Weekly Eater Nadine Kam

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Restaurant guide brings local picks to tourists

Every traveler faces the dining dilemma: guidebooks filled with hundreds of restaurants, each seeming spectacular in its own unique way. But how does one go about whittling down the choices from 100 to the 14 or so that you will actually be able to visit in the course of a two-week stay?

"Where the Locals Eat: The 100 Best Restaurants in the Top 50 Cities" (Magellan Press) 312 pages, $11.95

I have been stumped in New York, where every restaurant decision represents one lost opportunity elsewhere.

Along comes the guidebook "Where the Locals Eat: The 100 Best Restaurants in the Top 50 Cities," which offers a good cross section of restaurants from San Francisco to Atlanta, where local diners choose to spend their dining dollars, making for some quirky choices often missed by glossy travel magazines.

Studying Honolulu's roster provides a pretty good idea of where the reviewers are coming from, and that bodes well for those taking the book on the road.

The book is the companion to a free, searchable Web site, www.WhereTheLocalsEat.com, that includes the latest foodie news, blogs and restaurant updates, in addition to the restaurant listings from the book.

Reviews are based on surveys of 50,000 diners across the country. Ten restaurants are highlighted for each city, with another 90 dispatched with a phone number and a word or two describing the type of cuisine.

Honolulu restaurants and eateries singled out for longer reviews are 12th Avenue Grill (best contemporary), Alan Wong's Restaurant (best dessert and best Hawaiian Regional), Ba-Le Sandwich Shop (best Vietnamese), Giovanni's Original White Shrimp Truck (best shrimp truck), Hoku's (top 100 restaurant), Hy's Steak House (best steakhouse), La Mer (best French), Leonard's (best bakery), Nick's Fishmarket (best seafood) and Orchids (best brunch).

The top 10 reflect a range of cheap eats to fine dining, embracing local specialties such as garlic and spicy shrimp at Giovanni's and Leonard's famous malasadas.

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The Top 100 If you want to expand your horizons and eat your way through the other 89 restaurants in 2008, here's the list (at least one, Neo Nabe, has closed): 3660 on the Rise Anna Miller's Antonio's New York Pizzeria Assaggio Auntie Pasto's Bali by the Sea Big City Diner Bluwater Grill Boots & Kimo's Homestyle Kitchen Boston's North End Pizza Bakery Brew Moon Bubbie's Homemade Ice Cream Café Miro Cafe Sistina Casablanca Chai's Island Bistro Champa Thai Chef Mavro Chiang Mai Thai Cuisine Coffee Talk Compadres Bar & Grill Dave's Hawaiian Ice Cream Dixie Grill d.k. Steakhouse Down to Earth Deli Duc's Bistro Duke's Canoe Club E&O Trading Co. Eggs 'n Things Elena's Home of Filipino Foods Formaggio Genki Sushi Grand Cafe & Bakery Gulick Delicatessen & Coffee Shop Gyotaku Japanese Restaurant Hakkei Hale Vietnam Haleiwa Joe's Seafood Grill Hee Hing Hiroshi Eurasion Tapas Honolulu Coffee Co. Indigo JJ Bistro and French Pastry John Dominis Kakaako Kitchen Kelley O'Neil's Keo's Thai Cuisine Koko Marina Pub Kua 'Aina L & L Le Bistro Legend Seafood Restaurant Libby Manapua Shop Liliha Bakery and Coffee Shop Little Village Lucy's Grill & Bar Maple Garden Mariposa Matsumoto's Shave Ice Mi Casa Taqueria Michel's Murphy's Bar & Grill New Violet Grill Nico's at Pier 38 Ola at Turtle Bay Resort Olive Tree Cafe Ono Hawaiian Foods Paradise Cafe Phuket Thai Pineapple Room Prince Court Rokkaku Roy's Hawaii Kai Ryan's Grill Sam Choy's Breakfast, Lunch & Crab Sam Choy's Diamond Head Restaurant Sansei Seafood Restaurant & Sushi Bar Shokudo Side Street Inn Sorabol Korean Restaurant Teddy's Bigger Burgers Ted's Bakery Town Vino The Willows Yanagi Sushi Young's Fish Market Zaffron Zippy's

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