LOCAL FLAVOR: The nomination period has opened for the 2018 100 Plates Locals Love
Nominations for the spring 2018 culinary guide continue through Nov. 30
File Photo: Carlton Fletcher
By Jim Hendricks
ALBANY — When you’re out of town and looking for a good place to eat, you look for recommendations from people who know — local residents.
Each year, the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Georgia Tourism division looks for that same type of local insight in compiling its 100 Plates Locals Love feature for its spring culinary guide, Georgia Eats.
The list includes special dishes at local restaurants that are nominated by people who have enjoyed them.
“It’s a popular list,” Emily Murray with the Department of Economic Development said Monday. “We usually get a good number (of nominations). They put this list in the annual culinary guide.”
This is the fourth year that the list has been compiled.
“They include 10 from each of nine regions,” Murray said, with a chef adding 10 dishes from the state at-large to round out the 100 choices. Metro Albany is included in the Plantation Trace region that stretches from Fargo to the Alabama line and from the Lee-Sumter County line to Florida.
The two stipulations are the dish and restaurant must be nominated electronically at www.exploregeorgia.org/100-plates-nomination, and a restaurant cannot be nominated for a dish that has appeared on a previous year’s list.
For instance, Villa Gargano’s in Albany made the 2017 100 Plates list. If Gargano’s were to make the list for 2018 or another year in the future, it would have to be for a dish other than its baked spaghetti. Keeping up with all the dishes and restaurants is one of the reasons for the electronic submissions, which have exceeded 600 nominations in a year.
“It’s all electronic,” Murray said. “People fill it (the nomination form) out, and we get it all into a database for all submissions. It can’t be for the same dish if they were on the list before. That’s why we have to go through the database and make sure we’re not repeating the same dishes.”
The nomination period opened Monday and will close Nov. 30. An individual may nominate as many dishes as he or she wants, Murray said.
“If you have five favorite dishes, you can put in nominations for all five,” she said.
The nomination asks for the name of the dish, the name of the restaurant, the city, what the nominator loves about the dish, the nominator’s name and the nominator’s email address. A photo of the dish may also be uploaded on the form.
You can find the 2017 list at www.exploregeorgia.org/dining/100-plates-locals-love.
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