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I like lower end casual dining, so my tastes line up with my picks for food. Price also plays into it as well. I have pretty simple taste.
1. Chicago- has all the places I love, Portillo's, Buona Beef, the Patio, along with some great gyros places and
pizza like Giordano's and Lou Malnati's. Home of Potbelly's as well, although now more of a national chain.
2. Los Angeles- Home to some really good Mexican (Deleguetza e.g.), the Grand Central Market, and alot of pie places like Marie Callendar's and Pollys pies.Love me a piece of delicious Peach Pie once in a while.
3. NYC- Bagels, delis, and street food. Love the thin cheese greasy NY style pizza!
4.Philadelphia- Great food, cheese steaks, Italian, chocolate covered pretzels and pretzels in general.
5. Boston- I like Legal Seafood, fried clams on the cape and Ipswich, and ice cream spots such as JP Licks.
Not too hard for me, though there's a lot of good food out there in many cities, my personal favorites which basically have "everything". In no particular order:
Chicago
NYC
Los Angeles
San Francisco area (I include the area because I think for example the Chinese food is much better in the suburbs than the city).
Miami, Philadelphia, or the DC area (could go either way IMO).
Surprised nobody said Vegas. I always eat amazingly whenever I go to Vegas.
Miami is another really good one especially if you like Latin food but also doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of mentions.
New York is an obvious one. I feel very lucky to live here. I’m always exploring and eating all over the boroughs but IMO no place I’ve ever been in any other city compares to the street food scene in Queens, especially underneath the 7 train. I know nobody thinks of that when they think of NYC food scene but that is home for me... also hidden hole-in-the-wall places — bonus points if you need to use a language other than English.
Nowhere else in The US or Canada really stands out to me like these 3 — at least so far.
I have yet to go to Mexico City, New Orleans, or Montreal — I feel I need to put that disclaimer there. I expect those to be above and beyond when I eventually visit them. Mexico City is likely happening relatively soon for me so maybe I’ll have to come back and update/confirm.
I haven't been many places, so I'll just list a few. I've been to DC before but it's been too long and I don't remember the food.
Mobile, AL (and surrounding area) - Mugshots Bar & Grill, Asian Garden, etc. I know there's more good places but they're slipping my mind. Birmingham, AL (and surrounding area) - Johnny Rocket's (up on the Summit), Steel City Pops, Bright Star (Bessemer, AL), a bunch of barbecue places. Again, there's a lot slipping my mind. Cleveland, TN - City Cafe Diner Ocean Springs, MS - Woody's Roadside (wonderful food and atmosphere. Highly recommend!)
I would love to visit Maryland, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Memphis/Nashville TN for food. I can come back and update when I do
Nowhere else in The US or Canada really stands out to me like these 3 — at least so far.
Vegas has some good food, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the stuff is restaurants opened from people from other cities as clones of restaurants in their respective cities.
To me there are 3 places easily that are up there, and to me while Vegas has good food - does not hold a candle to these 3 areas. Those being Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. Sorry, but those 3 places definitely beat Vegas individually on food. I've had the non fancy food in Vegas - it's good, but it would be fairly average if it were in one of the 3 areas just mentioned.
With Chicago, it's a crime what the media does food wise because they make you think the only things to eat there are pizza, hot dogs, italian beef, steak, or fine dining. It's rather insane and to me a crime considering there's so much good food in the city of all types. Even guys like Anthony Bourdain were just pedestrian in their knowledge of the city's food scene. In his last episode featuring Chicago, he goes to Chinatown and says it's basically his first time there and he had "no idea." Even though Chinatown is right near downtown, and there's over 20,000 people born in China living there and a few neighborhoods adjacent to it today (Bridgeport, McKinley Park, etc). If you include downtown which is adjacent to Chinatown, there's over 30,000 people living in this area born in China, yet someone as lauded as Bourdain "had no idea" because they don't bother to get past their 25+ year old stereotypes. Chicago area has about the same amount of people born in Mexico as the Houston area, yet he couldn't even feature that ever. It has the highest population of Polish born people - couldn't feature that. One of the highest Iraqi born populations of any area - nope couldn't feature that either. The list goes on. This is how the media is and to me it's a crime considering how much good food there is all over the city. Unfortunately people just think it's all about italian beef, pizza, and hot dogs. Like the rest of the city, peoples' perceptions are at least 25 years out of date.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Seattle - Dungeness crab, halibut and lots of excellent Alaskan catch, smoked salmon eggs benedict for breakfast, and the best city for Thai food.
Boston - always craving lobster rolls, North End Italian, clams, scallops, Wellfleet oysters, and I prefer Chinese food here for some reason.
Montreal - Dining here feels like an event, Au Pied Cochon is amazing, the table next to me had a roasted pigs head with stuffed with a lobster. I had fois gras for first time, they do it well. Good city for after bar food (poutine), and it has a creative and fun culinary scene.
Albuquerque/Santa Fe - The border states do Mexican food best, but New Mexico's variation is my favorite. I love breakfast burritos with green chile, huevos racnheros with red chile, carne adovada, sopapillas. I'm going to miss the chile when I leave here. I wish it would catch on more elsewhere.
NYC - Chinese food in Flushing, Brooklyn for pizza or anything really. I've been leaning more towards dining out in the outer boroughs on more recent visits. It's full of endless new discovery and has anything your heart desires in terms of food. You can even get New Mexican green chile in Brooklyn, that's what's up!
Going to New Orleans for the first time next month, and it just might bump one out of the top five for me, we'll see.
Honorable mentions..
Baltimore - Crabcakes, there's Maryland crab cakes, and then t here's just whatever everywhere else. Maryland is the only place to have the real deal.
San Francisco - for Chinese food and Dungeness crab (I love me some crab).
Portland - I love Pok Pok (Thai food) and great food trucks.
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 01-19-2019 at 07:18 PM..
Surprised nobody said Vegas. I always eat amazingly whenever I go to Vegas.
Miami is another really good one especially if you like Latin food but also doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of mentions.
New York is an obvious one. I feel very lucky to live here. I’m always exploring and eating all over the boroughs but IMO no place I’ve ever been in any other city compares to the street food scene in Queens, especially underneath the 7 train. I know nobody thinks of that when they think of NYC food scene but that is home for me... also hidden hole-in-the-wall places — bonus points if you need to use a language other than English.
Nowhere else in The US or Canada really stands out to me like these 3 — at least so far.
I have yet to go to Mexico City, New Orleans, or Montreal — I feel I need to put that disclaimer there. I expect those to be above and beyond when I eventually visit them. Mexico City is likely happening relatively soon for me so maybe I’ll have to come back and update/confirm.
That's because you can get better Latin food in NYC and LA, and other cities on the continent can also rival Miami. Outside Latin food, Miami's food scene is pretty subpar not gonna lie, as in it's good but it's not in the same league as the NYC, CHI, MTL, TO, LA group (I'll add N.O, Philly and BOS as well).
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