Jan 24, 2008
My ten tips for eating inexpensively in Europe have now been increased to 17
In July of last year, I wrote about eating in Europe and suggested ten ways to keep down the tab. After much reflection (and suggestions from friends), I've concluded that an additional seven approaches are needed to fully cover the topic. Here they are:
11.) Call up for take-out. You can order pizza delivery in Italy just as you do at home, or stop by a grocery store to pick up the ingredients of a home-cooked meal (it helps if you have a kitchenette, though its also easy to cobble together a more picnic-style meal that doesn't require cooking). Many restaurants in Europe let you order to go, so you can enjoy your meal in the comfort of your hotel room without paying cover charges, service fees, or tips (plus, take-out makes it much easier to order fewer dishes per person and then share them).
12.) Skip the main course. Frankly, cooked meat tastes pretty much the same everywhere -- so you don't get much of a cultural experience from ordering it -- yet main courses are the priciest items on any menu. I'd advise to skip the steak and concentrate on a medley of appetizers, first courses, and desserts. Not only will this save you the cost of the entrees, but by ordering a kaleidoscope of first courses you get to sample far more of the dishes that make the local cuisine special.
13.) Stick with the house wine or local beer. Don't bother paying $40 for a labeled bottle when a liter carafe of the house red or white will almost invariably be just as tasty and just as genuine yet cost less than $15. In beer countries (Germany-speaking nations, the Low Countries, much of Eastern Europe), just order whatever's on tap -- at home you'd pay through the nose for such an "import;" the locals consider it the 50¢ draft.
14.) Drink tap water. The water in Europe is perfectly safe to drink. Most Europeans order mineral water with their meals to the tune of $3 to $5 a bottle. A carafe of tap water is free. You do the math.
15.) Patronize pricey restaurants only at lunch. If you want to splash out on a fine restaurant in Paris, by all means do so -- but go at lunch, when the prices are frequently and mysteriously much lower than at dinner, or when a set lunch menu may be available, allowing you to sample the haute cuisine without paying the haute price.
16.) Order the tourist menu or fixed-price menu. Most restaurants in Europe offer set-priced meals that cost a good 10% to 25% less than à la carte. Some deals are better than others (the best include wine, water, dessert, and coffee), and for some reason a "fixed-price menu" usually offers more options (but slightly higher prices) than a "tourist menu," where your choice is usually pasta with tomato sauce followed by roast chicken or veal and fruit or dessert.
17.) Always ask, "Is service included?" This might be printed at the bottom of the menu, but even if it is not, always ask (and call it "service," a word more widely understood than "tip"). It's usually 10% to 15%, which is standard in Europe. Whatever you do, don't double-tip. If service is included, you needn't pay anything beyond the total on the bill. However, if the waitstaff were particularly good, feel free to leave behind an extra euro per person to show your appreciation.
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11.) Call up for take-out. You can order pizza delivery in Italy just as you do at home, or stop by a grocery store to pick up the ingredients of a home-cooked meal (it helps if you have a kitchenette, though its also easy to cobble together a more picnic-style meal that doesn't require cooking). Many restaurants in Europe let you order to go, so you can enjoy your meal in the comfort of your hotel room without paying cover charges, service fees, or tips (plus, take-out makes it much easier to order fewer dishes per person and then share them).
12.) Skip the main course. Frankly, cooked meat tastes pretty much the same everywhere -- so you don't get much of a cultural experience from ordering it -- yet main courses are the priciest items on any menu. I'd advise to skip the steak and concentrate on a medley of appetizers, first courses, and desserts. Not only will this save you the cost of the entrees, but by ordering a kaleidoscope of first courses you get to sample far more of the dishes that make the local cuisine special.
13.) Stick with the house wine or local beer. Don't bother paying $40 for a labeled bottle when a liter carafe of the house red or white will almost invariably be just as tasty and just as genuine yet cost less than $15. In beer countries (Germany-speaking nations, the Low Countries, much of Eastern Europe), just order whatever's on tap -- at home you'd pay through the nose for such an "import;" the locals consider it the 50¢ draft.
14.) Drink tap water. The water in Europe is perfectly safe to drink. Most Europeans order mineral water with their meals to the tune of $3 to $5 a bottle. A carafe of tap water is free. You do the math.
15.) Patronize pricey restaurants only at lunch. If you want to splash out on a fine restaurant in Paris, by all means do so -- but go at lunch, when the prices are frequently and mysteriously much lower than at dinner, or when a set lunch menu may be available, allowing you to sample the haute cuisine without paying the haute price.
16.) Order the tourist menu or fixed-price menu. Most restaurants in Europe offer set-priced meals that cost a good 10% to 25% less than à la carte. Some deals are better than others (the best include wine, water, dessert, and coffee), and for some reason a "fixed-price menu" usually offers more options (but slightly higher prices) than a "tourist menu," where your choice is usually pasta with tomato sauce followed by roast chicken or veal and fruit or dessert.
17.) Always ask, "Is service included?" This might be printed at the bottom of the menu, but even if it is not, always ask (and call it "service," a word more widely understood than "tip"). It's usually 10% to 15%, which is standard in Europe. Whatever you do, don't double-tip. If service is included, you needn't pay anything beyond the total on the bill. However, if the waitstaff were particularly good, feel free to leave behind an extra euro per person to show your appreciation.
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Jul 25, 2007
The remaining six of the suggested rules for smart eating (while traveling) -- second of a two-part series
6) Eat picnic-style once a day: Instead of going to restaurants three times a day, and devouring one after another of those overly-rich, overly-sauced hot meals, alternate the routine; make one of those meals a cold, light snack, like a sandwich lunch at home. Go to the local equivalent of a delicatessen or to the food section of a department store. Order a slab of paté, some cheese, two rolls, two tomatoes, a pickle and wine, and then take the lot to a park bench or a river bank, and eat healthily, cheerfully -- and for pennies. Oh, happy days!
7) Look before leaping: Never order any dish without first knowing its cost. Never patronize a restaurant that does not openly display its menu outside. Order nothing listed at "today's market price" or "s.g." (selon grosseur, according to weight). Give that latitude to a restaurant, and you'll pay a hideous price.
8) Beware of waiters bearing gifts: Eat nothing that's been placed on the table in advance of your arrival (like a jar of paté); it's priced at princely levels. Refuse anything (other than bread, butter, radishes, and the like) brought to your table unbidden in the midst of the meal unless it's explicitly described as free.
9) Avoid the "household words:" If the name of a restaurant immediately springs to mind in an unfamiliar city, it's because you've subliminally heard of it for decades. And that means: you're twenty years too late. The "household words" are too often riding on their reputations, careless and blasé, and hideously overpriced. They can afford to be.
10) Never eat at airports: Stick sandwiches in your suitcase, pastries in your purse. Conceal a banana in the magazine you're carrying. Do anything, but don't place yourself in the position of ever having to eat at an airport. Need I explain why?
11) Patronize the marketplaces: And finally, when in doubt over where to eat in a strange foreign city, head for the big marketplace, the stalls under canvas or in a warehouse-like building where all the ingredients of meals are sold. Wherever there's a marketplace, there's a nearby restaurant with especially good prices for fresh food; that's because those marketplace eateries buy the makings for their meals from people they deal with throughout the day, at the very best rates.
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7) Look before leaping: Never order any dish without first knowing its cost. Never patronize a restaurant that does not openly display its menu outside. Order nothing listed at "today's market price" or "s.g." (selon grosseur, according to weight). Give that latitude to a restaurant, and you'll pay a hideous price.
8) Beware of waiters bearing gifts: Eat nothing that's been placed on the table in advance of your arrival (like a jar of paté); it's priced at princely levels. Refuse anything (other than bread, butter, radishes, and the like) brought to your table unbidden in the midst of the meal unless it's explicitly described as free.
9) Avoid the "household words:" If the name of a restaurant immediately springs to mind in an unfamiliar city, it's because you've subliminally heard of it for decades. And that means: you're twenty years too late. The "household words" are too often riding on their reputations, careless and blasé, and hideously overpriced. They can afford to be.
10) Never eat at airports: Stick sandwiches in your suitcase, pastries in your purse. Conceal a banana in the magazine you're carrying. Do anything, but don't place yourself in the position of ever having to eat at an airport. Need I explain why?
11) Patronize the marketplaces: And finally, when in doubt over where to eat in a strange foreign city, head for the big marketplace, the stalls under canvas or in a warehouse-like building where all the ingredients of meals are sold. Wherever there's a marketplace, there's a nearby restaurant with especially good prices for fresh food; that's because those marketplace eateries buy the makings for their meals from people they deal with throughout the day, at the very best rates.
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Jul 24, 2007
The traveling gourmet: eating cheaply but well (first of a two-part series)
Napoleon told us that "an army marches on its stomach;" so do tourists. People enjoy their trips if the food at their destination is tasty and cheap; they feel vaguely dissatisfied if the meals there are dull and expensive. It's often as simple as that. And the country that can't provide decent dining at a reasonable price, is doomed to lose its vitality in tourism. Russia is a current example.
Often, however, visitors themselves can both lower the cost and increase the enjoyment of eating by wise decisions. From pondering different approaches to meals in a foreign land, I've developed just short of a dozen rules for my own conduct, of which I'm blogging five for today, and the remainder tomorrow:
1) Eat what they're eating. Concentrate on the local specialties: pasta in Italy, steak-and-kidney pie in Britain, herring in Scandinavia, moo goo gai pan in Taiwan. Local favorites are any nation's best dishes, well prepared and also cheap. Try ordering your own familiar favorites instead -- a U.S. hamburger, a martini, apple pie -- and you'll pay far too much for items poorly prepared.
2) Drink what they're drinking. In a wine-drinking country (France, Italy), order wine, not beer. The wine is marvelous and cheap; the beer execrable and no bargain. Contrary-wise, in a beer-drinking country (Germany, Scandinavia), drink beer not wine -- the former is cheap and top-notch.
3) Eat what they're eating at the time when they're eating it: Follow the "food patterns" of the country in question. If their habit is to have a tiny breakfast and a giant lunch (Spain, France, Italy, Greece), you have the same. If, instead, you order a big breakfast in those countries, you'll pay through the nose for an inadequate meal. By contrast, if the tradition in a particular nation is to have a giant breakfast and a tiny lunch (Britain, Israel, Australia), do the same: you'll find that the mammoth breakfast is the best-prepared meal of the day, and relatively cheap.
4) Eat less than you think you want: We all eat far more while traveling than we are normally accustomed to at home. We feel intimidated, among other things, by foreign waiters. Will they think us an "ugly American" if we don't order a soup-to-nuts meal? At home, none of us would dream of having four courses for lunch; yet overseas, we think it obligatory to order the table d'hote meal, and stuff ourselves into a state of torpor, at considerable expense, while the local resident at the next table has a refreshing, inexpensive, single plate.
5) Split, share and divide: Order one plate for the two of you, or an appetizer for her and a main course for you, and then split what arrives. You'll still send uneaten food back to the kitchen, and save money at the same time. The servings in most touristic restaurants are enough for a family (I exclude of course the haughty, haute cuisine places with their tiny portions). How many times, in a touristic setting, have you ordered a meat course for yourself, only to find it overflowing the plate, gargantuan, and impossible to finish? By ordering, say, one prime rib for the two of you, you end up with still more than enough, and save $17-or-so at the same time.
Tomorrow: six more suggested rules for smart eating while traveling.
Write and read comments about this post.
Often, however, visitors themselves can both lower the cost and increase the enjoyment of eating by wise decisions. From pondering different approaches to meals in a foreign land, I've developed just short of a dozen rules for my own conduct, of which I'm blogging five for today, and the remainder tomorrow:
1) Eat what they're eating. Concentrate on the local specialties: pasta in Italy, steak-and-kidney pie in Britain, herring in Scandinavia, moo goo gai pan in Taiwan. Local favorites are any nation's best dishes, well prepared and also cheap. Try ordering your own familiar favorites instead -- a U.S. hamburger, a martini, apple pie -- and you'll pay far too much for items poorly prepared.
2) Drink what they're drinking. In a wine-drinking country (France, Italy), order wine, not beer. The wine is marvelous and cheap; the beer execrable and no bargain. Contrary-wise, in a beer-drinking country (Germany, Scandinavia), drink beer not wine -- the former is cheap and top-notch.
3) Eat what they're eating at the time when they're eating it: Follow the "food patterns" of the country in question. If their habit is to have a tiny breakfast and a giant lunch (Spain, France, Italy, Greece), you have the same. If, instead, you order a big breakfast in those countries, you'll pay through the nose for an inadequate meal. By contrast, if the tradition in a particular nation is to have a giant breakfast and a tiny lunch (Britain, Israel, Australia), do the same: you'll find that the mammoth breakfast is the best-prepared meal of the day, and relatively cheap.
4) Eat less than you think you want: We all eat far more while traveling than we are normally accustomed to at home. We feel intimidated, among other things, by foreign waiters. Will they think us an "ugly American" if we don't order a soup-to-nuts meal? At home, none of us would dream of having four courses for lunch; yet overseas, we think it obligatory to order the table d'hote meal, and stuff ourselves into a state of torpor, at considerable expense, while the local resident at the next table has a refreshing, inexpensive, single plate.
5) Split, share and divide: Order one plate for the two of you, or an appetizer for her and a main course for you, and then split what arrives. You'll still send uneaten food back to the kitchen, and save money at the same time. The servings in most touristic restaurants are enough for a family (I exclude of course the haughty, haute cuisine places with their tiny portions). How many times, in a touristic setting, have you ordered a meat course for yourself, only to find it overflowing the plate, gargantuan, and impossible to finish? By ordering, say, one prime rib for the two of you, you end up with still more than enough, and save $17-or-so at the same time.
Tomorrow: six more suggested rules for smart eating while traveling.
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May 31, 2007
Nutrition for travelers -- it takes an effort
How can you eat better when flying by air? A group of doctors recently reported that the meat-stuffed, cheese-stuffed sandwiches on a big roll that most airlines are now serving, are the worst possible repast. One so-called airline snack, of ham, salami and provolone cheese on a huge and doughy slab, brings you a big 800 calories and 40 grams of fat. They suggest, instead, that you order in advance a vegetarian sandwich, the only problem being that many airlines are no longer responding to such requests. Therefore, they say, eat in the airport before you take off: veggie burgers are widely sold, the popular Sbarro's has pasta primavera, and amazingly enough some of the Starbucks at airports sell vegetable panini sandwiches to accompany your coffee.
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Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
