Emily L Winters in Florida

How do you decide what to order when you find yourself in an unfamiliar restaurant? It’s a subject for great debate. Burnt My Fingers wrote about fortuitous discoveries and how they are fewer and further between in this current internet era. And I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about how my gut has steered me wrong on more than one occasion.

Or maybe the problem isn’t with my base instincts, but rather overthinking the challenge of what to eat when I find myself in a new eatery.

Which is why I like to go out with trusted friends. When I don’t have a real-life trusted friend to accompany me, like my buddy Celina, I’m lucky enough to have hundreds of trusted friends on Yelp. It’s true. I know that if Angelique V likes a Chinese restaurant, or Steve K recommends a taco truck, or James L gushes about a Korean spot, they are all going to be solid picks. And if they have dishes they recommend, that’s what I’m going to order.

Even with this extensive network, I still occasionally run into a blank. Well, Emily L has been on vacation in Florida, and she submitted the following guest post about narrowly avoiding a brunch disaster.

Too much food research?

While New York is suffering through negative degree weather, I am down in Florida enjoying sunshine, beaches, and time with my family. And of course, plenty of great food.

My aunt and my uncle have been keeping up with the eggs benedict challenge, so of course brunch was high on our priority list of things to do. We spent all Monday night combing through websites, photos, menus, and Yelp reviews. After carefully researching our options, we decided on the most highly rated brunch restaurant in the area, ironically named Crave (just like the best burger restaurant in Albany).

With an initial view of the menu, I intended to order the traditional eggs benedict. However, after reading all of the extensive reviews, I changed my mind to go for the cobb salad. We ended up waiting almost forty minutes to get into the restaurant. When we were finally seated, the list of specials was almost overwhelming. I held strong and got the cobb.

This opened up a discussion between us. My aunt ordered the traditional eggs benedict. As she explained her food philosophy, “If if I am at a restaurant for the first time, I get something I have had before. This is the best way to compare restaurants through the same dish. If I go back, I get something else.” My uncle went for the corned beef hash. As he explained, “I open up a menu, decide what looks good, and go for it. I rarely go in knowing what I want.” No research, no substitutions, just gut instinct. My mom also went with the cobb, but as she explained,”I got salad because I like salad and I wanted something healthy. And then I put blue cheese and bacon on it.” The boyfriend went with one of the specials of the day, duck tostadas in addition to a giant chocolate chip pancake, pointing out, “specials are fresh and you usually can’t get them any other time. I would rather have a special dish to remember; I’m always a sucker for a special even if it is not what I want. I only look at pictures, I rarely look at reviews online.”

The cobb was fantastic, but since I was with a group, I got to try all of their dishes. If I had gone with my gut instinct with the eggs benedict, I would have been disappointed. The bread was soggy and the hollandaise was too lemony. The hash was too salty for my taste and did not have enough potatoes. The cobb was massive and fresh. However, the winner was clearly the duck tostada. I was not disappointed in the cobb, but I wonder if I would have gone with my boyfriend’s philosophy instead of letting the internet decide for me, I would have had a better dining experience.

But the best part? The amount of scheming and laughter we all had together about brunch. Oh yeah, and the fact that we missed out on the twenty inches of snow in Albany.

Doing some advance research can be a double edged sword. Surely, the hype machine of the internet can build up expectations, only to have them come crashing down. On the other hand, menus are so large, and often a fair to middling place can have a knockout dish or two. I think about Swifty’s and the deep fried buffalo burger, or Ralph’s Tavern and its truly incredible mozzarella with melba.

And then there were the tourists who happened to stumble into one of the best Sichuan restaurants in America at the time, a totally inauspicious place on a side street of San Francisco’s Chinatown. I was there, likely enjoying some cold diced rabbit in chili oil, and I heard the gentleman order sweet and sour pork. His female companion got the sweet and sour chicken.

It was the making of an American culinary tragedy. But this was back in the day before everyone was walking around with access to all the world’s information in their pocket. These days you can’t make that excuse.

I’m not one for letting the internet make my decisions, but I fully support the notion of walking into a restaurant informed about what it does well. From there, it’s up to you. But maybe you disagree. Don’t be shy. Let’s hear it.