We prefer New Orleans Creole/Italian food which is what most restaurants here serve. But we also sometimes like Chinese or other nationalities for variety. No national chain restaurants!!!
New Orleans is a tourist town and let's face it, our main draw is New Orleans cuisine. So, there's a lot of money involved, and huge motivation to provide fake info about restaurants on review websites like Yelp. We would never choose a restaurant in New Orleans based on Yelp reviews because the reviews are fake, laughable, and just flat out crazy insane. On the other hand, we would very likely try a place that friends or relatives recommend. Sometimes we just try a place because it looks like the kind of place we might like and is run by a local family with a reputation to uphold.
We choose restaurants that have been in business for at least 5-10 years. Competition here is cut-throat, so usually in 5-10 years the really bad ones are weeded out. The restaurants we choose are always within 5 miles of home, and usually within 2 miles of home.
Price is very important to us. So far this year, my lunches (including tax and tip, and everything) have ranged from $5-$18 and have averaged around $8-$9. That is more than I have reported in prior years, but food prices have been going up around here.
The menu must serve healthy, nutritious food, not just junk food or food loaded with butter and salt. And, the food has to be absolutely delicious even so. Good nutrition is very important to us, since we eat at restaurants so often.
We don't care about atmosphere or cachet. A run down hole in the wall is fine for us since we are usually paying more attention to each other and the food, than to our surroundings.
