Supper time!

When traveling, as in Mexico say, I tend to frequent the spots where all the Mexicans are eating in numbers, rather than where all the straw hat, madras short-wearing tourists are eating with relish. Sure, some digestion indiscretion may ensue for gringos without the hardened, intestinal bellies of Mexican heritage and upbringing, but I’ll take the cheap and delicious meal over the non-local food any day. The same principle can be applied to here in the States, with, I promise you, much less incidence of Montezuma’s Revenge. From the cheap eat cafes with the worn down, hardwood flooring, metal studded bar stools and eclectic, comfy chairs with mosaic-tile inset fireplaces, to the more expensive and exquisite meals at places like Aqua and Quince, practically unknown to foreigners of the city, but famous among its neighborhood locals, local dining joints comprise a large part of a city’s culture. But chic appearances aside, it’s oftentimes difficult to separate the good food from the bad, and what better place to figure out which are the best local eats, than an iPhone app by the very name LocalEats?

LocalEats by WhereTheLocalsEat.com seemingly has it all. A simple interface allows you to find the best local eats by your current location or a specific address, or, should you desire all a city has to offer, you may select one of 50 metropolitan centers where the food truly shines to its local inhabitants. Based on my current location, LocalEats offered me a selection of four results – a scant supply to those used to other user-review sites like Yelp!, UrbanSpoon, iWant, and Earthcomber, but LocalEats touts the belief that offering too many restaurants is like sending you scurrying into a gastronomic treasure trove, one you will never finish plundering. Instead, LocalEats offers a few, worthy restaurants they’ve carefully researched with their hungry and credentialed team, giving you just enough restaurants to allow you to branch out and experiment with in totality, without that feeling of being overwhelmed with choices.

Since each restaurant, trattoria, and watering-hole of a pub is carefully and meticulously decided upon, users of LocalEats will be happy to note that every restaurant has a picture alongside it, so never will there be a five-star rated restaurant with no picture to convey its ambience. Each listing is labeled as a “local favorite” or “top 100,” to help you delineate what kind of dining experience you want, and for further details, simply tap on the restaurant and a short summary of information is gleaned, like address, phone number, hours, categories – bistro, brunch, contemporary, french – Entree price range, features & services – full bar, handicap accessible, kid friendly, vegetarian, etc – as well as a direct buttons to map out directions, call the restaurant, or link to their website in Safari. Aside from the basics, there are a few more tabs in a navigation bar along the bottom of the screen, should you wish to view more photos (you may also take some, to participate as a diner for LocalEats), view diner comments, view a local map of the area surrounding the restaurant, and even read a short description of the restaurant, just to better grasp what you’ll be committing your stomach to for the night.

One of my nearby choices when searching based on “current location” was The Girl & The Fig, located in Sonoma, CA, and apparently is a “local favorite.” Based on the information I was able to locate through LocalEats – particularly the mention that entrees are $25 or less – I was fairly sold. Just to see how LocalEats held up in a more metropolitan area, I checked out what my neighborhood of Pacific Heights in San Francisco has to offer, especially since while living there I felt a certain sense of loss when it came to good local dining (the neighborhood I like to refer to as, “where the only thing whiter than the people are the houses”). I was underwhelmed and unsurprised by the listing of the relatively famous Quince, but I was pleased to see a few regular places amongst the more hoity-toity Quince and Fresca, places like Ella’s, a breakfast joint of which I was unawares, the ever hip Pizzeria Delfina, and even my go-to, all-time favorite La Mediterranee. It was a little bizarre, though, to see Mel’s Drive-In as one of the local eats for Pacific Heights. To me, Mel’s Drive-In may as well be fast food, for it certainly is a chain restaurant, with hardly any flair or pizzazz, and has really lackluster burgers, which is why I was surprised to see LocalEats declare, “We get indigestion just thinking about relying on public opinion polls – they capture Olive Garden devotees and deep-fried cheese addicts … We love democracy as much as the next guy, but not when it comes to the serious business of determining culinary chops.” Well, gee, I wonder who they were *yelp* thinking about.

But all seeming hypocrisy aside, I really enjoy LocalEats, and I find their restaurant choices to be right on the mark (except for Mel’s Drive-In). Each of their choices is well-researched to meet a studied criteria of gastronomic pleasure, and whether you pick the more affordable or the more ritzy, dining with LocalEats will have you developing dining traditions of your own, from Pizzeria Delfina’s Salsiccia pizza of housemade fennel sausage, tomato, bell peppers, onions, and mozzarella to La Mediterranee’s garam masala sprinkled Levantine Meat Tart.

Buen apetito!