Planning your next trip: local restaurant search and review sites

When doing restaurant research in foreign countries, especially in smaller cities, local’s opinion on the restaurants is sometimes more important than those few outdated English written review. Tripadvisor and Yelp is usually not too helpful, especially tourist and local’s expectation for restaurants can be very different.

Here are a few of the local food review sites that I have used in the past, of course you need to do some google translate. If you have any tips, please post below, I will renew this list often. Thanks.

Asia

Hong Kong

South Korean

Vietnam

Europe

Finland

France

Chinese / Asian restaurants in Paris

UK

Manchester

5 Likes

Good idea, naf. Reliance on Tripadvisor can produce some less than stellar meals

My local site for Greater Manchester (northwest England) -
Manchester Confidential - https://confidentials.com/manchester/manchester-restaurants-bars-pubs-cafes-food-drink

And, more generally for the UK - the usually reliable online version of the Good Food Guide -
https://www.thegoodfoodguide.co.uk/

1 Like

Places like Openrice, while useful, can have similar limitations of sites like Yelp and Tripadvisor- that everyone has substantially different measurement criteria, though its useful to still read through the reviews.

Do blogs count?

I’d like to know good resources for Mexico if anyone is aware of them.

1 Like

Why not, if they are resourceful, it will be great to build a library that is useful for everybody. Even Facebook.

Then I’d suggest Diary of a Growing Boy for Hong Kong high end. Though I am sure most familiar to HK are already aware of it if not reading it.

Just added www.mangoplate.com for South Korean.

Thanks, Naf! Great information. Wish I was going somewhere :sob:

1 Like

If you know any regional sites in US (besides the very well known ones), it’s fine too, I can list them here.

1 Like

Sometimes Gault et Millau can have interesting reviews, restaurant with a note 12/20 or more normally can be quite good.

Chinese / Asian restaurants in Paris www.newsavour.com/restaurants