Any suggestions for a reliable dining guide (either major city specific or seperated into regions) that actually takes wine into account? Zagat pays less than passing interest to wine/wine service and the WS list pays little attention to food. I have to travel domestically quite a bit for work and often have to rely on hotels for (usually sub-par) recommendations of places to abuse my expense account. Any advice?

You can always ask the forum members. Start a thread requesting help in the Dining and Cooking section. Wherever in the US you're headed, there are likely many people here who've been there.

I think Zagat since they use real costumers like you nad me. Of course, the local food critics are good too.

Zagat is worthless, especially when it comes to ethnic dining.

quote:

Originally posted by pyang:
Zagat is worthless, especially when it comes to ethnic dining.

I disagree. What you're getting with Zagat is the opinion of people who dine out somewhat frequently. They are, for the most part, white Americans who were born here, so you're getting their perspective ondining whether it be ethnic or American. The notion that authentic ethnic cooking is better than ethnic cooking prepared for American tastes is flawed. It's just different. We've been to authentic ethnic places where we found the found inedible.

Case in point- after reading an article in the NY Times about where the Chinese restaurnt employees eat after they get out of work, we visited the late night place mentioned. I wanted something authentic, so I ordered pig intestine in hot pot. It came out in a pot of bubbling pig blood. I took one taste and ordered something else not so authentic.

I go to Vietnamese restaurants, but I don't order dog or snake blood.

Zagat is a heck of lot better than alot of things. And, in any event, the phone numbers are usually correct.

I find Zagat to be the best starting point for investigating restaurants in cities where you know very little. It is certainly true that in any given city there may be better sources for those "in the know", but as a tourist, I use the Zagat guide fairly often, and have found the restaurants to be accurately described.

Wine Spectator's annual dining guide is also useful for finding restaurants with good wine lists, even though if has been pointed out that the magazine does not do their due-diligence in fact checking the info provided by the restaurants. Again, the list is better than nothing.

I agree that Zagat is a decent guide for quality of food & service. I use the NYC, NJ & Philly guides fairly regularly and have found that I agree with about 75% of the ratings. The major flaw is that they pay no attention to wine/ wine service. When WS use to list which restaurants were also DiRoNA award winners, it was a great reference tool. It seems like none of the guides I can find even mention wine in passing. Board-O's suggestion to ask forum members seems like a good idea. Based solely on the fact that one would post on a wine forum pretty much qualifies them as a more of a reference than most concierges I've trusted.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Que Syrah, Syrah,

I prefer to do research over the internet before visiting someplace new. Once I find a place that interests me, I'll look at their menus and look for any online reviews, taking reviews with a grain of salt and keeping in mind many menus change and are seasonal (as is appropriate). Food writers/critics rarely have a real food background and can be as easily swayed by a pretty dining room or hype as any diner you'll find on the street.

This is the only forum where I feel comfortable soliciting dining recommendations.