This is true, as it can result in false positives and false negatives – sometimes simultaneously.
That said, sometimes more data (even bad data) is better than no data. I think this is one of those times.
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I ask locals for their favorite spots and foods and whys when I travel and I always take their comments with a grain of salt. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are not right for me.
While I was traveling in China I got the worst results for referrals. I am not sure why but I really had a lot of mediocre to bad food while I was in China and I wonder if the people I was talking to were referring me to places they knew were bad and didn’t care or maybe they thought it was a place foreigners liked? Or maybe it was rolled up in gaining face or, conversely, not losing face? I do not know why it happened but I hear other travelers talk about how great the food is in China and I am bummed because I struck out most of the time. Similarly mediocre to bad food experiences happened to me frequently in Indonesia and Slovakia, but not to the same extent.
I guess I just disagree that it’s strictly a big city problem. Of course tourist traps can be bad, but bad/middling/soulless food is to be found everywhere.
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I think this is a myth too. I’ve had plenty of mediocre meals in small restaurants in small towns in multiple countries. Hate to say this but the average person in any culture isn’t that particular about food.
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I agree. I don’t know why living in a particular region would make someone necessarily an expert on its food, unless they were someone who cared a lot about food (and most people don’t). I have lots of friends who are knowledgeable and discerning when it comes to food, and I also have a bunch - smart people, interesting people - who choose restaurants because a) the music is good or b) the drinks are strong or c) they often find dates there or d) the location is convenient or e) some other non-food-related reason.
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I understand your point - but like every point, there’s exceptions and conditions.
big cities, high traffic areas . . . places survive because the traffic has little choice/opportunity for “better.” more than once I’ve gotten ‘time trapped’ in a train station - German train station restos, which are required to be open x hrs all days . . . don’t expect too much.
the other bit is - you go out for lunch every day . . . someplace close with edible food is the criteria… might not make that choice for a ‘date night’
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This.
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Doppelt gemoppelt hält besser 
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Maybe. Probably.
Anecdotally, I still think there is less crappy food and more excellent food available for people in Austria, Switzerland and Munich/ Berlin, relative to what’s available in Toronto, London Ontario, Edmonton, Regina , Saskatoon, and Calgary.
I thought it was because Germans, Swiss Germans and Austrians’ trains run on time, and to stereotype, their culture put up with less crap.
The trains are always running 20 min to 3 h late in Canada.
It’s quite possible, my relatives in Europe are as finicky about their food as I am, so I haven’t been exposed to the awful stuff.
My worst meals in Europe have sadly been in France. I could start a new thread to list the worst meals I’ve eaten in Europe .
more food produced closer to markets, less industrialized food/fast food in general, solid local traditions still being maintained. Austria and Switzerland at least have very conservative (in the sense of traditional) cohesive cultures. Certainly in Bavaria this is true also. In US and Canada we buy a lot of food produced in factories and factory farms which can be 1000 or more miles away. Culturally we are all mixed up and our common food traditions may be pretty pedestrian, A lot of the finesse of our country cultures of origin has gotten ground off by the privations of immigration and settling in a new place with limited/different resources. or so it seems to me.
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I agree with what you’re saying.
The big cities are so multiculturally diverse in Germany. I know the sticks tend to be much more ethnically German, but even the small towns have a good döner shop , a good Greek Taverna, and a Chinese restaurant or 2.
A lot of immigrants and refugees, especially in recent years, have changed the population base in the metropolitan areas in Germany.
I know Switzerland has a tighter immigration program, but Switzerland of course finds diversity in the bigger cities through all the people working and visiting Geneva because of the UN, as well as all the multinational corporations in Basel and Zurich. I think the Swiss gastronomic scene outside Geneva and Zurich is very conservative and mostly traditional Swiss, with a couple pizza shops and doner shops in every town …
This can be equally true in small towns. There are just not a lot of options. I see it in the USA all the time (rural Iowa, for example). Captive audience.
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The client base has so much to do with it.
I’m amazed how a city the size of Colorado Springs, will be 95 percent mediocre chains. Some people will know where to look for the good stuff. The good stuff might be in a strip plaza or in the old downtown where the suburbanites rarely go. Sometimes it’ll be a Persian restaurant at the back of a gas station’s convenience store, or at an Indian restaurant attached to a motel.
Some small towns will have one good bakery, and the other food options will be a Subway and a KFC. I’m always surprised in rural Canada, where the Home Baking can be so good, the towns in the 500- 10 000 population range will often have a Subway or Tim Hortons, maybe a mediocre greasy spoon, a pizza takeout, and a Chinese buffet . With the Greeks who ran the greasy spoons retiring, the rural greasy spoons in parts of Canada, are sometimes run by people from Southeast Asia or the Philippines, and they’ll offer both Asian food as well as burgers, bacon and eggs and pancakes.
On my last trip to Saskatchewan, I had lunch at a small restaurant run by a Laotian family. Maybe a dozen tables, and the menu was half greasy spoon and half Laotian dishes. The only other restaurant in town was a Subway.
I use Google Maps to seek out bakeries on road trips. Tiny Hanover Ontario- their general store has a better line-up ot baked goods and pickled-locally pickles than some other towns with 15 000 people. But, Hanover Ontario is in Grey Bruce, one of a few regions known for its butter tarts 
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I think from all of this we can conclude that the size of a town has no correlation to the number of good places to eat.
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Your post reminds me of running into fairly good Thai food one time when I was waiting for my car to be repaired at Koons Tysons Corner Chevrolet in McLean Virginia. I was talking to the service rep when a tech walked by us and into the employee area with a plate of Pad Thai. The rep saw me looking and said that their lunch counter served “good noodles”. I walked back there later and it was two Thai ladies serving mostly bacon and eggs but they also had Pad Thai on the Dry-Erase Specials board that day. I am not a huge fan of Pad Thai but I had it and it was pretty good and it was getting ordered left and right by the techs and reps.
Went back months later when my Volt did not charge right and they had Massaman Gai as the Special and it was really good. And it looked like I was the only one ordering it as everyone else was getting sandwiches that day. I guess mechanics and car guys just are not into Thai food if it is not “noodles”.
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In a town called Lucan just north of London, ON, a town with a very Irish past (the Black Donnelly massacre happened nearby) , a Laotian-run diner that took over a restaurant that had been run by a Greek family named their restaurant Thai Pad. Pad Thai goes over well othe mangiacake crowd. Mangiacake being the term coined by Italian Canadians for WASPs and other non-Italian Canadians who choose to eat Wonderbread-type bread.
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Jeezus, in the 80’s I knew folks who completely caved in with cocaine. Working in a jail, I see what heroin and meth do. Still, nothing compares to alcohol in terms of sheer numbers afflicted.
Psilocybin and THC are much safer, IMO, but I’ve seen THC cause generations of kids to drop out of school. Not as harmless as advertised. Since tobacco has tumbled, alcohol has gotta be number 1 in societal impact.
I lived through the Oxy years in my jail. Holy sht, what a huge mistake that was. Used to prescribe it like Pez. Let us learn from our mistakes.
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Anyone who’s been to Wall, SD has learned this. You’re trapped. I went to this Cactus Buyffet. What a sht show.
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Yep, and I think this aspect causes people to inflate the value. I’m driving to my small Midwestern hometown this weekend for my high school reunion. My sibs decided to make this a chance for a big family get together, and I agreed to buy the pizza.
A local pizza joint (not a chain) has 600+ reviews clocking in at an average of 4.8 stars. The people are really nice, but the pizza’s just not that good. I’d peg it around 3.5 average. And it’s more expensive than it should be for the location (extremely low rent) and for merely adequate pizza.
But it’s the only game in town, other than Casey’s Convenience Store/Gas Station reheated stuff.
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Totally agree. Yelp Des Moines is pretty useless.
ETA: Casey’s pizza is trash. Sorry.
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