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If possible (they won't always accommodate) ask the desk clerk at your hotel (assuming they're a local, not always the case especially at hostels) what they eat
by sequoia 6y ago
If possible (they won't always accommodate) ask the desk clerk at your hotel (assuming they're a local, not always the case especially at hostels) what they eat for breakfast/lunch and where you can get that. After a terrible "English breakfast" of undercooked bacon & burned sausage at a tourist restaurant in a small Indian tourist town, I asked the fellow manning the small hotel what he had for breakfast and where I could get it. None of the tourist places served pav bhaji (or "baji pao" as I'd understood him to call it) but when I found the little hole-in-the-wall place he directed me to I was rewarded with a new experience, a dish I hadn't tried before, and one I really enjoyed and continued eating for breakfast during the remainder of my short stay.
It can take some doing in some places to convince people that you (in my case a Westerner) really are interested in their food, culture, etc.. Learning a bit of the language can help. I was happy to be able to memorize "ek paav bhaajee aur ek samosa aur chaay chaahie" and order for myself in Hindi, hoping that if there were any complications the server would speak English as that's as far as I could go. But people appreciate that a lot, even just learning "my name is, what's your name, how are you" etc.
When I said "my name is sequoia, what is your name" to a taxi driver they would sometimes say "You speak hindi?!" incredulously, to which I'd reply "well I wouldn't go that far..."