| By :
Mark Etinger
When foodies are asked what their favorite restaurant is, you never here them say TGI Friday's or some other chain restaurant. Chain restaurants are boring, to say the least. You can expect some pretty basic dishes -bacon burgers, lemon and butter salmon, some piece of grilled chicken with mashed potatoes. There is nothing new or inventive. You could probably make the same meal at home. Not to mention the quality of ingredients tend to be less than great. This is just part of the reason that on shows like Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives showcase mom and pop restaurants. When you go to these "dive" restaurants (some of them are true dive bars offering insanely high quality food, sort of questionable), you can expect ingredients of the highest quality and unique dishes. You will literally see the owners hand-making tortillas or creating a marinade that sits on the meat for at least two days. And all this work they put into their food comes out in the flavors. It's the reason why people proudly proclaim they have been coming to this spot for years. You just don't get food as good as some of the more "mainstream" restaurants. That's not to say Bobby Flay's restaurants aren't amazing, because they are. There is just something wonderful about discovering a restaurant that no one has ever heard of. You feel like it's your own special secret that you only tell to your closest friends because you don't want the word to spread too far, otherwise it's just not special when everyone is going there. Then it becomes an overcrowded mess and suddenly you need to wait an hour just to get food. But how do people find out about these hidden gems? Usually it's through word of mouth or you're fortunate enough to stumble upon it on your own. Another way to learn about these amazing places is on food tours. A good food tour isn't going to bother taking you to places you already know about. What would be the point of that? You can go to Momofuku on your own time. Instead, you can discover eateries, cafes, and bakeries buried deep within the city, stuck on a random street in between a dry cleaners and a bookstore. Food tours are an excellent way for tourists to see the real food of the city and for locals to find a new hot spot before it actually becomes "hot."
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