I probably wouldn’t eat at the shabbiest looking restaurant, but I’d much rather go to a place where there are more locals than tourists. That’s a good sign they serve great food, and not low-quality tasteless food or overpriced preprepared dishes.

I learned one thing on Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria, when I was 13. If the restaurant have (plastic) pictures of the food, don’t eat there. Also, avoid the main pedestrian streets and walk into side streets to find the real gems.

I’ll second Erica on exploring the side streets to find good restaurants. This works *everywhere*. Just pick one that’s busy and located off the main drag, I’ll wager that it’ll be full of locals eating cheap and tasty dishes of local food. The place won’t always be shabby as Anil recommends, but it’ll *never* be spanking new, as a good lick of paint is all the owner needs to do now and then to keep his customers coming back!

Interesting tips. But you would never go to the cheapest eating places. You would speak to the locals and find out the best places to eat and my moto is, try everything while on holiday. Experience the place that you visit.

Perhaps “shabbiest” wasn’t the best choice of words - but as Jack says, these places that locals frequent and are off the main strip don’t look new, or have fancy artwork in them.

They have those places in every country

In my experience, you don’t have to wander more than 20 metres from the main street and you’ll gte some excellent and well-priced meals popular with the locals. Most travellers don’t get off the beaten tourist path at all which means you don’t have to go far to get off the beaten path yourself.