While living in Northridge, CA we were blessed with an excellent Mexican restaurant that served superb Mexican cuisine with a somewhat California twist of having generally low fat, healthy delicious food served with a flair and owned by a young man from Durango.  Its clientèle was about half immigrant and half anglo, its prices were very reasonable and it was about two miles from our house.

A mile away was an excellent Thai restaurant that was very similar in nature, owned by Thai immigrants and with cuisine similarly adapted to California sensibilities.  There were excellent Vietnamese Pho resturants within 3 miles of the house along with other "fusion" resturants. Here in Mountain Home, AR we had one good Mexican family restaurant that was destroyed by a tornado in February.   There remain a presentable upscale, overpriced chain resturant and others, who are run by those of appropriate national origins but who seem unable to properly prepare or present their menus.  Typical Southern fare is about two steps down from that which made English cuisine an oxymoron until recently.  

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

And a surefire way to find people that care is to go to places that have a lot of repeat business, ie where they know that people can come back often if the stuff is good - and won't if it's not.

Thus the restaurants and Brasseries in the Paris business districts, as well as in purely residential areas, are usually excellent, because they cannot afford to lose the local clientele. The touristy places are more uneven.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes