Actually, Kitchen Nightmares is Gordon Ramsey (network tv, Fox maybe?) and Restaurant Impossible is Robert Irvine (Food Network). Both here in the US.
You all need to take a road trip through St Louis…LOTS of “Mom and Pop” restaurants,cafe’s, bistro’s, trattorias, “Bar and grills”…from low scale to up scale…not all are gems but we certainly have our fair share of GREAT independent (non chain) eateries.
That place didn’t happen to be a roadside cafe south of town on US 97? I remember stopping at a place like that when I was a kid.
I’ve found I can generally rely on steakhouses to be good, those officially-not-a-chain Bad Chinese Places to be bad in all the same ways, and everything else is a toss-up except, of course, for chains.
Also, Mexican food in southern New Mexico is usually great, especially from the cheap places. As you would expect.
(BTW, what do we want to consider those officially-not-a-chain Bad Chinese Places? Chains or not? They’re locally owned and operated, and there’s no enforced branding, but they’re still all cut from a mold.)
A guess: “authenticity”. Pok-A-Dot looks like it hasn’t changed one bit since it opened.
Western New Yorkers are, by their nature, dyed-in-the-wool old-school types, and their taste in restaurants reflect that. Buffalonians, at least, tend to be wary of restaurants that seem too polished or clean. Many are drawn to places that look like they’ve been around since the Truman administration, and often with menus to match. A restaurant could serve terrible food and still pack them in if they had a sign from the 1950s, and a name to match, and mostly original decor. One example, Mel’s Crow’s Nest in Amherst.
The long-time food critic for the Buffalo News, Janice Okun, recently retired. The foodies are ecstatic over her passing from the scene; she tended to give high marks to mediocre old-school restaurants, and low ratings to more contemporary and innovative places. Her audience wasn’t hip twentysomething and thirtysomething city dwellers, but rather blue-collar baby boomers in the suburbs.
I once read something that said that truck drivers aren’t looking for great food as their main priority. They’re looking for a place that’s convenient to the expressway and where they can easily park their trucks. Good food, cheap prices, and attractive waitresses are secondary.
The writer advised looking for a place where you see local business vehicles parked: UPS, FedEx, florists, plumbers, window installers, pool maintenance, lawn care, etc. These are the people who eat out on a regular basis and know the area. They learn where you get the best value meals. Or at least the best-looking waitresses.
right.
One does not have to be a food snob to know that Applebee’s blows goats.
no, you just have to be a wannabe snob.
Applebees does blow goats. But I am fine with other similar chains.
The one thing I do appreciate about Applebee’s is the effort they’ve made to have and promote meals in a sensible caloric range (their 550 calorie and under meals.) I really wish more restaurants did this or at least provided that sort of calorie info. As much as I want to commend them for that, I hate to say it, but I really can’t say I enjoy their food much.
Is this done at every local store or handled at the corporate level?
They run Kitchen Nightmares on the BBC America channel here so I’ve always presumed it is a Brit show. I like Irving on Restaurant Impossible because he’s much gentler than Ramsey.
Not all chains though are just bland, boring fare. What about local stuff, like Primanti Brothers here in Pittsburgh? They have a few different locations. That’s the kind of place where you have to go when you visit the city.
YELP and Urban Spoon are absolute game changers (as long as your location is covered). They might not always find you the best place in town, but they almost always call out the crapholes.
Oh, that reminds me! Finally made it to Honey 1 last Saturday. Out of the smoked chicken, of course, so I got a combo (rib tips and hot links) and SO got just rib tips. Friends got the catfish. It was all very yummy. I don’t think the coleslaw was homemade, but it plays well with the BBQ sauce, so I didn’t mind. The tips were well cooked, with just a little tooth to them (which I like) and the heat of the sauce crept up nice a slow, building to a pleasant burn.
But, er…well…all four of us spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom overnight. 
I suspect the coleslaw, as one of us didn’t even try the tips, and she was sick, too.
Thanks for the recommendation, though! I’ll probably go back again (though I may pass on the coleslaw.)
Yipes. That sucks. I mean, glad you enjoyed it, but sorry about the gastrointestinal distress. That’s certainly unusual–never heard of it happening to anyone else. Give Smoque a try next, too. I suspect you’ll like it a lot. Make sure you get the sliced brisket there. Smoque has the advantage of having a lot of sides, which the Chicago-style barbecue joints don’t (except for the tablespoon of coleslaw and two slices of white bread they give you.) I will warn you about their coleslaw. Personally, I love it, but it’s basically just fairly coarsely shredded cabbage in a bit of a vinegar sauce. It’s not the usual creamy stuff, nor is it finely textured.
They have a US version of KN as well. I hear he yells less in the Brit version!
My cousin and I went to Florida ahead of my family and we ate at a seafood restaurant somewhere on the Tamiami trail. OMG! It was just divine! Fresh fish, broiled with lemon butter, onion rings in beer batter that just floated off the plate, and key lime pie. So the family shows up and I INSISTED that we go back to that restaurant. All I can say is, they must have changed food suppliers and cooks overnight because everything was just gross. The shrimp and fish were rubbery and way overcooked (and cold), the fries were ordinary (and cold), and the only dessert left was a mundane chocolate cake. A huge disappointment and I felt like a fool insisting we ate there when there were a dozen chain restaurants my mom and dad would have been happy to eat at. So much for support your local restaurant.
i’ll say this, and i imagine there are a lot of you who are like me in doing this:
while ON the road, i go to McDonalds. once i get to where i’m going, i sample the local fare (yelp IS a gamechanger).
you people who are pulling off the highway looking for local flavor are braver souls than most.