I know from a typical German POV, most people wouldn’t think it’s right for takeout food to cost as much as food at a table with table service.
What’s funny, is the last time I ordered pasta takeout from a restaurant inside Eataly Toronto, from an app on my phone, I realized some dishes were cheaper for the people dining inside Eataly, or ordering takeout at the host stand. The prices on the app were higher. Maybe because most people don’t comparison shop? The food was coming from the same kitchen. I ordered from the app to avoid people LOL. Maybe there’s a premium on that.
So- now, I don’t use the app. Mostly buy the pizza by the slice.
On our first visit to Rome, we ate breakfast every day, standing up at a bar, spinach and cheese paninis and espresso, next to a few guys enjoying there first red wine of the day.
Tourist traps…think airport, movie theaters, and sporting events where the consumer is exploited with premium priced products and it is not due to the quality.
Many MANY years ago I met someone there, “an artist”, who took me for a great meal; lan·gous·tine? I didn’t even know what that was! No strings attached! Crazy, in retrospect. I would love to say thanks to whoever that was.
2 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
28
I play on a particular Tripadvisor forum and was prompted by discussion there to start this thread. There are restaurants whch I certainly regard as mediocre tourist traps but which are often hailed by others as being the “best” in the resort.
Well before the xiao long bao craze took hold, a couple of locals took us to the original Din Tai Fung in Xinyi Road after showing us a nearby night market. Little did they know the unassuming upstairs would become a shrine and “DTF” would come to have its present meaning. It might have been locally renown back then, but if it’s a tourist trap today, it’s because the come-lately tourist crowds made it so – not because the owners operate it as one.
Which restaurants have you visited that you consider tourist traps?
I dined at Zur Letzen Instanz in Berlin, which I liked, but would consider a tourist trap. Bus loads of tourists dining nearby.
Hofbrauhaus and Ratskeller in Munich are tourist traps. I like the Ratskeller so I still grab a meal there and enjoy the atmosphere.
I also went to some tourist central restaurants in Greece and Turkey. The food was usually pretty good when I was on a private tour.
The tourist trap restaurants in Rhodes, Mykonos and Santorini could be pretty bad. I haven’t been to Greece in years, but I basically won’t dine at places that offer burgers and lasagna alongside Greek dishes. The menu translated into 9 European languages is usually a giveaway.
In the States, the tourist trap I like is Scoma’s in San Francisco. (Lazy cioppino or Crab Louie)
In Manhattan, I was dragged to Serendipity for whipped hot chocolate, on a friend’s stagette weekend, and that is an absolute tourist trap. I suppose Junior’s is. I get the mini cheesecake to go, from the takeout side. Virgil’s BBQ is a tourist trap, but sometimes a girl has got to eat near Times Square.
I hired a driver for 6 days in Ireland, and he chose the restaurants. For sure,he was getting perks, or they were owned by his friends, and some were traps due to location, but all the restaurants he chose for us had good food, and the batting average was better when he chose the restaurants at lunch, than in the evening, when I chose the restaurants from what I read online.
Excellent and precise point, i.e., tourist filled places with few options for food or drink.
1 Like
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
35
This is something I’ve noticed, I call it “Vacation Inflation”. It seems the majority of restaurants in touristy areas I visit (caveat, these tend to be limited to US locations) have 4.5-star and above google ratings, with only the chain fast food restaurants showing the normal distribution of 3-4 star reviews.
I’ve been, well, not really disappointed, but somewhat amused at how often we’ve eaten at places with an average 4.8 stars or greater, and 4,000 reviews, and while everyone got a decent meal, maybe 3.8 or 4.2 if I averaged it over the 8 of us eating, it certainly wasn’t near 5 star overall for us.
I think people tend to be happy on vacation, happy to be eating out a lot more than usual rather than cooking, and tend to let that “glow” affect their rating positively.
3 Likes
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
36
Haha. Reading your first sentence I immediately wanted to jump to defend Ratskeller (I def. agree on Hofbrauhaus in Munich proper, but they do a good job when they’re the vendor at the English Garden), but then read your second sentence and thought, “Okay”. I like Ratskeller inside in winter and outside in Spring.
I like the food at the Ratskeller, too. It’s more of a tourist trap because of the space, the size, the history. Most food at most Ratskellers in Germany has been good, in my experience. I had a nice experience at the Ratskeller in Leipzig, too.
Scoma’s in SF is expensive, but I didn’t feel that it was a tourist trap. I’m guessing that most of the places actually on Pier 39 would fit that bill.
I was a little surprised to hear our walking tour guide pretty blatantly tell people to not eat in St Mark’s Square during our lunch break.* She commented about foreign ownership and ridiculous prices…as we wandered, we saw than an espresso is €7,50 at a table, but only €1,50 if you stand at the bar (the going rate across most of the city.
We dropped all pretense on my last night in Venice and braced ourselves for he worst when we decided to have dinner with a view of the Ponte Rialto. We were pleasantly surprised by solidly good (if not overwhelming) food for only a small premium (which is more than fair given the location).
*I’m not usually a fan of the “follow the umbrella” tours but this was a good one…a 2-hour walking tour of some of the lesser-known sites, a 30-min gondola ridew on thr Grand Canal, a lunch break, then a tour of St Mark’s and the Doge’s Palace.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
40
You’ll find that the cafes in St Marks Square have two prices. Firstly, there’s the very expensive one when there’s no live music. And the downright highway robbery when there is music. They are upfront about this, clearly posting both prices on the menu.
Crazy, in retrospect. I would love to say thanks to whoever that was.
