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NYC comes to mind first because it checks all the boxes from Fine dining all the way down to hole in the walls.
With that said, basically every major city in the US and Canada has most International cuisines covered. Some have more of certain kinds than others, and the quality can be argued. But for variety it is tough to find a big city that does not have the worlds major and even obscured cuisines covered.
No way! Maybe its because I love Italian food (I am Italian after all)...beef sandwiches, cheese Fry's, pizza, best burgers, hell the best Mexican I had was in Chicago. I wouldn't buy the whole Cali has better food...even NYC. I prefer Chicago style pizza and as far as other foods I think both have a great variety and offer great quality places. I'm talking larger places (palermo's, Portillos, Giordano's, als beef, white castles etc) to smaller local places (Anthony's pizza, Freddie's, paps, and so on).
So basically you're going off preference, I thought this thread was about variety
So basically you're going off preference, I thought this thread was about variety
You can find pretty much any type of cuisine in Chicago and the area. Houston has a lot, but it's not as much as Chicago. Anybody who thinks Chicago only serves a bunch of hot dogs, pizzas, steaks, italian beef, etc knows jack **** about the city's culinary scene. Variety wise you can find pretty much anything you can think of.
You can find pretty much any type of cuisine in Chicago and the area. Houston has a lot, but it's not as much as Chicago. Anybody who thinks Chicago only serves a bunch of hot dogs, pizzas, steaks, italian beef, etc knows jack **** about the city's culinary scene. Variety wise you can find pretty much anything you can think of.
NYC is #1, then after that it's LA and Chicago.
Chicago's Asian offerings are laughable at best, that's why I put SF and Houston above it.
Chicago's Asian offerings are laughable at best, that's why I put SF and Houston above it.
Um, no it's not at all. You clearly don't know what you're talking about. Sizable Chinatown that has also expanded into another neighborhood and is even expanding into another one south of it right now), Little Vietnam (also has other Chinese options), Koreatown (which if you're talking about MSA too, there are other Korean centers in the suburbs) , and Little India/Pakistan too. Not to mention that you can find tons of Sushi/Japanese and Thai (and increasingly Korean) in the gentrified neighborhoods that aren't ethnic neighborhoods.
Um, no it's not at all. You clearly don't know what you're talking about. Sizable Chinatown that has also expanded into another neighborhood and is even expanding into another one south of it right now), Little Vietnam (also has other Chinese options), Koreatown (which if you're talking about MSA too, there are other Korean centers in the suburbs) , and Little India/Pakistan too. Not to mention that you can find tons of Sushi/Japanese and Thai (and increasingly Korean) in the gentrified neighborhoods that aren't ethnic neighborhoods.
Sure I can find similar strip malls with Korean food or Thai, but what separates the men from the boys is competition, and I doubt Chicago has much competition for Asian cuisine
Sure I can find similar strip malls with Korean food or Thai, but what separates the men from the boys is competition, and I doubt Chicago has much competition for Asian cuisine
NYC
LA
SF
Chicago
Houston
Again, you don't know what you're talking about. It has a fair amount of competition for its Asian cuisine. Asian cuisine is very popular in Chicago especially in many of the hip and/or gentrified neighborhoods and also of course in the ethnic neighborhoods themselves.
Also, Asian cuisine is not the watermark for this. It's one aspect of it all. We're talking about overall variety. There are other cuisines out there which you could say one city has offerings of that the other doesn't.
I've lived in both and was just in Chicago as recent as this morning and will be back in a few days. They are comparable at the very least, Houston has the larger Latin American population (both Mexican and non-Mexican) and has a higher Asian percentage and isn't far off in raw numbers in the least (and is growing faster too both in raw numbers and percentage). It has a 3 square mile Koreatown, another Koreatown (albeit smaller in Memorial City), a Downtown Chinatown (albeit small), a 6 square mile suburban Chinatown, a Mahatma Gandhi District (off Hillcroft), the entire Eastside of the Inner Loop is one big Mexican neighborhood/enclave (35 square miles), Nigerian corridor (runs a few miles) on South Gessner, 2 square mile Salvadoran corridor (West Belt), Pakistani enclave on Wilcrest, then another Pakistani enclave off Harwin, then an Arab corridor that runs 7 miles on Richmond between the Beltway and the Inner Loop, an International District (in West Belt), Mediterranean corridor on Westheimer between the Beltway and Inner Loop (albeit sporadically assembled but long and large), a Little Saigon in Midtown, then a bigger Little Saigon in Westchase (5 square miles), Guatemalan corridor on South Beltway, Sugar Land's Chinatown (at Austin Parkway and Dulles, albeit small), so on.
These ethnic eats, if you don't want to go to an ethnic enclave or corridor, no issue, the city also has them scattered everywhere too. So it has that feature as well.
Those are some basic intstructions for ethnic foods, in these corridors/districts one can find ample food trucks, religious institutions/temples/prayer halls, restaurants, grocery stores, so on.
For regional/local/statewide food there are several corridors for Tex-Mex, Soul food, Creole (in La Porte, La Marque, Galveston, Baytown), Cajun (coastal Brazoria, Harris, Galveston, Chambers, and landlocked Fort Bend counties), and East Texas Barbeque (spicier by a mile than the other three types of Texas barbeque's with different menu options).
Chicago has a lot too but it's beyond laughable to insinuate that they aren't at the very least comparable, in my opinion.
I consider myself a food snob, two of my favorite food cities, I know both their scenes real good.
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