How to Choose A Good Restaurant: The Editors Share Their Experience
No matter how much we love cozy evenings with homemade treats, sometimes you still want to dress up and go to some restaurant according to your mood and zeal of the soul. Or on the way home from work, run to a new place for dinner, meet friends for a glass of wine. And if you are a traveler and get acquainted with the cuisine of a new country, you can only imagine how many interesting establishments await you.
What you should pay attention to when choosing a restaurant, what non-obvious things say a lot, what places it is better not to go at all, and where it is possible to try the best dishes in your life – we tell in the article.
Location, style, atmosphere
These components may vary by country. But restaurateurs who have been developing a family business for more than a year, preserving all the traditions, or have just realized a long-awaited project, most often treat their business with great care and concern. It all starts with the general concept and style of the institution.
Signage and facade design form the first impression, they can be repulsive, overly intrusive or endearing to passers-by. It’s not very pleasant to go to a restaurant if there are already flaws in the exterior: a broken sign, faulty lighting, out-of-season decor, a poorly organized veranda.
And how great it is when the institution has tables outside in warm weather. On a summer evening, get together in a noisy company, order snacks, lemonade, sparkling wine and talk heart to heart for a long, long time, tell stories, joke to the sounds of the city, immersed in greenery and sweet aromas. Or retire together somewhere at a table on the roof and enjoy the company, food and atmosphere.
This story also has a downside. The higher the floor where the restaurant is located, the closer the sea, river or cozy park, the higher prices can be. When it comes to business, almost everything is governed by market conditions. A good location is equal to the high cost of renting premises. And hence the size of the institution follows.
Huge restaurants and cafes with a large number of halls and tables require the same large number of staff and chefs. After all, if the kitchen is small, how long will you have to wait for your order and how to be sure that the dish is cooked a minute before, and not assembled from yesterday’s preparations?
Gastronomic masterpieces of famous chefs are often born in the small kitchens of cozy restaurants. They may not be located on the main streets, but somewhere in residential areas, only locals can know about them, and even a sign will not impress anyone.
But in a small hall with subdued lights, pleasant music or cheerful laughter of visitors will sound, and on tidy tables covered with tablecloths, you will see fresh flower buds. Represented?
Of course, the style of the room can be completely different, but it should not stand out from the general concept. Pay attention to the interior and details, they can often tell a lot.
Audience and comfort
A well-known rule says: if one restaurant is empty and quiet, and in an institution next door all the tables are occupied, it is better not to go to the first one. It helps a lot when traveling when there is no idea where to go to eat. Just watch the visitors: where are there more of them, are there companies of local residents, do they stay longer or is there an endless stream.
There are always exceptions to any rule. Once in Rome, I was standing in line at a popular restaurant. It stood for a long time, the queue moved slowly, and the waiter on the street very quickly poured sparkling wine into glasses for everyone waiting. The mood was getting better, and we went to the restaurant already cheerful and satisfied. Inside there was nowhere for an apple to fall, the visitors buzzed like a swarm of bees.
On this, perhaps, everything. Neither the food nor the house wine was definitely worth the wait. Drinking sparkling wine around the corner of the establishment, the guests received much more pleasant emotions than inside in a stuffy hall at +35°C.
But this is just an exception, often in good cafes and restaurants there are few tables, many visitors and the atmosphere, as if you came somewhere for a common holiday: it can be crowded, but soulful and delicious.
Menu and content
Surely you have come across real menu-books with a large number of dishes more than once. At the sight of such a volume, the first thought is: “Now I’ll choose how to choose! That’s diversity!” And then it turns out that some of the positions are not available, the rest have to wait a long time due to the workload of the kitchen.
Look carefully at the menu, evaluate its quality. Sometimes books with a list of dishes turn out to be so untidy that you no longer want to pick them up. And, on the contrary, a creative laconic presentation causes genuine delight.
A chef who develops a high-quality interesting menu will definitely focus on the style and theme of the establishment, and will include more seasonal products.
So, in an Italian trattoria, you will be offered delicious pizza and pasta according to traditional recipes for this region, several typical desserts and drinks. It is unlikely that you will be able to order rolls, New York cheesecake or a couple of shots there. When you start Happiness in the mountains! How to pack for a winter hike
Winter hiking is wonderful in its own way, but requires much more careful preparation in order to avoid health risks. All jokes about a few bottles of something stronger, designed to replace warm clothes, are good until you yourself find yourself far from civilization among snowdrifts and harsh winds.
Hiking in the mountains in both summer and winter is a serious event that must be properly prepared for. The hike can be skiing or hiking, one-day or designed for several days. These circumstances depend on what you need to take with you. To begin with, we decided to choose something simpler for ourselves – a two-day hiking trip with one overnight stay.
Clothes
You can’t do without special thermal underwear on a winter trip, you shouldn’t take risks and limit yourself to decommissioned old city sweaters. Thermal underwear perfectly maintains the temperature regime of the body.
Particular attention should be paid to shoes. For climbing it is better to use special trekking shoes. It is important that the fingers are free to move. Gaiters will not be superfluous, which will cover the shoes and the leg up to the knee to prevent snow from getting inside. Most importantly is to grab mens winter jackets with you.
Backpack
Once upon a time, professional tourists sewed canvas backpacks on their own. Now, fortunately, there is no need for this – the range of backpacks is very wide, and often an inexperienced tourist is lost. To reduce the agony of choice to a minimum, you should decide on the volume of the backpack and, accordingly, on its purpose.
Some experts advise to start with taking someone’s backpack and try to go hiking with it. When choosing a backpack, one must be guided by the mandatory presence of a backpack back adjustment according to a person’s height and the presence of a waist belt. This will help to evenly distribute the load. The straps should be soft, elastic and not too thin.
The distance between the straps should correspond to the width of your shoulders, and most importantly, there must be an aluminum frame in the back of the backpack that keeps the shape of the back.
To avoid unnecessary adventures, set up the camp before dark, distribute duties – this will significantly increase the chances of enjoying your stay in the winter forest. For the first time, experts advise taking with you a person who has already had experience of spending the night on the street in winter.
In addition, you should not go on a difficult hike without trying your hand at a few easier ones. Travel and discover new places with comfort, then even the most “hothouse” residents of the metropolis can become connoisseurs of camping romance.
