How to eat out while traveling?

[profnot]

Hi, All

I'm going to be traveling a lot in the next few months. The rooms won't have kitchens and I'm looking forward to a break from cooking anyway. Restaurant meals will be paid for if I don't go to the expensive places.

I don't eat grains and starches (turns out they are bad for my allergies). I'll be downtown in a few different cities.

Any tips for types of restaurants and cuisines to seek out? Any strategies?

I eat out a couple of times a year (part of being frugal) so this will be a fun adventure.

Thanks!

[iris lilies]

Hi, All

I'm going to be traveling a lot in the next few months. The rooms won't have kitchens and I'm looking forward to a break from cooking anyway. Restaurant meals will be paid for if I don't go to the expensive places.

I don't eat grains and starches (turns out they are bad for my allergies). I'll be downtown in a few different cities.

Any tips for types of restaurants and cuisines to seek out? Any strategies?

I eat out a couple of times a year (part of being frugal) so this will be a fun adventure.

Thanks!

Salad bars at grocery stores are always a good break from restaurant food although they are not cheap. Plan to spend $10+. That is, if you can find downtown stores with this feature.

Vietnamese food always seems chock full of very fresh vegetables and lean meats to me. But of course they serve noodles or rice. I guess that you could have soup and ask them to hold the noodles.

[SteveinMN]

I read an article (within the last couple of weeks) about people who cook entire meals with a drip coffeemaker. Like salmon filets and steamed vegetables. Or oatmeal or stews. Pretty resourceful, though I'm not sure I'd want to do it with some of the coffeemakers I've seen in hotel rooms.:0!

IL offers some good suggestions. I'd open up "Vietnamese" food to any kind of Asian food. Except for noodle dishes and fried foods, it's pretty easy to separate or have them omit the starches. Chinese buffets in particular will let you eat all the protein and veggies and soup you want, though it is likely cornstarch will be present in almost everything (if that's a problem for you). Steak houses of all kinds will offer meat and vegetables. If you don't eat any starches at all, most Central/Latin American cuisines will not offer you many options; nor will Indian/Nepali/etc. Continental (French, Italian, eastern European) restaurants will be hit or miss. Some cities have "raw" restaurants; might be interesting and you know they will identify every ingredient for you.

You could do what I did on business trips, too: bring (or buy) a bowl and spoon and get some breakfast items when you reach your destination. Most good hotel rooms have refrigerators and microwave ovens these days. You could buy a package of pre-cooked hardboiled eggs or whatever for much less than it would cost to eat breakfast at a restaurant. And then you'll have that portion of the per diem (if you get one) or budget to spend on interesting and higher-quality restaurants for dinners.

[kib]

I like to do a chinese buffet meal at least once when I travel, have found some surprisingly good (or at least decent and more or less predictable) chinese food in unexpected places. I've never paid more than $12, selections are typically enormous and you can really steer a meal in any direction you want; all veggies, all protein, all noodles or whatever else catches your fancy. The best of them even have stir fry, sushi or cold shrimp. Contrasted with the American style buffet, which has never worked for me ... I had this today at Kettle ... something. Kettle kitchen, kettle town ... abysmal, whoever put that menu together somehow failed my most basic test: food I pay someone else to cook for me should be better than what I can cook for myself.

Mongolian Barbecue sounds very exotic but is really just a build-your-own-meal stir fry while you wait, tasty and usually not expensive.

Also, some hotels include a very nice buffet breakfast that shouldn't impact per diem - on fire assignments we'd stay at places that offered things like hard boiled eggs, yogurt and cheese strings and make a lunch out of it as well. Some of those hotels even have a light dinner included in the room price, typically soup and crackers or something similar, so you could have a big meal midday for less and then a light meal at night. (Or pick up stuff for a light dinner at the grocery store).

Tucson has a local restaurant called Choice Greens, which basically serves all sorts of chopped salads, big enough for a meal if you add a protein like chicken breast (they also make the most awesome personal pizzas). They're not a chain, but I'm sure most medium sized cities have something similar, that's about $10-$12 a meal including a soft drink.

Food Trucks are also the latest greatest for some amazingly good and sometimes even "upscale" cuisine at great prices. There are some apps for finding them, try http://mashable.com/2011/06/30/food-truck-apps/

[seedycharacter]

Whole Foods and other similar stores have a huge variety of options in their delis and salad bars. I like that there are so many choices; lots of healthy ones. They're kind of pricey but if the company is picking up the tab, they'll likely be cheaper than most restaurants and with higher quality food.

[profnot]

These are all great ideas! There's almost no Asian food nearby so I forgot how much I like those cuisines.

I think there will be a Whole Foods near the hotel in one of the cities. I hear their salad bars are terrific.

The hard-boiled egg idea is very workable. I've recently discovered turkey bacon is tasty so I can combine them for breakfast.

I just heard on the radio that "fast casual" food is gain lots of ground in the world of public dining. The meals have better quality food but cost $8 - $15 each. I heard lots of working professionals eat this way every day and don't mind the long lines because they all have smart phones. That is certainly different than the way we SimpleLivingForum members live!

Thanks for your great tips!

[catherine]

I just heard on the radio that "fast casual" food is gain lots of ground in the world of public dining. The meals have better quality food but cost $8 - $15 each.

So true, and those are exactly the types of places I rely on when traveling for business. One of my favorites, in big cities, is Pret a Manger. I remember discovering it in London and thinking, "Why don't they have these in New York?" Then I was in New York a few months later, and lo and behold, I saw one.

But there are other similar types of "grab and go or sit down" healthy places--many have nice fresh soups and salads.

Oh, also, I was working at a Bowery soup kitchen once, and Pret A Manger donates their expired foods, unlike many other food establishments that just throw stuff out. I think they're in NY, Boston, Chicago, DC..not sure where else.

[iris lilies]

Here is a chain restaurant to look for in your travels, OP:

Crazy Bowls

It's a "fast food" restaurant, which means that you order at a counter and they make your order and bring it out to you. It seems to be addressing "healthy" fast food and provides vegetables and/or/beans and/or a protein and/or grain in a bowl.

You could leave off the grain. They've got quinoa, can you eat that?

Anyway, it is a new age type of fast food place. The one I visited this week in a block from a college campus.

I didn't like it, much prefer Subway Sandwiches to this place, but I can see developing a liking for Crazy Bowls.