Posted on 02/09/2025 3:36:57 PM PST by dennisw
Jasper is six years old, and we live in Southern California, which meant that in the course of the preceding week he and his twin brother had encountered Sonoran-style tacos, Lebanese kebabs, Vietnamese spring rolls, and several iterations of pizza. It is customary for first-time visitors in Los Angeles to remark on the multicultural multitude of the city’s restaurant landscape, but only when you live here do you realize (as did the late California food critic Jonathan Gold) that the scope of its globe-hopping is immeasurable, that you can roll along miles and miles of boulevards such as Pico and Venice marveling at shopping centers that read like culinary maps of the world.
Los Angeles is both a culinary wonderland—as you’ll notice here when you scroll down—and a national mirror. There never really has been any fixed, singular definition of American food, because the country and its cuisines—influenced by wave after wave of new arrivals—have remained in a state of perpetual transformation. The ultimate answer to Jasper’s question is that American food, like American music, is something that’s always in motion.
As are we. Our contributors to this, Esquire’s 2024 list of the Best New Restaurants in America, happen to live in four of the country’s great food cities: Amethyst Ganaway in Charleston, Joshua David Stein in New York, Omar Mamoon in San Francisco, yours truly in L.A. We reported from our home bases and took to the highways and the friendly skies.
(Excerpt) Read more at esquire.com ...
I’ll stick with Cracker Barrel. Cheap tasty pleasant atmosphere and fast.
These are all ethnic restaurants operated by young people. Up and comers.They are in about 15 different states and cities.
Restaurants are hurting these days. With Trump-47 this dire situation should improve.
Texas Roadhouse for me.
LA had in my travel days good but in my opinion not great restaurants.
One exception was a Middle Eastern food place south of UCLA.
You ordered a plate with a little of this, a little of that, etc.
It took well over an hour to get it all down.
There was a place in eastern downtown San Diego that had excellent wonton soup.
In San Francisco I happened to hit a Chinese place in Chinatown (more jewelry stores than restaurants) closing up for the night. Clean that tray,....Yum!
In the San Francisco area, I typically overnighted in Newark, CA, a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. It had a lot of promising restaurants I never got around to eating at.
I tend to think the Reagan era was the best time for food in the USA.
I used to get a gyro sandwich on Saturday in Ballston, Arlington, Virginia before the area was redeveloped.
I have “The Iraqi Cookbook” by Lamees Ibrahim to my right.
Reagan era was about the best time for ANYthing in America. He’d be heartened to see what happened in November, and to see the path we’re on. With God’s blessings, we might just make it...
The early 2000s was not bad. Lot’s of creative chefs and the farm to table movement like at The French Laundry.
Texas Roadhouse for me.
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I don’t know if they still do but they used to have the best steaks anywhere.
what are places out of touch elites eat, Alex.
Pizza Ranch...best fried chicken ever.
TR is good and they have a nice veterans day giveaway which i appreciate
Waffle House is hard to beat.
I always loved stopping at Cracker Barrel for the rare treat of a whole trout meal.
Enough Mexican joints. They are everywhere and serve up the same glop in every one of them.
Mexican restaurabts:
Refried beans in different forms.
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