Tips to Happy Food Travels--#1: Know the Value of Food Serendipity

I was reading a fellow blogger, Culinary Woman, who has a series of posts about helpful tips on finding good places to eat while traveling: Finding a Meal, What is there To Eat?, and How Do You Like to Eat?. 

I really enjoyed her list of tips and especially liked the post on “How Do You Like to Eat.”  I was reading her posts while I was traveling and in the process of pre-writing “Road Trip 2011.”  Her blog posts made me think about what my own tips would be.  So, I am taking a stab at it and hope this helps you have happy gastronomy based travels. 

Since most people have a list of sites (Urbanspoon, Yelp, Chowhound) that they already use, I am going to give one tip everyday (in no particular order) for narrowing down and selecting.  I just hope I don’t fork it up.  

Tip #1: Know the Value of Food Serendipity

How could I not go the restaurant of my favorite action hero!

Over dinner in St. Louis, Dennis mentioned that I should write a post about the importance of “Food Serendipity.”  Food Serendipity is lot like karma for bellies.   If you put good food karma out, accepting the happiness potential of the food given, then good food will find you.  I believe a lot in food serendipity because it brought me to places like El Burrito Mexicano, Square One and LEMmie’s Eatery.  It even brought me to Jackie's Kitchen, a restaurant in Korea that features "Jackie Chan's favorite Noodles and Dim Sum."   

There is something to be said for researching beforehand; but, you should also keep your food instincts out for the chance to be surprised by a happy accident.  Going with the flow and allowing food adventures to find you may be the trick to finding a rare victual moment. 

Or, it good be crap.  Either way, you’ll have a great story to tell your friends.