It's always unnerving strolling into a new city and trying to figure out where to eat. Many people turn to the familiar flavors of national chains; chowhounds seek more.
"Foodies eat where they’re told. They get excited about the hot new restaurant/cookbook/ingredient. They’ll go to unfamiliar neighborhoods to eat, but only with their Zagat securely in hand to guide them to The Accepted Places. Chowhounds, by contrast, are iconoclasts who spurn trends and established opinion and sniff out secret deliciousness on their own. The places they find and frequent today will show up in newspaper reviews in two years and in Zagat in four (by which time the restaurants usually will have grown crowded, overpriced, and lousy)" Jim Leff, Chowhound.com
I first heard about Jim Leff, the founder of the Chowhound website, in a radio interview with Christopher Lydon and my perception of dining changed.
When I find myself in a new city looking for great food, I turn to the Chowhound online community where like-minded folks have taken the time to chew through the streets to find the best scraps in today's blandscape of freezer-to-frier, one-menu-fits-all, of American cuisine.
This intrepid community of gustatory thrill-seekers uses chowhound.com like famous explorers Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley used the Royal Geographical Society headquarters: you can post questions, research sites, interact with fellow discoverers, charter an exploration in hopes of the next great find, and post your findings so that others may follow in your footsteps.
So the next time you find yourself in a new place and the group you are with is leaning towards the same old familiar fare, hop onto the Chowhound website and find something really impressive.
"There’s so much great food happening right now, much more than there ever has been in the past. We’re in a flowering, a zeitgeist of deliciousness. … People can go out and just almost throw a nickel and find something great." Jim Leff
