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NYC- Availability f everything at every price. Just a great place to be hungry. It's almost exciting to get hungry in NYC.
Philadelphia- never had a bad eat here. Food is good and portions are always right lol.
Las Vegas- Really impressed when I've been. It's pretty important to your time in vegas and it doesn't disappoint. I enjoy the steakhouses.
Chicago- Just going off rep.
New Orleans- Everyone just loves the food they eat there. Its just a food city, that's a big attraction to NOLA like almost
nowhere else
ABOVE AVERAGE:
Boston- Could be excellent if it had happy hour, later hours, and lower prices. Underrated is the Caribbean/Southern. Caribbean/African, West African/Southeast Asian fusions that are becoming increasingly popular in the local neighborhoods. As well as a rapid expansion of crab houses,
Washington DC- The predominance of carryout in tons of areas drags it down. A lot of the food *and the carryout food in particular) in the hood is nasty Otherwise a very good food city.
Atlanta- going off rep
Miami - Signature type of cuisine, looks good, great seaside setting, good variety.. Didn't eat anywhere nicelocal when Ive been..
Los Angeles- Fast Food culture drags it down. And enough with the Donuts and Nashville Hot Chicken.
Detroit- I've heard a fewpeople say really good things. Detroit pizza is bomb.
Houston- Variety and affordability
Kansas City- BBQ
AVERAGE:
Denver-Good Food some bright spots.
Nashville- People from Nashville in Boston that I know are impressed by Boston, so Nashville must be a tier below
Dallas- Had a taco there late night, underwhelmed
BELOW AVERAGE:
Jacksonville- Ate there once on my way to Miami. Whack.
Orlando- Cant remember a sing meal and I've spent a total of 2 weeks there. Only in the suburbs though.
Hey - weren't you planning to move to Vegas or Sacramento? I see your city listed as Baltimore - Did that not happen because of the pandemic? I ask because I'm now considering a move to Vegas myself (decided against Texas or Florida) and I'm curious about people's experiences who recently moved there.
This article expands on what I was saying earlier about the diversity of New Orleans cuisine. If you really get to know the place you will realize how much more there is to New Orleans.
Above Average: Atlanta, Cleveland, St Louis, Minneapolis, Dallas, Austin, Denver, Honolulu, Las Vegas, New Orleans
Average: Nashville, Columbus, Orlando, Tampa, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego
Below Average: Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Kansas City, San Antonio
There are 5 metrics I know of to rank food cities:
1) ethnic diverse offerings
2) fine dining
3) regional cuisine
4) innovation
5) affordable eats
Sounds as good as any to me. I assume that on metrics 2 and 5, you mean that for a top ("exceptional") rating, you would find both outstanding white-tablecloth fine dining establishments and fantastic cheap eats in the area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boston Shudra
If New Orleans isn’t Cajun, then where is?
You got a good answer from atadytic19 on the distinction between Creole and Cajun, and my short answer to your question would have been "Lafayette and Lake Charles," but I'd like to opine that I think atadytic19 underplayed the African influence on Creole cuisine.
It struck me that someone who's Creole not only has European ancestry but also some African or Native ancestry.
And one of the signature Creole dishes — gumbo — takes its name from the Bantu word for the vegetable that's central to it, okra, which came here from there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elchevere
It’s fairly hard to miss good food in Miami, but where it falls short is on the “popular price”/more affordable end (I wish it had some of the healthier chains found out West, such as Tender Greens, Pick up Stix and Daphnes Greek Cafe). Even good Asian—which one would think Miami does not have but does—is quite good, though the good places are geared towards higher price points. I eat out every meal (haven’t cooked since 1986) and Miami dining does get expensive.
One of the best cheap meals I've ever eaten came from a Cuban buffet at 57th and Flagler streets in Miami. (I think its name translates to "The Palace of Juices.") I would never have found this place on my own; I was fortunate to have a fellow Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus member who had lived in Miami along for our trip to the 2008 GALA Choruses Festival, and he took a bunch of us from several choruses to this place.
The funny thing is, much of the traveling I've done was to visit relatives and friends, and as a result, I have done a good bit less dining out than a typical traveler probably would have except in New York, where even the locals eat out a lot. I'll wager that fact is one of the reasons why New York's food and dining scene outranks every other in the country. As with so much else, it sits in a class by itself.
Having taken care of NYC, I'll now take a stab at the cities where I have eaten at least one meal out:
Exceptional: Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington DC.
Some notes on these:
The Chicago hot dog is one of those items that belong in the Cheap Eats/Street Food Pantheon.
Ditto the Philadelphia cheesesteak.
The best barbecue I've had outside my hometown of Kansas City was at a place in Houston's Montrose section. Something notable about Texas barbecue, which — unique among American barbecue styles — originated with the Germans who settled in the central part of the state, is that sausages figure prominently in it. That's the German influence at work, and none of the other major US barbecue styles feature sausages at all, or at least not to my knowledge.
Speaking of Houston, that's a city where I want to go back and dine out more. I was there for a family reunion, so the family fed me for most of the time I was there. But the couple of meals I did have at restaurants were first-rate. The city strikes me as not only very diverse but unusual in the way the various groups mix with one another, and I consider it very underrated. If only it weren't a drive-everywhere place with freeways full of Mario Andretti wannabes.
One thing that frosts me about many pricey restaurants is that they serve artfully presented food in tiny portions. The meal I had in one of Seattle's better fine-dining restaurants, however, not only tasted great and looked lovely but left me feeling sated afterwards. And Seattle is home to the only public market in the country that puts the Reading Terminal Market to shame, Pike Place Market, where Starbucks was first unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
The Washington food scene gets some of its pizzazz from Philadelphians who have established outposts there (Stephen Starr's Le Diplomat, e.g.) or locals who recall that city and its food fondly (there's a chain of sandwich shops — I ate at its location on H Street NE*— where all the sandwiches are named for Philadelphia locations: Rittenhouse Square, Spruce Street, South Street, Bryn Mawr, and so on.) I should add that those who now rate Washington a level or two below this should come back in ten years or so. I've lived in Philadelphia for almost 40 years and can tell you that its amazing food scene now emerged over the last 25 years or so.
Above average: Boston, Kansas City, LA, Miami, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco.
Some notes on these:
Miami gets dinged for overpriced drinks. I didn't really sample the fine-dining scene there either.
San Francisco gets dinged for the not-all-that-hot quality of the cheap eats I had there. (One place I ventured into in Berkeley claimed to serve hoagies, but its definition of "hoagie" comports with no hoagie I've ever eaten in its home.) OTOH, one of the best fine-dining meals I've had anywhere was at a restaurant in Emeryville — which is in the East Bay.
Kansas City's reputation for BBQ overshadows the rest of its dining scene, which has more ethnic variety than I think outsiders think it has or most of its Central Plains neighbors have. And it was home to what I believe is one of the first, if not the first, fine-dining restaurants to showcase American regional cuisine, The American Restaurant in Crown Center. (It now operates as a function hall. It won a James Beard Award for its trend-setting style as well.)
I've had lots of good food in St. Louis but have yet to have St. Louis-style pizza with Provel cheese.
Given what I said about Pike Place above, I should at least give props to LA's Farmers Market for variety and quality.
New Orleans may be the best example in the country of a place that does one thing so well it elevates the entire food scene to the top ranks. Those who ding it for lack of diversity are IMO right in their assessment, but what it does have is consistently superlative, no matter where it is you're eating. And also IMO, our fast-food options have been made much better by New Orleans' contribution to the category, Popeyes.
Average: Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas.
No notes here except to say that I had a much better time in Columbus than I thought I was going to have overall; on the whole, my rating of its food scene aside, that city is also underrated.
Put me in the camp that also would rank Louisville Above Average, and Providence ditto. Providence may be the best of the "punches well above its weight" cities, or maybe tied with Kansas City for that honor.
I would also give Pittsburgh an Honorable Mention for one of the most distinctive local cheap-eats creations around, the Primianti Bros. sandwich.
And for all the times I've driven through Indianapolis, I have yet to stop to eat there.
Exceptional: NYC is pretty obvious. SF is now so freakin' wealthy that it comes close for fine dining. LA is right up there too and has the whole Asian/fusion thing. New Orleans because it's a foodie destination.
Above Average: DC. Chicago.
Average: Boston & Philly. Both vastly improved from below average
I haven't been to Seattle or Houston recently enough to comment.
My perspective is European travel. Generally, the dining scene in all US cities is below average.
Exceptional: NYC is pretty obvious. SF is now so freakin' wealthy that it comes close for fine dining. LA is right up there too and has the whole Asian/fusion thing. New Orleans because it's a foodie destination.
Above Average: DC. Chicago.
Average: Boston & Philly. Both vastly improved from below average
I haven't been to Seattle or Houston recently enough to comment.
My perspective is European travel. Generally, the dining scene in all US cities is below average.
See, a lot of young people.. like myself… could hardly care about michellin star restaurants. Europe excels in casual dining, cafes and regional foods. We make up the vast majority of foodies on instagram and other platforms and only highlight the things you cannot get in other cities. New York has a lot of that and thats why it wins. Not because a french chef briught over a $90 plate and will serve it on Thursday evenings… Thats what makes Europe so great, as I sit in a Madrid Suburb at a cafe serving ‘un cafe y desayuno’ (coffee and breakfast) on actual china.
New York is #1 because the value is there. Dollar slices, bagels, halal trucks, different options of any food you want, $6 authentic empanadas, bodegas, etc. compared to a city like Boston, which has corporate taste.. it doesnt compare. If it makes you feel special to dine at a michellin restaurant, they have that too. But the value for quality is there.
You are contradicting yourself. Europe is the exact opposite of what you are describing it to be…
Exceptional: NYC is pretty obvious. SF is now so freakin' wealthy that it comes close for fine dining. LA is right up there too and has the whole Asian/fusion thing. New Orleans because it's a foodie destination.
Above Average: DC. Chicago.
Average: Boston & Philly. Both vastly improved from below average
I haven't been to Seattle or Houston recently enough to comment.
My perspective is European travel. Generally, the dining scene in all US cities is below average.
I think the question was about food and dining, not just dining.
That would take into account the carryout meal, the corner food cart or truck, the coffee house and the farmers' market.
It seems to me that your own experiences tilt upscale. A lot of the people here, including me, are also throwing the downmarket stuff into the mix as well. (The Chicago hot dog, e.g.)
Now, to be fair, a lot of us, including me, have yet to visit Europe. The vast size of this country means that you can take in a lot of variety without venturing beyond its borders, and save for Canada and Mexico, venturing beyond its borders requires crossing an ocean, a somewhat costly proposition for many.
But I'd be interested in hearing your assessment of street food and cheap eats in most European cities.
Apropos of nothing, Guide Michelin doesn't survey enough US cities yet to be really useful in assessing their dining scenes. The best we have in that department is the crowdsourced Zagat Survey, the Mobil Travel Guide having bit the dust long ago. AAA doesn't really compete when it comes to dining and food.
Location: Miami (prev. NY, Atlanta, SF, OC and San Diego)
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We have an outpost of DC’s Michelin rated Fiola here in Miami that is quite good. I see you have added El Cielo; I haven’t eaten at the one in Miami but really enjoyed the original in Medellin….we also have another DC restaurant outpost, Sette Osteria, not Michelin rated but good.
Hey - weren't you planning to move to Vegas or Sacramento? I see your city listed as Baltimore - Did that not happen because of the pandemic? I ask because I'm now considering a move to Vegas myself (decided against Texas or Florida) and I'm curious about people's experiences who recently moved there.
Personal issues. Wish I could be out in Vegas. Couldn't make the move, came very close.
NYC >>> Chicago > SF > LA >>> Houston > Seattle >> Boston >>> Dallas >>> Denver
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