I’ve been using google and local newspapers to find good restaurants but most websites have incomplete or useless listings (IE: no reviews or ratings) it seems.
I have yet to find a good, comprehensive resource to turn to for my dining needs. I subscribed to the zagat survey for a while but it was very disappointing.
If it matters, I live in south florida, between Miami and West Palm beach.
I usually just google <city name> <ethnicity> restaurant and almost always get good results. Quite often it’s one of those generic travel sites such as citysearch, but the ranking systems seems to give good honest feedback.
Also, the dope is fantastic for asking this question.
I like chowhound.com and yelp.com. I’m not sure if either will cover your area, but they are both good sources of feedback from diners.
The latter, yelp.com, covers many consumer area, but its most popular forum is for restaurant reviews.
chowhound.com has never done me wrong. I’m sure they will have tons of info on places in your area.
The Palm Beach Post has reviewed a lot of restaurants on their site, both by users and by food critics. If you’re looking for Palm Beach County, I’d go with that. I’m not as sure as to whether the Sun Sentinel has as thorough of listings and reviews. I live in the same region, and, although it can be tough to find a really good restaurant that’s not packed every night, it’s doable with enough guesswork and advice from other locals.
Do they have an “alternative weekly” paper where you live, like Creative Loafing or the Free Times? Where I’ve lived they always have the best restaurant ratings, usually annually.
www.tripadvisor.com is used mostly by those planning vacations or who have taken them already, but it also has restaurant reviews. You may find your own city’s and nearby cities’ eateries there.
You can go to their forums, too, and ask for restaurant recommendations from locals.
Hmmm… while not offering reviews per se, rewardsnetwork.com offers ratings (no reviews) from their users. Okay, some of the restaurants have Zagat reviews, but mostly it’s just the user reviews. I use the “aa.rewardsnetwork.com” version. Of course only participating restaurants are listed, but if you’re interested in frequent flier miles the somewhat limited selection isn’t all that bad.