Review of New Restaurants

Today is the last day of the year, and not feeling 100% well, I do not plan to eat out today. So I can give a statistical anlaysis of the last two years of a bucket list item. Not really a true analysis, I am retired as a mathematician and statistician. But I do have some data to share.

Two years ago I realized that I was always eating at the same places. There is nothing wrong with that, there are advantages at being a regular at a place. But what I wanted was to try more new places. So I made a bucket list (yes, I have a list on my computer) to eat at one new restaurant every week. That was 2015. In 2016, I changed it slightly and said I wanted to eat at 52 new restaurants, but it could be five one week and none for four weeks. Same number, different approach. Each restaurant I ranked on a zero to five scale.

Here are the totals for the last two years...

Summary of Restaurant Visits for last two years

Although I did not get the 52 I needed in 2016, my total over the two years was 105 restaurants over 104 weeks, averaging 1.0096 restaurants per week. I hit the bucket list goal on average.

It appears that I like American Restaurants the best (38%), but I think it is a lack of creativity on my part to come up with a definition for the type of food certain places serve. If there was a web page describing the type of food, I would use it. For example, Goombays says it serves Caribecajunmexiasian, so I entered that. I really think some places do not know what type of food they serve. Most places are very eclectic in their menu choices. Most places have some kind of taco with fish, are they Mexican or Seafood? But they will have Burgers and Wraps too. These places I called American!

Seafood was in second with 14, Italian was third with 9, and Mexican was fourth with 8. Two thirds of the places I visited were in these top four categories. On average, the restaurants were ranked Great (3) with only one five (Memorable) over the two years. Here is the distribution of my rankings. Realize that I added the half scores near the end of 2015.

Ranks over the two years

So, what is the plan for 2017? Well, to be honest, my focus is going to be on my health. So I am reducing the bucket list item to one new restaurant every two weeks for a total of 26 for the year. Plus, it was starting to get harder to find new places. Again, my offer exists, if you would like to go to a new place with me just let me know. A few people have taken me up on the offer and it has been great (which is just average according to my stats!)

I hope everyone is safe this New Year's Eve and here is to Good Eating in 2017!