Source: http://www.gq.com/life/food/201404/foodi...

I have eaten at forty-two of food critic Adam Platt's 101 best restaurants in New York. (Two years ago, he published a list; I made an Excel spreadsheet to keep score.) I have tried six of Jonathan Gold's 101 in L.A. Tasted five dishes from 7x7 magazine's "Big Eat" musts in San Francisco. Dined out at four of the San Pellegrino 50. Also, five of Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurants in America; I have eaten at all of the Best New Restaurants in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This attentiveness to these lists—the fact that I keep a list of lists—is proof of something. That I know about food? Nope. That I'm a little bit compulsive? Probably. That I have bought into a system in which part of my value—the part that says whether I'm worth my salt in small talk—can be measured by the restaurants where I've stuffed my face?

Very much so. Over the past five years, I've subconsciously subscribed to that proposition. Recently, though, I've started thinking that chasing restaurants is the least interesting way to be interesting.