According to the fine folks at Where the Locals Eat, Tampa/St. Petersburg qualifies as one of the Top 50 cities in the U.S.! Finally, some national recognition.
WTLE's new book tries to nail the best 100 restaurants in each of their top 50 cities and, as vague survey lists go, it does a fairly good job. The big guys are on there — like Bern's, The Columbia and Ceviche — but there are also some actual local joints, like Mel's Hot Dogs, El Cap, Skyway Jack's, Thai Sweet Basil and Atwaters. And, perhaps as a nod to our local love of the prefabricated dining experience, there are half a dozen chains included in the list; no Bay area dining experience would be complete without them.
This little guide is obviously meant for an extremely limited audience: frequent travelers who don't cotton to the Internet. Anyone who actually uses the Web can either do the research themselves by looking at CL's and others' Best Of issues or just check out the Web version of Where the Locals Eat, where you can find pretty much everything in the book without shelling out the $11.95 for a hunk of printed paper.
This article appears in Dec 12-18, 2007.