Better Food City: Houston or San Francisco? (beautiful, expensive, south)
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I like this match up because they are both very well rounded. They both win in certain categories but generally, the other is solid on the category for everything. SF wins for fine dining and Asian but Houston is solid for both (and probably best for Asian food in the southern US)
Those saying there isn’t uniquely Houston food, you’re absolutely wrong.
While Texas BBQ is a statewide thing, there’s very different styles of Texas BBQ throughout the state. Including Houston specific styles.
Among those evolved a current trend of the “stuffed Turkey legs” which is now popular in general especially among the African American community throughout Texas.
Texas style kolaches were popularized in HOU. If you see a Shipley Donuts enter your town (they’re expanding nationally), I recommend trying one there. I see they’re opening in Baltimore and Denver.
By the way, in the Chicago thread, the food styles generally have “Chicago-style” in the name. But for the most part, this isn’t reflected in SF. Just like in Texas, the California brand sells well so things usually get named after the state.
If anything, the Texas branding helps, not hurts Houston. Incase you forgot, Houston happens to be in Texas. Craziest logic I hear. I have yet to hear someone visiting Houston not ask for a good BBQ place. Never did it occur in their mind that the BBQ is Texas so it wasn’t the place to be. Only on this website do some people spill that logic
Houston is fairly weak in Italian and European food in general. This is another area where there might be parity or the Bay Area could even win.
My experience with west coast Italian food is overly-fancy, overly-priced, while not getting some basic fundamentals right.
San Diego and L.A. can hold their own with pizza, but Italian food in general, since its a minority cuisine out here, seems to get treated like too big of a production with subpar quality.
TLDR-a hole in the wall in Youngstown, OH is probably beating the big expensive west coast Italian joints for basic fundamentals and quality.
Houston is mid-east, so I would expect the eastern/midwestern influences to rub off on them.
I am a native of San Francisco so most would think I would automatically pick SF over Houston in this poll. Nope.
San Francisco's food scene is rich and varied, rooted in the history of people that have moved to the city from all corners of the globe. However, in recent decades the city has taken on a much more upscale big money feel from all of the new wealth created in the tech sector. Being able to afford and enjoy a lot of the food scene in SF is out of reach to a lot of people due to how much it costs to eat at many restaurants there.
I have only visited Houston a few times, but enough to get a "taste" of the city (pun intended). My general impression is Houston doesn't take second place to SF on the variety of foods available - in fact I give it the edge because it seems like it is more affordable to the majority of the people than what is available in San Francisco.
I assumed that this is just city limits and still voted SF. Both cities have great options, but I find too many of the options in Houston to be underwhelming. If only looking at restaurants which I find to be above average or higher, I think that SF probably has more and certainly has more by percentage. I don't give houston extra points for having more average or even below average restaurants.
I assumed that this is just city limits and still voted SF. Both cities have great options, but I find too many of the options in Houston to be underwhelming. If only looking at restaurants which I find to be above average or higher, I think that SF probably has more and certainly has more by percentage. I don't give houston extra points for having more average or even below average restaurants.
and just to add on to this, you really can eat well in SF at any price level, any budget level, some of the best places i have eaten at here are hole-in-the-wall restaurants that you wouldnt think are that good, but they are amazing.
...Being able to afford and enjoy a lot of the food scene in SF is out of reach to a lot of people due to how much it costs to eat at many restaurants there.
I don't know if you really mean this, or if you are just posting this based on what you've read online, but please google something like 'cheap eats San Francisco', or 'budget dining San Francisco' or 'Meals under $20 in San Francisco' or anything of that effect, and I assure you there are literally COUNTLESS eateries in SF proper that are not only less expensive, but quite good.
Houston is fairly weak in Italian and European food in general. This is another area where there might be parity or the Bay Area could even win.
My experience with Italian has been similar to the poster below for Italian period, not just west coast:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Losfrisco
My experience with west coast Italian food is overly-fancy, overly-priced, while not getting some basic fundamentals right.
Italian food in general in most places in the US have been like that in my experience. You spend enough to where even 18% gratuity is over 50 bucks you kinda expect fundamentals to be there.
People use Tex Mex sometimes as a derogatory term, but meals have been americanized so much in certain genres that in effect we have versions of tex mex in Italian and Chinese cooking.
Don't get me wrong, I love a good tex mex. But don't tell me it's Authentic Mexican cuisine then charge me 3 times as much for the same taste I can get from the cabana.
Good Italian utilizes very basic ingredients to create very complex tastes. I have had top notch Italian in NY, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Seattle in the US, but also crqppy Italian in those very cities. In College I spent a summer in London and works visit other cities from there. Apart from London and the Italian cities, Paris, Geneva and Zurich were more consistently good than here.
The point is I would not base my opinion too heavily on Italian in US cities as often you will be paying too much for similar food to Olive Garden and in that case you could have just stayed in your city and eaten at Olive Garden.
I grew up liking Tex Mex version of Chinese but never paying over $12 per person. The first time I had non tex mex Chinese was actuality in Houston. For a grp of 4 the bill was easily over$1000 that made me feel comfortable adding good Chinese to my traveling plans. The thing is though, when the bill is that much my experience in the big metros have always been the same: great!
Certain cities will always be talked about more than their peers for Italian, Chinese, Mexican etc, but part the$$$ and you get the same in less talked about cities such as Philadelphia, Miami, Houston...
Good food cities for me is a place where you stumble into a random hole in the wall and pay less than $100 for 2 and come out with that 'what just happened' smile.
All major cities will have good [...]
So limiting it to the best this food or that food doesn't fit my style.
I like New Orleans, for example, because their food taste good no matter what I have tried.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
I assumed that this is just city limits
I think most use metro for discussions here. I wouldn't assume anything to be by city on here.
and about the Italian thing, San Francisco's culinary past owes much of it's history to Italian immigrants that settled what is now North Beach, and there are many great Italian restaurants in SF today, in fact, Cioppino, a delicious seafood stew was invented in San Francisco by Italian immigrants back in the 1800s, and is a very popular local dish today.
Also, remember within the Bay Area's suburban belt is the most famous wine growing region outside of France and Italy---the Napa/Sonoma Valley is a food and wine mecca. People fly in from all over the world just to get on a charter bus at SFO and be driven for an hour north so they spend days eating and drinking, meandering around beautiful wineries...it's like a bucket list thing for lots of folks. Pound for pound, I can't think of anywhere in the US that has food as good as the Wine Country-not NY, not SF, nowhere---and that entire culture is intertwined with SF, and the rest of the Bay Area has benefited from that.
So I really don't think the Italian/European question is really a question.
Location: Miami (prev. NY, Atlanta, SF, OC and San Diego)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
and about the Italian thing, San Francisco's culinary past owes much of it's history to Italian immigrants that settled what is now North Beach, and there are many great Italian restaurants in SF today, in fact, Cioppino, a delicious seafood stew was invented in San Francisco by Italian immigrants back in the 1800s, and is a very popular local dish today.
Also, remember within the Bay Area's suburban belt is the most famous wine growing region outside of France and Italy---the Napa/Sonoma Valley is a food and wine mecca. People fly in from all over the world just to get on a charter bus at SFO and be driven for an hour north so they spend days eating and drinking, meandering around beautiful wineries...it's like a bucket list thing for lots of folks. Pound for pound, I can't think of anywhere in the US that has food as good as the Wine Country-not NY, not SF, nowhere---and that entire culture is intertwined with SF, and the rest of the Bay Area has benefited from that.
So I really don't think the Italian/European question is really a question.
But to each his own.
It’s not.
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