Strange new foods

[jhlurie]

Welcome, David. We appreciate the visit!

Does your approach towards reviewing a restaurant differ significantly if you are unfamiliar with the cuisine? Obviously this is most relevent to ethnic cuisines, although it might also be interesting for you to talk about other kinds of pre-review research as well, if you ever need to do it.

[David Corcoran]

If I don't know the cuisine, I try to research it both before and after my visits, using standard reference works, cookbooks, the Web, people who are familiar with the cooking, et al.

It's pretty daunting to dive into a new cuisine, but also fun and instructive. And while comparisons are obviously difficult (you can't compare a dish you've never eaten with a dish you've never eaten), the basic criteria for judging are the same in any language: Is it fresh? Is it tasty? Is it interesting?