Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Right now I'm chowing down on one of my leftover tacos from lunch today. Super tender carne asada, covered in onions, cilantro, an avocado salsa verde, and a vinegary chipotle sauce, all wrapped in a soft corn tortilla with a charred jalapeno and spring onion on the side. $1.69 a piece! With all you can eat chips and four different kinds of homemade salsa. (their other location comes with three extra kinds of salsa, and free cheese dip..same price!) And yeah, I ate so many chips that by the time the tacos came, I kind of could only eat one of them. Shame on me.
But for three tacos a piece, plus the veritable cornucopia of sides, it was only $10 before tip for my husband and I (we both ended up taking half of it home). And if he had been in the mood, we could have gotten his regular half gallon of horchata for only $1.50 more!
Where I live, we have a lot of great hole in the wall restaurants. Just the other day, my friend and I went to the sketchy little pho shop that I go to everytime we venture to the run down asian strip mall. An appetizer of bean curd rolls (which ended up being a huge sub with bean paste, shrimp cake, and a sweet and sour veggie slaw that I had to make my friend take half of) big fresh veggie salad with spiced chicken skewers, peanut and hoisin sauce, plus a big bowl of light and fragrant vegetable soup that came with the meal set me back $7. She got a papaya bubble tea shake, sweetly spiced pork chops (I swear there had to be four of them), with rice, vegetable salad, and a crispy fried egg for the same price. All of this while watching the travel channel shows about exotic foods that they always keep on the big screen tv in the back.
I don't go to big name restaurants anymore, unless of course I'm really in the mood to go out and the ethnic sections have closed for the day. With such a large ethnic population in our city, as long as you don't mind being the only english-speaking person in a place, you can eat amazingly well. Panaderias, taquerias, dim sum counters, banh mi shops, hong kong bbq stalls, pho houses, pizzerias, kabob houses, pupuserias...it's all here. You just have to trek to the not quite trendy sides of town, and not mind eating with all the construction workers.
So what about you guys? Any wonderfully tempting authentic, hole in the wall, restaurant inspectors might not even bother with this place sort of restaurants around you? Or am I the only one that gets excited when they don't even bother putting their menu in english (or listing the most recent inspection)?
Thought you might be interested in North Plainfield, New Jersey’s best-kept secret. It’s called Nanny’s Kitchen.
Even though it’s located in a small strip mall on Route 22 east, it has the quaint, homey feel of one of those eateries you’d expect to find along a country road or in a small, sleepy old town. You know, the ones where you walk in the door and you immediately feel like you’ve stepped back in time.
Decorated like an old-fashioned kitchen, it’s a place where everyone is friendly. So friendly that if you go more than once, they’ll actually start greeting you by name.
As for the food, they serve good old-fashioned home cooked breakfasts and lunches. One day you could find sausage gravy and biscuits. The next might be toasted coconut and white chocolate chip pancakes. Tomorrow I’m going to try the barbecued beef brisket.
Of course, even though Nanny’s offers good old-fashioned meals, she recently started a website (although it goes down a lot). She’s also on Facebook and you can even follow her on Twitter at Twitter/nannyskitch.
There are so many taquerias here and they are almost all great. In SA, if you get a cloth napkin at a Mexican restuarant, you are in the wrong place. There is one down just the road from my place attached to an old ground level motel, the building is at least 60 years old and looks it! Also good is the late night gorditas truck that parks at the convenience store across the street.
Years ago, I used to go to a small Mexican seafood place with plastic tablecloths and foam plates that was fantastic! It became very popular and later moved and became an expensive fine dining place. I'm happy to have known it "back then"
Years ago, I used to go to a small Mexican seafood place with plastic tablecloths and foam plates that was fantastic! It became very popular and later moved and became an expensive fine dining place. I'm happy to have known it "back then"
Seafood is the one thing I'm terrified of at small restaurants. It always seems like the mom and pops are getting docked major inspection points for storing seafood underneath dripping raw meat.
Seafood is the one thing I'm terrified of at small restaurants. It always seems like the mom and pops are getting docked major inspection points for storing seafood underneath dripping raw meat.
Maybe I'll give it a shot..heck, you lived, lol.
LOL! That place was an exception to the rule, the quality was always great. I usually avoid hole in the wall seafood places unless they are attatched to a fish market. Proceed with caution!
We just tried a place for lunch that was hanging flyers at our apartment complex... $5.99 16" pepperoni pizza, and the rest of the menu was cheap and yummy looking. So we stopped by, ordered a pizza, saw them make it fresh, and it was the most delicious, greasy, yummy pie I've had in a good long while. The dough and sauce were perfect..and stretchy cheese!Took two napkins to soak up the grease for me. Free garlic knots too!
I think all Italian food should come from a sketchy little place, with the requisite fat italian statuette that holds the mints, menus, and toothpicks.
Oh! I love holes in the wall! My favorite is Maple Garden in Eugene, OR. It is a Chinese place, not exactly authentic, but soooo good! It is off of this little side street in a location that used to be a mexican restaurant and still has the red and green tiles with peppers on them all over the walls. The tables and chairs are of the folding variety. Even for a college town, you would not walk into this restaurant and think "I bet the food is great!" But it is absoultely incredible. And I've had a lot of Chinese food.
There was a fantastic, tiny little Mexican place that opened up in another (much smaller) town I lived in in Oregon. Everything was from scratch. They were also extremely inexpensive, and even had a drive through, so I can't figure out why they weren't popular, but hardly anyone went there. Maybe it was because they were across the street from a Arby's/KFC. But they went out after about a year and a half. I was very disappointed. This is why whenever I find a yummy hole in the wall place, I try to go there often and tell everyone else to go there too! Unfortunately small obscure restaurants often fall to larger competetors.
One of my favorite places here in the Mahoning Valley is a place called Papa's. They have great Puerto Rican food and the best NY Style slice in the area.
You can get bbq&rice<veg for 2.50 hester&crystie st cinatown nyc
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
