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I'm visiting the region you're from, what's your favorite food I should try?
Recommend 3 from your city or region? Probably more interesting than entire country but whatever you prefer.
Edit: Not necessarily traditional. e.g. I've heard Vancouver have some awesome Ramen shops.
When in São Paulo, Brazil, you can try these:
Garapa must be some kind of Paulista thing, never heard of it in Rio.
But give me a Pastel with Caldo de Cana any day! Also, pair lunch with Mineirinho, a hyper local soft drink made from an herb that has no English translation, chapéu-de-couro (lit. “Leather hat”)
ETA: How can you, a Paulistano, not even care to mention Cachorro Quente? The quintessential Brazilian street food!
Hahah, it's hard. I didn't mention Feijoada as well and I love it! Feijoada e Cachorro Quente are more a Brazil thing than São Paulo, I guess. About "garapa", I think it's just a different name for the same drink but not sure.
Pão de queijo would like a word...
Gimme a dozen pães de queijo and some caldo de cana pressed on the spot and I'm good.... until I pass the next food stand and buy some pastéis and a can of guaraná.
One thing that I haven't really seen much outside of Brazil are rodizio-style restaurants. Like in America there are a few Brazilian steakhouses that do it, but I've never seen a pizzeria like they have in Brazil.
For those who have never been to one: imagine a buffet where you pay a single price to get in and then eat all you want, but instead of you going to get more each time you want, you just wait at your table and whenever something comes out of the kitchen a waiter brings it by your table and asks if you want some. So like all these different pizzas coming out and you just say yay or nay and they put it on your plate. Including such
ridiculousincredible pizza toppings like ice cream and nutella.I always thought that style of restaurants would do really well in the US but for some reason only the high-end steakhouses have come over.
Smoked Brisket - Everywhere has BBQ of some sort, Texas does whole brisket (and beef in general) in its own way. It really is something amazing and I'm reminded that I take it for granted when people not from Texas have it. I've smoked meat for Indian immigrant coworkers (not beef, obviously), I get specific requests for get togethers, I've watched my NYC born boss have a near-religious experience at an above-average BBQ spot.
Tex-Mex - Not as good as Mexican food, but is unique here and worth trying. I still prefer Mexican food, but get a craving for Tex-Mex from time to time. Mexican food is also amazing here (and something I'm going to miss when I move) as Texas has as many Hispanic (primarily Mexican heritage) people as it does White people.
Kolach - Go to West, TX, get kolache. We have a strong history of Czech immigrants and we are very thankful for them. In Texas you do not go to get kolache without asking nearly everyone you know if they'd like you to bring some back for them.
under the sub-heading of TX BBQ, I'd add - grab the latest Texas Monthly BBQ rankings and read through the top 10. There's 2 groups typically well represented on that list - traditional and 'new school'. Traditional joints use a super simple century+ old recipe for brisket: Salt+pepper+smoke+time, and it's so much more than the sum of its parts. If you eat red meat, traditional TX BBQ brisket from a top 10 joint should be on your life bucket list. Seriously. New school joints often leverage the traditional but quickly branch out into fusions w/other cultures and ingredients that traditionalists have a hard time wrapping their brains around but produce remarkable results. Hit up one of the high ranking traditional joints to get a baseline for TX BBQ's history (and to check it off your bucket list) and then go crazy on all the new school stuff that piques your interest.
Good points all around. I enjoy both genres of Texas BBQ and agree.
I will add that there's a "culture" with BBQ of getting there early and waiting hours in line. Fans consider this part of the experience, like camping out for concert tickets back in the day. I do not do this, I refuse to do this. As a result, if a joint gets top rated by Texas Monthly that I haven't tried yet, I give it a year or more before going to check it out. I value my time more than I value BBQ (and my brisket has been better than many a top rated place) and it is common for people to have to get in line at 5-6am (or earlier in some cases) to be able to get BBQ from the top rated places when they typically open at 11am.
Many places will let you pre-order and just show up to pick it up without the line, but in order to make it worth their time you'll often have to order in large quantities to be able to do so. For example Franklin's BBQ (considered the best traditional BBQ) has a 5lb minimum order for pre-order pickup, brisket prices today makes that $184; that minimum and price are pretty standard around here.
I haven't been to Texas, but I'm Czech and I can say that koláč (pl. koláče; I actually like how you cope with the č letter) is the food you should really get when you go to Czech Republic (or West, TX).
That’s a pretty good list for Texas - I’ll second it. I personally prefer Tex-Mex to Mexican, but I do like both. Brisket Tacos or Quesadillas with a good salsa AND a good BBQ sauce are about my favorite food in the world.
There's a Texas BBQ place in London that does lamb shoulder (in addition to brisket, ribs, pork shoulder, etc). I had it a few weeks ago just because I think the number of places in the world you can get Texas style BBQ lamb has got to be in the single digits world wide.
Maybe a little bit more than that. I'm aware of at least two places in Texas that do Texas-style lamb (both owned by immigrants that came to Texas) and that's without actively looking for them.
If you're visiting Scotland I'd highly suggest you try,
Haggis, Neeps and Tatties - It's our national dish for a reason, it's delicious! I get that haggis can seem a bit gross but when it's done well it's a very warming, filling, stodgy, cosy dish, especially when it's served with a whisky sauce. The neeps and tatties are of course, mashed turnips and potatoes, beautiful!
Full Scottish Breakfast - Nothing starts your day better than a full Scottish, normally a huge plate full of square sausage, bacon, tattie scone, Stornoway black pudding, fried bread, baked beans, fried tomato and maybe some mushrooms, haggis or maybe even a fruit pudding (which is like black pudding but instead of blood it's filled with currants and raisins).
Fish and Chips - I'd genuinely say avoid getting it at a nice restaurant, go to a good fish and chip shop (it's like the original fast food in the UK), quick, greasy, unhealthy but bloody hell is it good with lashings of salt, vinegar and if you're in certain areas of the Central Belt, chippy brown sauce which is a brown sauce made of molasses, brown sugar, apples, vinegar and tamarind diluted even more with vinegar to make it super tart and tangy).
[Aberdeen Butteries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttery_(bread\)) - Sometimes known as a Rowie, the buttery is a savoury bread roll made with flour, sugar, salt, yeast and a metric fuck ton of butter. These things are amazing at breakfast alongside a cup of coffee or tea. Toast them for a minute or so, any longer and they become volcanically hot due to the butter heating up inside, spread some jam on top and enjoy. A once in a blue moon type of treat because of how unhealthy they are but they're very tasty.
Irn Bru - Our other national drink, one of only a few places in the world where the most popular soft drink isn't Coca-Cola. I'm not a fan of whisky so I can't possibly comment on it but Irn Bru is fantastic. It's hard to place it's taste, somewhere between cream soda and bubble gum, it just tastes like Irn Bru!
Macaroon - Scottish macaroon is in my opinion, the best type of macaroon. It's a confectionary treat made with sugary white fondant (that was traditionally made with mashed potatoes and tons of icing sugar), coated in a thin layer of dark chocolate and covered in roasted dessicated coconut. Very sweet, you can almost feel your teeth melt as you eat it!
[Tablet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_(confectionery\)) - A very simple Scottish confectionary treat made with sugar, condensed milk, butter, and vanilla. It's boiled and taken to the soft-ball stage before then being poured into sheets to crystallise where it's cut into bars of cubes of a crumbly, grainy, hard fudge-like sweet.
Sticky Toffee Pudding - Alright, this one is more of a whole UK thing but it's my favourite dessert, moist date pudding covered in thick, sweet toffee sauce swimming in warm custard, it's the best.
I could genuinely wax lyrical about Scottish food for hours, it's a beautiful thing, simple food made with simple ingredients but my goodness it's always generally like a warm cosy hug that leaves you full and happy.
As a Scot in exile there are only a couple of things I miss: haggis & chips, and the NHS.
I've bought haggis here in California a few times; it's ok though not quite the real thing (even when packed in a sheep's stomach, the ingredients legally permitted here are less than the true haggis) so we sometimes have haggis & neeps & tatties for Burns night, with a dram or two, but not being able to go to the chippie for haggis & chips, well that's sad.
My wife and I honeymooned in Scotland ~7 years ago. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the food; there was plenty that was familiar to my American palate, but the regional differences were very fun! Out of the list you mentioned, I tried a plate of Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties, fish and chips, and Irn Bru. We have plenty of spots where one can order fish and chips in the states (though it's not as ubiquitous as the UK in general), but the other two were totally new to me and I really enjoyed all of it. Would love to make it back to Scotland one day; it's such a beautiful place!
Huh. I would have laid money a Scot would insist visitors try the Chicken Tikka Masala. It's a Scottish invention, after all.
Haha, I toyed with adding it in but my post was already quite long so just left it.
In Quito, Ecuador
If you go in late September to early November you must try Colada Morada. It is a drink made from fermented purple corn flour, various spices (cinnamon, clove, and some local ones as well), and fruits that is made during finados (day of the dead) season. It is the pinnacle of Ecuadorian cuisine.
If you go during March, be sure to try Fanesca. It is a very dense soup made with 12 different types of grains and legumes, bacalao (cured fish although many people skip it), tiny cheese empanadas and fried plantains. It is only made during Easter (get it? Jesus and his 12 apostles ) and it is the centerpieces in what is the equivalent of Thanksgiving for us in that it is the holiday when you eat until you are absolutely stuffed.
Helados de Paila are a local type of fruity sorbet made in huge bronze pans. Highly recommended, especially the more exotic fruits like Ovo, Taxo and Naranjilla. They are originally from Ibarra, but you can find just as good ones in Quito.
Various empanadas. My favorite are Empanadas de Morocho. Deep fried empanadas made from a special type of corn. They are incredibly crispy. The filling is usually meat based with rice and peas. But there's also empanadas de viento (soft airy dough with a cheese filling), de mejido (sweet filling), and verde (made from green plantains).
Tamales/Choclotandas/Humitas. Our version of the tamal. There are so many different types. Corn based, rice based. Served in corn or banana leafs. Savory or sweet. Just try them all.
Soups. There are so many flavors and textures. Though some of them might be harder to find as a tourist. I would recommend Locro, Sancocho, Aji de Carne, Quinoa, Arroz de Cebada, Morocho.
The rest of our cuisine is kind of boring tbh. Lots of pork and potatoes. I'm not a huge fan, but people love seco de chivo/pollo. Because of this it is often served with Ají, a very mild fruit based hot sauce. Pretty much every restaurant/family has their own version of Aji with different fruits and varying spiciness levels. It is an interesting space to explore culinarily.
Coastal and Amazonian food are completely different beasts that I am less familiar with. I will say one thing though, Manabí's cuisine is probably the best in the country. Lots of seafood, coconut, and green plantains.
I remember being in Guayaquil and a friend decided to basically heap ají into his encebollado (an amazing fish stew for those unaware) and regretted it immediately. His European mouth was not prepared for how spicy this particular restaurant made it. Our Ecuadorian hosts were telling him to go easy on it and weren't surprised at his reaction.
Definitely have a soft spot for Ecuadorian cuisine, I occasionally make seco de pollo and bolón de queso/chiccarón, at least as good as I can with the ingredients available here in Europe. Tamales are amazing but too much effort for me to attempt.
I have family friends from Peru and Colada Morada is the bees knees! That tangy corny deliciousness goes so well with just about everything!
Here in Oakland California we have excellent Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants.
We have a wide variety of good food but for me the Ethiopian stands out as not available everywhere
I love the way they spice their peas and lentils and injera is bomb
In Vancouver, any worthwhile cuisine has been imported from somewhere else. That said, as a coastal city we have good sushi and seafood.
That's basically all of Canada outside of Quebec.
Canada actually has some amazing non-imported cuisine.
Bannock is a basic bread, often attributed to natives.
Nanaimo Bars are a very Canadian dessert. I've had a Nanaimo Bar in a bar in Nanaimo.
Beavertails are a great summery dessert, great with powdered sugar and lemon, or any number of other sweet additions.
Persians are a big cinnamon bun style doughnut that I've only ever had around Thunder Bay.
Butter Tarts - love them or hate them, they are another Canadian creation.
Caesars were invented in Canada, and are a huge improvement over Bloody Marys.
Donairs are a Nova Scotian twist on gyros (and another improvement in my opinion).
Hawaiian Pizza is a Canadian "invention".
Poutine is the classic Canadian dish, though that's from Quebec.
Tourtiere is also a quebecois delicacy, a meat pie usually filled with beef or buffalo. Be careful if you have a deadly buffalo allergy, though!
Touton is a fried bread dish from Newfoundland.
Peameal Bacon is often called Canadian Bacon elsewhere, and is another very canadian dish.
That's not even going into things that are geographically Canadian, like Saskatoon Berries (fun fact - they are the namesake of the city, not the other way around), maple syrup, and Caribou meat, or things that were developed in Canada like the Yukon Gold potato (which was actually bred at my alma mater, the University of Guelph).
I know it's pretty Canadian to talk about our lack of actually Canadian things, but we have lots of cool foods that are culturally Canadian and not
importantimported.Edit: that last word typo is amazing.
Everyone needs to have a Nanaimo bar at least once in their life.
shame to leave out the tooth-eating sugar pie
Well, I do know of a handful of Canadian regional specialties. In Nova Scotia, I’d recommend lobster rolls. New Brunswick has mustard pickles. Newfoundland has Jigg’s dinner. And of course Quebec has poutine and smoked meat.
True enough, I did mention Quebec
Indigenous cuisine exists. If you can, take some time to learn about it, there's lots that chefs are doing with traditional ingredients and ways of cooking. Strawberry juice is one of my faves. Any event that has strawberry juice and tradish donuts is aces in my book.
The best food is beer.
I could of course find some popular dishes from the part of Czechia I grew up in, but most of those would in reality be either German (most of the region had a German majority before we violently kicked them out after WW2) or imported from other parts of the Austo-Hungarian empire. I like all of those foods (mostly heavy cream sauces, dumplings, baked meat and broths), but none of those is specific to that region.
However right nearby is one of the best regions for growing hops in the world and beer is ubiquitous in our culture anyway, including the (not very common, more like a stereotype) unhealthy "having a beer when you're hungry", which is especially fun for breakfast.
I know many people don't really appreciate pilsners, but my experience has been that for some reason we really seem to be the only country that is able to brew the actually great ones, to the most of the style's potential. And since almost all of those are unfiltered and unpasteurized (which means shorter shelf life) and usually from small breweries, even the beer that we export is significantly worse. So if you come here, that's what you should seek out and try.
The pilsner thing is because the local ones are the best. Dutch pilsner is the best, for example, and Czech pilsner is a good second.
But that's because I'm from the Netherlands.
Although... Warsteiner pilsner ranks very high.
Thing is every other country I've tried pilsner style beer in was seemingly mostly trying to do the same thing and the decent ones reached similar results to each other and similar results to kind of the Czech average, but none even approached what small breweries can do here. I've never had Dutch pilsners, but I've had local pilsners in France, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Slovakia and Slovaks are the only ones who got close, for obvious reasons (but almost everyone loved and respected Czech beer).
Interestingly this doesn't really apply to modern microbrews, that industry is so globalized it doesn't really matter whether you get a good IPA in the UK or in Poland. For a long time it was impossible to get a good stout outside of the British isles for example, but even that does not really hold nowadays.
I think the reason why it's different with pilsners may be that outside of Czechia and a few of our neighbors they're not that popular among beer snobs (when compared to ales, stouts, nowadays sour beers etc.), so maybe there's not enough incentive to create microbrews focused on one style of pilsner. And achieving excellence with a large brewery that aims at the mass market is always very difficult.
Most countries favour beer over pilsner. The Dutch generally drink pilsners, so the market is more robust. Ordering "a beer" in any place will get you the draught pilsner. None of the countries you mentioned have pilsners as their mainstay drink.
We have multiple good pilsner breweries, but they tend to stay local to the Netherlands. Even Heineken -not my personal favourite- has a different local recipe than they do abroad. Because of this the Dutch pilsner ends up being rather unknown elsewhere.
As an aside, I've been to the Staropramen brewery in Prague, which was nice. Also a decent pilsner.
As a fellow Dutchie, I prefer Grolsch over Heineken any day of the week.
Also was very surprised when I ordered beer overseas and it ended being very crisp and having a light taste.
I liked Brand. Right until they ended up being bought by Heineken. That shouldn't be a problem by itself if it was just distribution, but they actually changed the recipe.
Glad to hear it, I will be sure to try them if I have the chance! Unfortunately the only time I've been to Netherlands was when I was 14 years old, and as a proper well behaving Czech I only started drinking beer after I turned 15.
In specialty Staropramen pubs it can be an okay beer, but generally Staropramen is the prime example of industrialized "eurobeer". If you ever come back be sure to try something else, though it's not always easy in Prague, often the selection is either a eurobeer or an IPA style.
Just generally speaking, nothing overly special:
Tantuni ( Chicken-Onions-Pepper-Oil inside a lavash )
Çiğbörek ( Half circle dough filled with mince )
Çiğköfte ( Spicy bulgur ballls eaten with lettuce )
As for drinks:
Ayran ( Liquid salty yoghurt ) and Şalgam ( Spicy black carrot + red beet juice )
I'm Turkish, but have been living in Japan for the past couple of years.
Your comment just made me homesick and remember my mom's cooking.
It's difficult to get any Turkish food here, and I miss Sucuk the most.
So I'd like to add "Sucuk" (dry, spicy and fermented sausage), "Mantı" (dumplings in garlic yogurt sauce), and "Simit" (sesame seed-coated bread that looks like a bagel but tastes totally different) to this list.
Chicago (Illinois, USA) has a wealth of great restaurants from nearly every sphere you can imagine, but if you're looking for region-specific food, there are a few that can't be missed:
If you're in Chicago, trying the Italian combo (Italian beef with a spicy Italian sausage in the center with giadinara) is a must. Instant meat sweats whenever I have one. It's glorious.
I hope to one day be hungry enough to do that! I have a major soft spot for the molten barely-cheese cheese that Portillo's carries, so for me it's almost always a dog with cheese fries, and I usually end up helping my wife finish her Italian beef. The Maxwell St. Polish is also always a solid choice in my mind. But I'll have to keep the combo in mind next time I go.
Check out Lulu's Hot Dogs in the medical district for a great Italian beef. Don't see it recommended too often but it's a great beef.
San Diego: gotta get a California burrito. Places will vary on ingredients, but the core is:
It’s amazing how much variety you can get from such a simple burrito. I won’t give specific locations because San Diego is huge and I’m sure there are plenty of amazing spots even I’ve never been to. If you’re visiting just spend a little time on Yelp or Google and I’m sure you can find a great burrito. Or better yet ask a local what their favorite spot is! It’s my ultimate comfort food.
Fellow Cali burrito connoisseur here.. if you find yourself in north county the best of the best are found in Encinitas imo. Juanita's, Cotixan, and Rico's taco shop all bring something different to the table (literally!) and they're all very good.
This is exactly my point about the quantity of fantastic burritos; I lived in North County and never went to any of these! I’ll add them to my list!
Awesome! Did you have any favorite spots in the area? I'm always on the hunt for a new place to try
Rudy’s in Solana Beach used to be my favorite but they changed up the recipe and it’s no longer as good. Bull Taco in Cardiff was my other favorite but they’re gone now.
So now when I’m in town I guess I switch off between Roberto’s, Kotija Jr (in Del Mar), and El Indio. El Indio is very much not in North County but it’s worth the drive; they’ve got a ton of good stuff on their menu in addition to their excellent cali burrito.
That's a good call on Rudys I miss that place. I'll definitely check out El indio next time I'm in the city thanks!
If you ever visit near Raleigh, North Carolina, you could try either the eastern or western style BBQ. Not to be confused with the grilling of burgers and hotdogs in your backyard, southern American BBQ is slow cooked meat such as pulled pork or chicken, or even beef/pork ribs. Eastern NC BBQ sauce is thinner and based on vinegar, which gives it a salty, tangy taste compared to the western NC style, which is thick, smoky, based on tomato, and tastes sweeter.
Often, the sides you might choose from will include:
Cole slaw/Collard greens
Hush puppies/Cornbread
Brunswick stew
Mashed potatoes
Biscuits and gravy
Fried okra
Mac and cheese
And of course, don't forget to try the sweet iced tea, as well as some desserts like pecan pie or banana pudding.
I'd say if you go pretty much anywhere in the south you should try whatever their regional version of BBQ is. I haven't really met a BBQ I didn't like something about. I love both versions of NC BBQ, they're both pretty common here in Alabama. As for our own regional specialties, I'd say either BBQ Chicken with White Sauce, or something involving Conecuh sausage, which is a hickory smoked pork sausage, usually spicy although there is a mild version.
You just made me homesick :( Can you ship me a Bojangles plz?
Sadly, you can’t find good versions of these things anymore near Raleigh. The only version worth the trip is now over an hour away.
But they are still in nc. The best are often at church and vfd fundraisers.
Our other great specialty is chocolate chess pie. And in the southern appalachians, our blue- and blackberry jams are second to none.
An interesting note about bbq in nc. There’s a lot of newer, hipper bbq joints, and all the ones I’ve tried suck. They have no soul flavor. Sadly, though, all the old ones are closing, apparently the pit masters can’t find replacements. The opposite is true, however for the chess pie. The new hipster joints are blowing me away, and the old joints versions, when they even still have them, can’t compare.
Finally, if you drink, and you are lucky, you’ll find some good old mountain dew. The appalachians are second to none for our jams and distillations.
My hometown is nothing to write home about. But come to my adopted city of Frankfurt, Germany! There’s a place in Höchst called Zum Bären that makes the most amazing Schweinshaxe I’ve ever had.
It’s roasted and crunchy on the outside, absolutely falling apart inside. Slathered in a delicious brown sauce that’s absolutely to die for. It’s the perfect antidote for anyone who thinks all Europeans only eat healthy.
Washington, DC, people go on about "half smoke" sausages and "jumbo slice" pizza. Nope.
Go 5 miles north to Silver Spring, MD and have Ethiopian. We have one of the (if not the) largest Ethiopian population in their diaspora. And the food is really something different and special. Also, as a vegan, they have a lot of plant-based dishes. It's not all super-spicy but tons of flavor. We love a places called Rehobot. Also, be damn sure to get the lentil sambusas; fried light flaky pastry dough wrapping lentils and hot peppers.
Similar is true for Salvadoran. Enormous immigrant population based around Langley Park, just east of Silver Spring. Salvadoran pupusas (stuffed tortilla) and tortillas are extremely different than what most Americans (at least) think about with tortillas. Tortilla, in this case, is a dense and thicj seared-on-each-side pancake of a ground corn meal. Pupusas are usually stuffed with cheese, beans, squash flower, sometimes meat. My absolute favorites come from a "Tex Mex" (it's really Salvadoran) place called El Golfo. Their vegan pupusas are full of flavor.
In my opinion, Northern French is food is much more working-class than the rest of France. I think it has a lot of similarity with the American food culture:
I realize that most of this could also apply to Belgium. But our cultures are so intertwined between Northern France and Belgium, that it would be hard to have something typically northern French which is not a thing in Belgium.
Others that could have made the list:
The Frikandel is clearly Dutch. So let us join the claim game too!
There's good food but nothing I'd say is a regional specialty. So I'd have to say beer, northern Colorado has a pretty good claim to kickstarting the craft brewing scene. It's very easy to hop on a bike and spend a day tasting beer of every imaginable style.
In Sintra, Portugal you should get the pastries - Travesseiros, Queijadas, Areias, Pratas, etc. There are multiple independent establishments all over town that have been making these for a very long time. It's hard to single out three of them but you can just buy a bunch of different ones in small quantities. (These are arguably bad for your diet, but you need to build up your strength before you hike around the serra.)
There are also many good restaurants in the region serving typical portuguese fare. The fish and seafood should be very good.
If you're in central Washington State take the time in autumn to visit a u-pick orchard and taste some apples picked directly from the tree. Even the freshest produce in supermarkets has spent some time in processing and storage and it just does not compare.
There are hundreds of new varieties with varying levels of sweetness and flavors but even classics like Golden Delicious can taste amazing when fresh from the tree.
Born and living in the Charente-Maritime region of France. I'm not super well educated on food, and I'm not great with the seafood that's common in my coastal hometown.
But... around these parts, there is a thing called a tourteau fromagé. It's a cake, or arguably, a pie usually made with goat cheese, eggs, flour, sugar.
It looks burnt, but that's on purpose : if you open it up, you'll see that only the top dome is burnt while the inside is cream white and very fluffy and soft. The origin of this thing is unclear, but the folk story goes that a cheese maker burned one of the cheese pies she was making and tried to give it to her neighbours, only for them to cut it open and find it was not burnt on the inside, and that the sealed in moisture gave it a unique texture.
Even though it's a cheese pie, it's light, refreshing and delicious. It's often eaten with jam. I once tried it with some maple syrup, though, and it was absolutely exquisite ; hugely recommend it.
You can find this thing in a lot of stores where I live or you could even make it yourself ; it's not expensive to make but I hear it can be finicky to get right since the baking time and temperature has to be very specific. I've been thinking of trying to make it so that I can make some for friends when I'm away from home.
If you ever come to Czech Republic, you should definitely go for svíčková omáčka s knedlíkem (vegetable cream sauce with beef and dumplings), lívanec (kinda like pankake but froum yeast dough, more puffy consistency, often served with cinnamon and sugar), bramborák (how to describe this? fried raw potato pancake? not sweet), jitrnice (cooked and minced pork meat and liver with various spices added put into the thoroughly washed intestine), utopenec (pickled sausage,literal tranlation would be "drowned man"), and many others. You could have a beer (Pilsner Urquell, known in the world as "pils") or Kofola (coke-like non-alcoholic drink) with it. Oh and koláč!
I don't claim al are of Czech origin, but you will easily get them here.
I believe you've forgotten fruit dumplings.
I'm around north/central New Jersey which has some of the best variety of food ever, in my opinion (and I'm pretty well traveled).
When I lived in Boston the things I missed the most were:
Bagels - the bagels everywhere else are garbage and you can't convince me otherwise. Getting a PREC+SPK on your choice of bagel is a must at any half decent bagel place.
Ethnic food (specifically Indian and Korean food, to some extent some Chinese places as well) - I think my hometown does some of the best Indian food outside of India to the point where the town I grew up is world famous to Indian people. Same with Korean food in Palisades Park !
Pizza - kinda obvious from the region itself tbh.
You're missing a few North Jersey specialties:
haha I'll claim ignorance because I'm more of a Central Jersey guy, which I'll also argue is where the Fat Sandwich comes from. (RU Rah Rah!) but yeah there's definitely a lot of choices we have here, I just wanted to keep it down to the three most obvious ones!
Everyone from Philly will be up in arms about the friggin cheesesteaks. Where to get one, what additions to get on it, is it authentic, blah blah blah. Well, I’d suggest otherwise if you head to Philadelphia: a soft pretzel. Specifically the ones from Miller’s Twist in the Redding Terminal Market. You can find a pretty great variety of food in the market anyway, but those pretzels are made right in front of you to a crunchy gooey salty or sweet perfection. The Pennsylvania Dutch know what’s up when it comes to baking.
It’s worth noting that Philadelphians will also get upset by me suggesting this particular place for a Philly soft pretzel, so there’s no winning here.
And if you’re gonna get a cheesesteak, go to D’Alassandro’s. It really is worth it.
I always recall the Hot Ones interview with Alton Brown. He mentioned how when a place thinks it has a lock on some kind of food the quality drops dramatically.
I lived in PDX for a little over a decade, and that spot only seemed to think their donuts were the best ever. But then, as you referenced, they just got crappy and overpriced and none of the locals cared about them anymore. Portland is a weird spot for food, because it has so much variety but not just one specialty. I suppose that’s valuable though.
I hit up Voodoo donuts 15+ years ago and all the toppings were novel and curb appeal was amazing. The donuts were dry and frankly kinda nasty. I've probably been back 4 or 5 times over the years and that initial experience has been consistent. It takes a lot for me to hate on a donut. Wikipedia tells me Voodoo started in 2003. Maybe I missed the boat too, but they've been terribad for a very long time.
I 100% agree with you. Same with Blue Star. Now, Pip’s is another story altogether. You can get a free dozen on your birthday too!
Upstate New York, specially the Greater Rochester Area
Alcohol - Because some of the Finger Lakes Region falls within this area, we have wineries, Dr. Konstantin Frank, Three Brothers and etc. We also have some excellent craft beer breweries (and sometimes they are both a winery and a brewery) like that Three Brothers (Warhorse is their brewery and they do have a cidery which is Bombshell Cider (recommend their Breakfast with Churchill line (stout style beers))), Young Lion (the IPAs have a grapefruit taste to it), Naked Dove (Raspberry Ale is pretty good), Brewery Ardennes (for Belgian Style ales).
Food - Garbage Plate (the Hawaiians have something similar, but I can't think what is called), basically a really greasy, heavy on the carbs, fries, home fries, baked beans and/or mac salad, that is topped with your choice of cheeseburger, hamburger, Italian sausages, steak, chicken, white (a Rochester local specialty of hot dogs) or red hots, and that is smothered in Rochester hot sauce, which is a meat based hot sauce. This was meant to be a hangover food that Nick Tahou Hots had came up with when some drunk college students had stumbled into the restaurant and Nick Tahou was just about to close up for the night, so he just whipped something up (I believe how the story goes). This is a special plate around here, even the Rochester Red Wings had paid homage to the dish by changing their name to the Rochester Plate for a game.
I think that Loco Moco is the Hawaiian dish you're thinking of? It's fantastic, and definitely not good for you except as a rare treat.
Yes that is it. Thanks.
U.S., Michigan, Northwestern Lower Peninsula. I need to get specific here, because Michigan is a big state with multiple metropolitan areas. Though there are common specialties throughout the state, each metro has its own ethnic composition and culinary specialties. Northwestern Michigan, in particular, is a cook's paradise, if not possessing any specific great local cuisine other than Americanised French or Italian "farm-to-table".
The easy ones:
Vernors' ginger ale. Available nationally, but peculiar to Michiganders in that we actually miss it if we can't find it.
"Detroit-style" pizza. Views differ about this. As /u/Shevanel mentioned, you have to like a bread-based casserole because it's a deep-dish style. I personally can't get into it because Mozzarella is the One True Pizza Cheese and Detroit-style uses blander, oilier brick cheese.
Baked goods. Michigan has a love affair with baked goods. Everything from Zingerman's Bakehouse chocolate cherry bread to twice-baked Jewish rye and bagels to paczki (rich Polish doughnuts) to serious French baguettes to baklava to pretzels to laminated dough (croissants, Danish, etc.) to empanadas to injera. Coffeecakes, tortes, elaborate desserts, pies... We bake and generally bake well, regardless of which country the recipe came from.
Pizza is just a subset of baking, and Northern Michigan's best pizza versions are from wood-fired ovens. For local flavor, go for wild mushroom and leek topping. The other local baked specialty, the Cornish pasty, is a big bland-but-filling meat and vegetable hand pie that emphasizes "paste".
Northern Michigan abounds in fresh fruit. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, apples, grapes, plums, and peaches are abundant in season, often heirloom varieties. Road-side farmstands, farmer's markets, and you-pick are the best sources. There's nothing like a fresh ripe strawberry still warm from the sun. Rhubarb, though not technically a fruit, is also abundant and fabulous combined with sweeter fruits. Most local restaurants will feature a very good seasonal fruit pie or galette on the dessert menu. There are other heirloom fruits like currants, gooseberries, pawpaws, aronia, elderberry, serviceberry, etc., but you'll usually find them in locally made preserves. Wildflower or orchard blossom honey, maple syrup, and birch syrup are also local specialties.
We're living on Odawa Anishanaabe land, so locally harvested wild rice is available and amazing - smoky, nutty, chewy and richly flavorful. Best fusion restaurant: La Catrina Mexican Nishinaab, for both kinds of local Indigenous American food.
Deer are overpopulating, but you generally need to hunt or know a hunter to get game meats, due to health regulations. I'll break from vegetarianism for venison. Someone's got to manage the numbers in the absence of wolves.
Lakes and rivers are everywhere here, but only one local fish is worth eating fresh - rainbow trout. Whitefish is touted, but it's nearly flavorless on its own and needs to be smoked. Smoked whitefish paté is a divine accompaniment for...
Wine. If you like French, German, and Austrian noble grape wines, Northern Michigan can be better. In addition to the usual Riesling, Pinot Noir, sparkling, etc., there are very good wines made from unusual or hybrid grapes - Marquette, Blaufränkisch, Auxerrois, Kerner, etc. Local beer, cider, and spirits can be excellent as well. Top contenders:
Bel Lago - Pinot Noir, Auxerrois
Good Harbor Winery - Blanc de Noirs and Labernet
2 Lads Winery - Pinot Noir
Mari Vineyards - Reserve Chardonnay
Left Foot Charley - Blaufränkisch, Blaufränkisch Rosé, Kerner
Bos Winery - All That Is Gold Riesling, Marquette
Amoritas Cellars - Fascinator Dry Muscat
(that's barely scratching the surface...)
Short's Brewing - Bellaire Brown and Humalupalicious
Right Brain Brewing - CEO Stout
Terra Firma Brewery - Soul Butter IPA
Townline Ciders Smart Alec
Ethanology Botanical Gin
Northern Latitudes Distillery Jack Pine Gin
You can't turn around without running into an artisan farm in NW Michigan, and most have their own worthy specialties. House-smoked meats and charcuterie, pickled/fermented vegetables, fruit preserves, fancy hen, duck, and quail eggs, cheeses (including at least two World Cheese Award winners), etc.
I'm going to quit now, but ping me for recs if you're in the area.
Totally piggybacking on this for the Southeast side of Michigan, a lot of the similar bases are covered with Detroit Pizza, fruits, baked goods Vernors, and generic Midwest US cuisine, but there are a lot of immigrant communities around Detroit in particular, including Mediterranean, Chinese, Polish, Italian, Mexican and many more. Lots of factories, lots of hand food, similar to any industry town.
The One True Detroit Pizza is Sicilian-style, sloppy with marinara sauce (e.g. DeLuca's). Brick cheese is an abomination, fight me.
And absolutely, the Detroit metro area has amazing food, speaking as a member of one of the many immigrant waves that washed up there. Best cuisines there now are Nigerian, Lebanese, Mexican, and Ukrainian, but there are some great established Ethiopian, Sichuanese, Indian, Thai, and Brazilian places. Greek, Middle Eastern, and Polish bakeries are still going strong.
No arguments from me. I'm of the mindset that thinner is better as a crust, that might be an Italian thing over a Detroit thing though. Buddy's for life though.
I'm sure it pales in comparison to the real thing, but we have a few Jet's Pizzas scattered about the Chicagoland area and I'm a really big fan. I can only assume Detroit-style pizza in the state is even better - definitely want to give it a try sometime!
Jets is pretty good as far as pizza goes, but as far as authenticity, Little Caesars is probably the most pervasive Detroit style pizza, being a nation wide chain from Detroit that sells gangbusters. Sad, but true.
No way?! It's funny; as a former teacher, I'll forever have a soft spot for the pizza parties that Little Caesars made possible on a budget, but I had no idea about that connection. Sure enough, I see on their site that they also do Detroit-style deep dish. I would have never guessed!
In Copenhagen, I'd recommend smørrebrød (open faced sandwiches) and ofc, pastries. A bun with butter and cheese is the breakfast item of choice here, and if you get one from a nice bakery, they really manage to elevate it. I'd recommend Københavns Bageri for that, but you're kind of awash in great bakery choices.
I would like to add Stegt flæsk med persillesovs
It's the national dish, and very good if you ask me.
I mean, you dig into Danish food, there is so much there. Denmark has such a great and rich food culture. And new danish cuisine is great too. Just come to Denmark for a few weeks and eat around, you won't be sad.
Let me introduce you to alpine gastronomy. We're a bit obsessed with dairy products:
Gruyère is famous for its eponymous cheese, and the dish made of melted said cheese along with some wine -- fondue. There's several type of fondue; the most popular one is the moitié-moitié, made of half gruyère and half vacherin fribourgeois (a somewhat similar hard cheese). The cheese is melted on a stove but served in a ceramic casserole called caquelon that has some heating appendage underneath (alcohol burner, gel burner or sometime just a candle).
It is eaten with white bread (you dip the bread into the cheese with a special fork), white wine and/or black tea (the popular belief is that drinking cold beverage will solidify the cheese in your stomach; yet the wine seems exempt from this). It's obviously a hearty meal, but damn it is it good when you go back from a ski session (and it's a special occasion meal, we usually don't eat fondue on a whim... that said, the cheese shop where I live literally have a fondue vending machine, complete with ready to cook cheese mixture and bread.
A good fondue should be thick yet creamy (too often I see it prepared with too much wine, making it too liquid). One shouldn't heat the preparation too much lest having the cheese separating between a oily part and a solid part (it's even harder for the type of fondue that's 100% vacherin). A teaspoon of corn starch and a good amount of mixing can sometime restore the emulsion, but not always.
As a dessert that's also famous in the Gruyère region is Crème Double and meringues. So you probably know how cream is made (well... was made): take some milk, let it rest, skim the top and voilà! you have concentrated some fat from the liquid and obtained cream (conventional cream have something in the vicinity of 20% of fat). Well how about you do that again ? That's the whole concept behind double cream. When refrigerated, it's almost a solid with it's about 50% of fatu.
So how do you eat this ? You pour it over some meringue (the Swiss type; it's crunchier than the French or Italian variant) with some occasional berries (raspberry, billberry) to break all of this dairy goodness.
So the Scotts have Irn Bru, we have Rivella. It has it's own hard-to-describe taste, but for the lack of a better word it feels less chemical than Irn Bru and cream soda. And while those two are made of... stuff, a distinctive ingredient of Rivella is milk whey (the liquid you get after curdling milk to get cheese). Again the taste is hard to describe but I least I can say that it feels less sweet than cream soda.
Seattle:
boring touristy answer is fish & chips and/or clam chowder.
real answer: chicken teriyaki
How Teriyaki Became Seattle’s Own Fast-Food Phenomenon
or, a Seattle dog, the defining feature of which is cream cheese smeared onto the bun. it might sound weird at first but it's an amazing combo.
I've been watching Kenji Lopez-Alt's alt channel where he goes around Seattle trying teriyaki places. Definitely looks good for a quick meal!
Something I read a long time ago about how to find a good teriyaki place in Seattle (and surrounding suburbs):
Look around until you find a small strip mall; find one with a nail salon, then go to the teriyaki place next door.
Another Californian chiming in!
It's silly at this point, but In n out is one of our more important exports 😂. I would also recommend Porto's (for literally anything they offer there. Also Philippe's Dips are delicious. I'm not a southern Californian, but SoCal food is always a huge draw when we go down for other activities.
Californian with a different take; if you want something that is quintessentially modern Californian, go to Chez Panisse or the French Laundry. I can't recommend a specific dish because the concept is centered around cooking what can be acquired locally in the current season. You'll never have the same dish twice, but it'll always be the peak of what's possible at the moment.
In New Mexico, I'd go for green chile rellenos, a large hatch green chile stuffed with cheese and covered in chile sauce. there's also posole, navajo tacos, our variant of huevos rancheros, & an insane number of locally produced beers.
I will answer for Calgary, since my current city has nothing to offer.
Weirdly I think Calgary's main claim to fame is ginger beef, which seems like it would be a Chinese dish.
Next I'd go with the Caesar, which is possibly my favourite drink when heavily spiced.
I don't have a third option, so I'll just say poutine, as it's a Canadian classic.
Fellow Calgarian - I'd definitely recommend the beef!
In Los Angeles I recommending getting tacos from a taco stand setup on the street. They are incredibly cheap and better than most taquerias in LA.
Denver isn't much of a food town, but we do burritos smothered in pork green chili probably better than anywhere in the country. A must eat for dinner, breakfast, or a midnight snack.
I'm from the suburbs of Cleveland and honestly, while we've got our fair share of decent restaurants, I can't really think of any particular local cuisine, at least not for your average white guy. The highlights growing up were from large populations descended from particular immigrant backgrounds -- Polish pączki during the right season come to mind. I've heard we've got some good local breweries in Ohio, but I don't drink beer so I can't really assess that with my own personal experience.
As for where I currently live, nowhere does döner kebab as well as here in Berlin. I'm a particular fan of the places where they drizzle lemon on it (I think that's a Gemüse Kebab thing? which, despite the name, is not vegetarian).
I'm from the Hesse region of Germany. You should really try Hesse Apfeilwein (something like non-sweet German cider) and Frankfurter Grie Soß ("green sauce from Frankfurt", a herbal sauce with salted potatoes and hard-boiled eggs).
I'm from Birmingham, so have a balti. Yes, there are other dishes with the same name, but the genuine Birmingham balti is it's own thing - a curry with lots of sauce, served in the wok it's been cooked in.
Beyond that, the UK has loads of amazing food, but I think our true speciality is savoury pies. Think of a stew that's been cooking for ages and filled with flavour, and then pack it in pastry that is crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. And you can do so much with them: different fillings, different pastries, different forms, and so on. One of my favourites is the humble pork pie - warm water crust pastry wrapped around a pork mince filling. You can make them small as little snacks, but you can also make a larger one and serve slices of it as a starter or lunch. The pastry has a slight crunch to it, but also melts in your mouth, and British pork is delicious in whatever form it comes in. Throw a bit of chutney in there to add a bit of sweetness and tang, and it's absolutely amazing.
Wings: lemon pepper wet
Atlanta’s Best Wings: Lemon Pepper Wet and Then Some
Personally, I prefer spicy lemon pepper or standard hot.