A Surefire Way To Pick A Winner!

Travelling & Eating out will never be the same...

You are on holiday, away from your usual haunts and driving around looking for a place to eat. Add to that a foreign language and what seemed so easy is far from it. Finding a great place to eat out. Usually you are on a budget and would feel awful if you wasted your hard earned money on a bad meal.

Of course you can look in those Good Restaurant guide books but a holiday shouldn't be scripted to the nth degree. A map maybe but take a chance and go bare...bare of Google, bare of guidebooks and bare of pre - conceived ideas and ideals.

Holidays, especially in Europe are a perfect way to go on the road less traveled. A road that still meanders around sharp corners or gentle bends. A road where by law you have to drive slower. A road where you get to enjoy the journey and not just the destination.

What these meandering roads have aplenty, are small towns and villages that suddenly pop up around the next bend. Rather a romantic adventurous drive. A definite moment for the " Oohs and Aahs " and of course the camera.

Stumbling upon these treasures- towns and villages on the road less traveled are undiscovered treasures - there is only one slight problem. Where to go and eat. Eating at a place that is not great, will burst that glorious bubble filled with great holiday moments. But, there is one way to pick a winner.

My Dad loves to eat and has the unerring ability to pick a winner each and every time. In fact, he can sense a bad restaurant from a mile away and doesn't shy away from getting up and leaving, whereas most of us are too polite and would sit through a bad experience because we are afraid to offend.

Yesterday, our good friends arrived from South-Africa and straight away mumbled:

" Where is the great summer weather you have promised us? "

Talk about pressure! Anyway, with great foresight, we decide to all go to a Buschenschank for dinner. My Dad picked the winner and here is his formula. One that never fails. One that you should try out.

" Biggi, always look for the church in any town and the nearest restaurant to it, is the winning one. "

Yes, for some reason the good places are within walking distance of the local church. Maybe the restaurants get a blessing or maybe the owners know that in a small town, most folk go to church on Sundays and on the way back will see & go to the restaurant.

To make good for the slightly rainy weather, we took our friends to this Buschenschank. It was a first for us too but we had seen it before and seen that their car park was packed most of the time. As we parked there, we looked up and there was the local church in all its splendour.

We saw it in daylight and stayed long enough to see it bathed in moonlight too. Even though we got there early enough to qualify as the Early Bird special crowd, the place was packed. In fact, it was packed until we left. The food was great and the wine too. Of course I am biased and prefer the Deutsch-Schützen & Eisenberg wines.

Let me know the next time you pick a good place to eat based on my Dad's formula!

Our table, where great fun was had by all.

Biggi