The purpose of this post is explain our food rating system. During our travels, we have run into some incredible places to eat our “go to” foods such as burgers, clam chowder, and pizza.
When we started traveling around in the Dawg Haus, we were more inclined to cook our own meals at our campsite, as we do not consider ourselves Foodies. When we do decide to eat out, it’s normally for lunch as that’s easier on our fur babies, and we are not normally into fine dining experiences. We’ve been there and done that, traveling around Europe and “Big City USA” in our younger days. We keep a daily journal of our activities and note that when we do go out for lunch, we Google ‘the best hamburger near us’. For years on his birthday, Mick would choose a highly-rated hamburger restaurant in the area. As we progressed into our RV travel, in our journal, we informally rated any restaurant we went to for lunch with comments like the food was good or it sucks, don’t go back. This habit grew, and we decided to take our formal ratings a little further after starting to review campgrounds for several of the popular websites and now ourselves. We started with cheeseburgers and, with our love of the Oregon Coast, began rating clam chowders plus fish & chips, so we added these items to a special tab in our journal. We also rate pizza since it’s convenient and can normally be delivered on those tough travel days. We sometimes make honorable mentions to food as well. Please note that we do not post food pics on Facebook (keeping our opinion to ourselves on that practice) and do not plan to post them on the Dawg Haus website either. We will provide a link, when possible, to the restaurant where you can go looking for those types of pics and more info on the place. We receive no compensation from these recommendations.
Cheeseburger Quest
As stated in our intro, this rating “thing” started with cheeseburgers. Our priority quest is for the nation’s best cheeseburger, at least in our opinion. We look mainly for nonchain/Mom & Pop restaurants. Our Cheeseburger Quest has matured as we move along. What we originally were on the lookout for was an old 50s/60s type diner. We have run into some really good Mom & Pop diners, but also some great regional chains. We often look at campground reviews for area tips, which often include the best places to hike, eat, shop, or sightsee. Or we just Google, ‘best burger or pizza near me’. For a good burger history, here’s a link.
Food Rating System
Our ratings go from The Best, Really Good, Good, OK, and Not Impressed. Here are our guidelines:
- The Best food rating will only be given to one restaurant or maybe a tie, and we would likely schedule our route to eat there again. We share this place with everyone we talk to in our travels.
- Really Good food rating would be so good that we would go there again during our stay, put it on our list for return trips, and tell our friends.
- Good food rating is well “good,” we’d recommend the place, but wouldn’t necessarily go out of our way to eat there again.
- OK, is “Meh,” not that good, but could eat it all. No need to go back.
- Not Impressed is polite for “It Sucked,” and a good portion didn’t get eaten. We will warn others not to waste their time on the place.
From the cheeseburger point of view, here are some thoughts on how we rate them. We try the restaurant’s basic cheeseburger or what their “go-to burger” is unless it’s one of those triple-decker things you have to eat with a shovel. We don’t normally get bacon on a burger unless it’s their signature burger. What we are looking for is a traditional old-diner style cheeseburger, which has evolved to smash burgers as they get more popular. At some point, we may need to divide them into classic and smash, but not yet. To date, our ‘The Best’ rated cheeseburger is from the Cheeseburger House in Ninety Six, SC.
Ah, fries, we rate fries, tots, or onion rings alongside the burgers as a secondary rating. As we were both stationed in Germany, we agreed that the best fries were in Germany and Belgium. Having eaten a dump truckload when we were there, those fries are our rating standard. Mick likes the thin-cut fries and pretty much does not care for steak fries. We both have a dislike for crinkle fries. However, we both love sweet potato fries, and generally, one of us will try them. Karla is fond of onion rings, so she will sometimes swing in that direction if sweet tater fries are not offered.
Pizza is another topic. When arriving somewhere or we don’t want to cook after a long day of tourist activities, we will swing by for a local pizza or have the pie delivered. We will again seek campground review tips, friend recommendations, or Google ‘the best pizza near me’ to see what Mom & Pop pizzeria shows up. It tends to be hard to screw up a pizza to where it sucks and gets the Not Impressed rating, but it has happened. We basically rate pizzas on whether we would try the Place Again or Not, but there have been a few standouts. Here’s a fun fact for our pizza tastes after eating both New York and Chicago-style pizza in both cities. Our favorite pizza joint is near Tupelo, MS (Elvis’ birthplace). We found this place by accident when we stayed near Tupelo for our first time out in our Vilano. We’ve now eaten at Piezons Pizza in Fulton, MS, multiple times as it’s 35 minutes south of Tishomingo, MS or Red Bay, AL (where Tiffin motorcoaches are made and serviced) where we got our Vilano 5th wheel serviced once a year. It’s Piezons butter-flavored crust that really makes a difference from other pizza joints.
Then there’s chowder and fish & chips. We combined chowder and fish & chips like fries with our cheeseburger ratings. Sometimes the chowder is so good, but the fish & chips weren’t as good that we separated them out as Very Good and Good/OK, respectively. We like the creamy, New England-style chowder and have eaten and rated chowders on both coasts to include some interesting fish chowder around the Great Lakes. We need to state that Ivar’s chowder out of Seattle, WA is the standard we use to rate all chowders. When in a chowder area, we will often pick up several different containers of chowder and have a “taste off.”
As a side note, we have stayed away from barbeque (BBQ). BBQ likes and dislikes are like a religion to some folks. Living near St. Louis for the last 20+ years and a day’s drive from Nashville, Memphis, Kansas City, etc., we’ve tried a lot of BBQ joints. We avoid rating them like we do burgers cause we don’t want our butts whipped.