How To Find A Good Restaurant on Short Notice

I imagine many of us have intentions of doing lots of research before we visit a new place to find out the restaurants we really want to try. However, sometimes we don't do enough planning, or the place we want to visit is closed, or we're simply out and about when suddenly the need to eat strikes. How to quickly pick a restaurant that stands a good chance of being delicious? I've developed a few tricks over the years. None of them are perfectly reliable of course, but I think they do improve your odds.

1. Look where all the tourists are going - and then run the other way. Almost any restaurant that caters mainly to tourists just doesn't have the motivation to do a great job. They don't have many repeat customers, and most of the people they serve are only interested in having a fake "authentic" experience and getting out cheap.


2. Look where locals are eating. For example, I was strolling through Rome with my daughter, getting a bit desperate for lunch and despairing of all of the obvious tourist traps. I happened to spot a restaurant in an alley where there were obvious locals eating. The men were in nicely tailored suits and an older woman was having a panini and a glass of white wine, all speaking Italian. The meal was nothing spectacular but it was quiet and quite decent and the proprietress was personable and took great care of the bambina.


3. Ask a local, but be skeptical. Remember that a lot of people don't have great taste, and others, especially in tourist areas, will simply send you to their cousin's great uncle's place. That is especially true when asking at your hotel - they might even get a cut.


4. Grab a free paper. Especially in the US, one of the local "free papers" you find at a cafe or street stand can be an excellent source of independent reviews. You can also study the ads to figure out what the more promising areas of town are for your preferred type of venue.


5. Surf menus. Many restaurants put a menu outside, and you can learn a lot from them. Check out whether what is offered sounds good and whether the price is right. Of course as a vegetarian, I'm specifically looking to see if they have at least one entree that meets my needs. If the vegetarian options sound like an afterthought, I'll move on.


6. Also look at the seasonality. If they are offering asparagus in June or a fresh tomato salad in December, you are asking for trouble. Also, if the menu has a hundred different items, ask yourself whether they can possibly do that many things well.


7. If there is no menu posted, so much the better. Now you can walk in and ask to see one, and get a better look at the inside of the place. Don't be the least bit ashamed to walk away if it isn't what you want.


8. Try to get a look at the food. If you can peek in a window or see someone already eating on the patio, often a quick glance will tell you whether it looks good.


9. Take advantage of technology. If you have a laptop with you, find a place with wireless and spend 10 minutes doing some quick searches for recommendations. Try chowhound or citysearch, or just google the neighborhood plus the word "restaurant" and read a few reviews. If you are savvy with your mobile phone, you can do it that way too.


10. Trust your instincts. Take a second to just feel the overall vibe of the place. If you sense there might be some love of food here, trust your gut and wander in. If not... hey, is that another menu I see down at the end of the block?

If you have other tricks that have worked for you, please add them as a comment!

Salt Crazy (My Favorite Sea Salts)

It seems as if I have some sort of salt problem. I was thinking of writing about salt, and just raiding my cabinets I found the eleven varieties pictured above. This doesn't actually put me in to the outer realm of salt craziness. I don't carry my own in a little box to restaurants (though I have to admit it doesn't sound like a terrible idea). 

Properly seasoning food with salt is absolutely one of the keys to making it delicious, and as Jeffrey Steingarten points out so clearly in The Man Who Ate Everything, the health media and government are conspiring to deny us that simple pleasure. Well, really what they are trying to do is protect people's hearts, but it turns out that only a small percentage of folks actually have salt-sensitive hypertension and the rest of us could enjoy it pretty liberally. And actually even if you are salt-sensitive, the wonderful finishing salts available now can be a real boon. You can use less sodium mixed in to a dish, and sprinkle a few grains of something great on top and get much of the enjoyment. I've actually taken lately to going a bit easier on the salt in the food so that I can use more at the last moment to get maximum flavor.

Here's a little experiment that you might find interesting. Measure one cup of pure tasting water into a cup. Add one pinch of salt, stir, and taste. Add another pinch, and repeat until it tastes like soup. How many pinches did it take before your water went from refreshing to tasty to oversalted? Remember those flavors and it will make it easier to properly salt while you cook.

Most of the salts above (with exceptions noted below) are finishing salts, which means that they aren't generally meant to be cooked into the food. They are for sprinkling on, either just before serving or at the table. And to be honest, to me most of them taste about the same. There may be subtle variations in degree of saltiness, but what makes them really different is the texture and color. And it isn't just the size of each grain. Many of them have unique and fascinating shapes which are interesting on the palate.

Here are my notes on each of the salts I have in my own kitchen, starting at the top left of the picture:

• Pacific Salt Sea Salt (coarse) - from New Zealand. Very large crystals, much too big to sprinkle directly on food, but perfect in a salt grinder. It would also be beautiful as a bed for presenting food.
• Esprit Du Sel - from the Ile De Re in France, also large but much more irregular, and with a beautiful gray color.
  
• Big Tree Farms Handcrafted Balinese Sea Salt - this is one of the most interesting salts I've run across. Each grain is a little hollow pyramid! A really fascinating texture. The same company also sells Balinese Long Pepper, which was prized by the Romans before the black pepper we use today was well known. It has a terrific floral aroma along with the mild heat.
• Hawaiian Black Sea Salt - super shiny hard black crystals, with the color coming from carbon. This would be great on a flatbread.
• Hawaiian Red Alaea Salt - actually more of an orangey-pink translucent color. This would look awesome on a margarita glass.
• Maldon Sea Salt - regular readers will probably be sick of hearing me carry on about this. If I were stuck on a dessert island, this is the salt I would bring. The texture is thin and flaky, so you get these perfect hits of salty crunch.
  
• Alder Smoked Sea Salt - I picked this up at a slightly odd shop in a small town, and frankly I'm not a big fan. Sounded good, but the smoke flavor just isn't clear, just kind of tastes funky. Maybe I just didn't get a great brand.
• Fleur De Sel de Ile De Re - unlike the Esprit Du Sel, this particular fleur de sel from M. Banaletti is much finer grained. My friend Steve brought it back for me from a trip to France. I particularly like it on salad and grilled vegetables. I don't see that exact salt available on the web, but I've linked a similar one.
• Truffle Salt - I got this at Dean and Deluca in NYC. I normally wouldn't buy such a thing, but it actually delivers a heck of a lot of truffle aroma. For those of us that rarely get the real thing, it is worth having just to occasionally open the jar and take a deep whiff. Good on scrambled eggs. It claims to be 5% black summer truffles but also lists "truffle flavor".
• Kosher Salt - Diamond Crystal or Morton's brands are good. This is the go-to salt for seasoning food as you cook. It tastes better than iodized salt, and the coarse grains make it much easier to grab and distribute a pinch at a time. You should have a bowl of this by your stove at all times.
• Hain's Iodized Sea Salt - just like the normal iodized salt you grew up with, but without the trace minerals removed.  I've had the same box for probably 5 years. I sometimes use it for baking because I figure that is how most recipes are tested, and you know it will dissolve well. I don't know if it is just because of the fine texture, but it has a noticeably unpleasant sharpness to it when tasted by itself.

So that's my salty story. And there are hundreds more that look great and I hope to try someday. What other ones do you love (or hate)?

Top Ten Ways to Get Yourself Baking More at Home

Everyone loves home-baked sweets and savories, but most of us don't take the time to make them very often. Here are some suggestions to help make it happen:

1. Have all your ingredients as accessible as possible. Store all-purpose flour in a large bin with 1 c. and 1/2 c. measuring cups right in it, so you don't have to find them and wash them. Do the same for other bulk items that you use frequently such as white and brown sugar. Whole grain flours should go in the freezer if you don't go through them quickly, but you can still have them in quick-access containers.
2. Also, have a tray in your cabinet with the baking soda, baking powder, salt, honey, molasses and other accessory items all gathered in one place. When you have everything ready like this, you are always only 15 minutes from putting cookies, muffins, scones, quick breads etc. in the oven!
3. Have at least two sets of measuring cups and spoons, so that if you need the same size twice for one recipe and it is already goopy with syrup, you don't have to stop and wash it.
4. Bake with kids! Whether it is your own little ones, nieces and nephews, or whoever, they all love to help out in the kitchen. Baking is one of the easiest ways, because it doesn't usually involve knives or hot saute pans, and you can set all of the ingredients out on the floor. They will be proud of what you made together, and you'll be proud to give them something wholesome for a meal or a treat.
5. Buy the tools that will inspire you. I'm not saying you need every gadget out there, but having good cake, pie and tart pans, muffin tins, cookie and jelly roll sheets, ceramic pans, ramekins, silpats, rolling pins, etc. makes life a lot easier, and the results look better too.
6. Treat yourself to books that will inspire you as well. My current favorite is Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Home Baking.
7. Don't be a perfectionist. Not everything that comes out of your oven is going to look like something from a 3-star pastry chef. So what? It is delicious and you put love into it. In a world where so many things are mass produced, making something for your friends and family to enjoy is all that matters.
8. Bake (most) things until they are really brown! The best flavors in baked food comes from the Maillard reactions and caramelization that take place in the last few minutes of cooking. Don't burn everything, but do let it go that last couple minutes to deep brown. You'll be amazed at how good it tastes.
9. Let seasonal fruit and vegetables inspire you. Summer of course is the time for berry pies, tarts, crumbles and slumps. Fall might find you with a surfeit of apples, and in winter, savory cheese and vegetables appeal. Like all cooking, starting with the best ingredients is the key.
10. Make extra dough and freeze it. If you are making a pie crust, a crumble top, or cookies, why not double the batch and put half in the freezer? Label that zip-loc bag so you'll remember what you've got and how old it is.