for you. (This is why Tom and I get along.) When Ben and I went to Europe a few years back we landed in Amsterdam. We looked at each other that first night and said, “what do you want for dinner?” The answer? Thai food. Then we went to Belgium. We asked ourselves, “what do we want for dinner?” The answer was still thai food. Same thing happened again in Paris. Admittedly, we probably chose the wrong continent on which to have our vacation, but this piece of information would have been very useful to anyone we had asked where to go to dinner in a new city.

How far are you willing to travel?

And, of course, the final logistical question. How far are you willing to travel – probably determined by how they’re going to be traveling. Are they walking? Do they have a car? Do they have time to hop in an Uber and head across town? This question will definitely help narrow down the list of places.

While it might seem that you should ask this first, moving it towards the end of the list could increase the chances of them willing to travel for better food once you start raving about how good it is. And really, that’s you doing your good deed of the day and they don’t even know it.

Are there any dietary restrictions?

And this last one. Which, in my brain you shouldn’t need to necessarily ask – I feel like people usually volunteer this information pretty quickly – but worth considering as you’re offering up options. When you’re giving recommendations to someone who’s gluten free, or vegetarian, or vegan, you want to make sure that there are going to be some good options for them, and not that they’re just going to end up with the only thing on the menu that fits the bill.

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There’s probably a few more questions you can ask – how large is your group, are there any other places that you’ve been and really enjoyed, are you looking to check out a specific part of town, etc – but the questions listed above are the ones that will get you to the more detailed ones in time (depending on how long the person has to talk).

Clearly, in order to answer these questions, you need to be an expert of your location’s food scene, but it’s definitely do-able. I can only do this for one location in life, Philadelphia. But at one point in time, I could definitely have done it for Baton Rouge as well. Who knows, maybe after this work adventure, I’ll be able to do it in New Orleans, although that might take years.

All in all, I loved this list of questions. I also loved the fact that Tom has worked to develop methodology over the years by asking people these questions.

I love a good methodology.

And it proves the point – there is no best place to eat, there’s only the most compatible place for you to eat right now.

Is this how your brain works? Will it be now? I’d love to hear about any other questions you ask people who are trying to figure out