What food does your home town specialize in?
 

Most cities have some type(s) of food they are known for and even some that fly under the radar that they make really well. Philly is known for cheesesteaks, Buffalo for wings, etc.

Philly my home town is king of sandwiches. Whether its a cheesesteak, a hoagie, or whatever, Philly has great sandwich places. Also Philly is known for soft pretzels, water ice, Tastykake, and a few other small things.

I thought it would be good to talk in this thread about foods you've tried from other cities as well. I've had a gyro in NY and it was very good. I've always wanted to try wings from Buffalo. Philly has some good wing places, but I'm sure the places in Buffalo destroy all others. I like wings a lot, so I always wanted to try wings from there.

Also I'm curious to see what people who live in smaller towns have to say about what kind of good foods they have.

I ate at Geno's the other week and was severely disappointed. They put hardly any cheese on the sandwich and the bun was soggy. There's a place in my town that makes them shitloads better than what I had down there (my town being about 30 miles north of Philly).

Geno's is a tourist spot. Tony Luke's is where it's at. It's 20 times better than Geno's. Next time you are around stop there. Best steaks in town.

DragoonKain is right. Once you have a real Philly cheesesteak, you'll find it is nearly impossible to duplicate it elsewhere.

My hometown of Chicago has the biggest competition for deep dish pizza. I personally like Gullivers much more than Lou Malnatis, because in comparison, Lou's crust tastes like cardboard. As far as an overall good deep dish pizza, I really like Giordannos, especially for their 1/2 off Monday nights.

Chicago style hot dogs are also a big deal. A real vienna hotdog, mustard, relish, diced onions, tomatoes, quarter slice pickle, hot peppers, and Lawry's seasoning salt. Once ketchup is added, it is no longer a real Chicago style hotdog. My New York friends will argue that their hot dog is better because of the price, but who cares about the price when it is ultimately the taste that counts the most.

I live in Iowa, so we don't have much of anything for food, unless you like pork and corn. I know a few guys online who say "iowa? Is that the one with the potatoes" and i :( at that. come on! corn! Pretty much everything you eat has some kind of corn in it, wether it's cow fed with corn to corn syrup, etc, etc.

I certainly don't live in a huge city, but if I had to try and figure out what my little town was known for food-wise I suppose it would have to be apples. we have a huge applefest every year, close off the entire downtown area and turn the street into a big market place. obviously, lots of apple related food is abundant.

we also have a maplefest, which is essentially the same thing but with lots of maple syrup. then again, canada itself is known for maple syrup so not much of a surprise there.

I always wanted to try deep dish pizza from chicago. Also I've never been a big hot dog guy, but I've heard Chicago has great dogs. I heard they pile peppers and onions all on it. Sounds good.

Iowa corn? Ooooh it's all about the Illinois soy suckas!

Mexican food. Definitely Mexican food. There aren't many restaurants in my town, but the majority of them are Mexican. A close second would be country food (that's what the other restaurants are). There's a great little homegrown country cookin' place where I live and it's definitely some of the best comfort food that I've ever tasted.

While the city itself is not famous for anything, the province in famous for it's beef. There is really nothing like Alberta beef. If you can get your hands on some (and you probably can't), I highly suggest it. Beats inferior other Canadian and American beef.

I would say my town isn't really known for any particular style of food in terms of multiple restaurants, but it is one of the few places I'm aware of where Portuguese food is readily available in a few locations. That, coupled with the religious Festa events/sopas feeds, and you can kind of tell that there's a subtle emphasis on Portuguese foods. A few of the restaurants in the area offer mostly 'normal' food, but then you'll find funny little additions like Sopas on certain days, or Portuguese beans offered as a side dish. Or Sweet bread -- although that can also be Hawaiian, to be fair.

I don't think we're really known for it, though. Only the people in the know are looking for it ;).

Texas in general specializes in two types of food, namely barbecue and Mexican. Different cities and parts of the state specialize in one or the other; San Antonio leaning more towards Mexican, Dallas-Fort Worth more towards barbecue. Houston, being between them, is superior in that we get large numbers of both.

Other things that are about and could be specialties include Vietnamese cuisine (dominated by Kim Son) and a disturbingly diverse selection of seafood restaurants (several of them are owned by Landry's Restaurants, though).

While hardly a specialty, per se, there are two fairly local pizza places that I would cheerfully reccommend if that's what floats your boat. One, Double Dave's, can be found statewide, while the other, Candelari's, is a purely Houston chain. There was a third I liked, Fuzzy's, but its quality has dipped in recent years.

So this one time a Ballerina came to Perth and so this chef invented a dessert for her. Her name was Anna Pavlova so it's called Pavlova.

It tastes like what you would expect something named after a ballerina to taste like. Heaven

It's not exactly IN my hometown, but it's really close. There's a place called Tony's Ice Cream that has been featured in all kinds of magazines and television shows. It was built in 1947 and it still has the original red booths and stainless steel counters. They serve the most amazing grape ice cream, and that's saying something since I don't like sweets.

It looks like a dive because it's so old, but believe me, this place is hoppin'.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4...ysicecream.jpg

Oddly enough, it does look familiar. I wish I could remember the movie I have seen it in.

As typical as this may sound for an Atlantic Canadian, I would say Lobster. Perhaps not so much in town, as there are towns which are much more Lobster-centric closeby, but it is definitely what we are known for.

Well, cajun food which would be mostly seafood stuff (crawfish, fish, oysters, crabs, shrimp). There's gumbos, etouffées, jambalayas.

As far as any one restraunt goes, there are crap loads in Acadiana. However, this one sticks out...

http://www.prejeans.com/index.html

http://prejeans.com/piclib/33.jpg

lollin'

The place has a live webcam feed. Heh...

http://70.159.138.67/view/index.shtml

My town right now...crap...I swear..there are so many mexican restaurants...but they're all amercian style crap...>< I hate it...

Glasgow deep fried mars bar (Mars bar in batter)? It's probably more of a widespread Scottish food and it's indication of the levels of health around here. I have never come across it but I remember how one shop which served it stopped it because it was too unhealthy. Don't know if Glasgow has actually come up with something proper.

That sounds absolutely delicious... I must have one at once!

A little off topic, but I very strongly agree with your username.

This isn't a Glasgow thing. We've had these at fairs for years.

More of a Scottish thing perhaps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_fried_Mars_bar

I admit I must have misunderstood the thread.

I think deep frying stuff like that has actually been popular in the American south for a while now, though I've got no clue if it predates the wikipedia article you're talking about. Every time I think about it I want to try a deep fried Twinkie, though. :(

This place around here deep fries mac and cheese. I don't like mac and cheese, so I wouldn't like it, but people love it.

This BBQ joint Tommy Gunn's has it.

We're known for seafood, mainly crabs. Since there's water nearby in most parts, it seems that every other restaurant here has some type of seafood dish in it. I have to admit, the one place I do go to, they do a wonderful job with seafood.

Let's see, Hawaii, Kona to be more specific. I guess Kona is known for Kona coffee. But that's more in south Kona in the boonies where there are still plantation houses instead of downtown Kona which is like a small town. For the Big Island of Hawaii, I know Kairyu will say Hilo is known for locomoco, and in Hamakua it's Tex Drive inn for their variety of malasadas. Like strawberry malasada or ice cream malasadas.

Dubuque, Iowa: Home of the Dressing Sandwich. In other words, people will take stale bread in the form of dressing (like for Thanksgiving) and put it between two pieces of bread.

Sheffield specializes in the Pork Sandwich. A sandwich where the inside of the breadbun is rubbed with pork dripping (fat basically). Filled with hot sliced pork, stuffing, apple sauce and crackling (more commonly known as pork rind). This is definately one of the more traditional Yorkshire foods, up there with fish and chips, though probably alot more localised in Sheffield.

Pittsburgh, home of putting french fries on everything. From steak salad's to the world famous Primanti's Bros. sandwiches. Also, pierogies are pretty tasty, and there's a big Polish population here.

My hometown of Guadalajara, Jalisco in Mexico is actually well known for one delicious junk food delicacy (a fucking Mexican oxymoron, if I ever heard one) that is truly a chore to eat if you’re not akin to spicy foods: Tortas Ahogadas (Loosely translated it means “drowned sandwich”)

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...rtaahogada.jpg

If anyone has ever had a “torta” you sort of know the basic construct of the sandwich. The difference with this one is that the bread is purposely hardened because they are made with only the bread, beans and pork “carnitas”. It is then fully dipped into a deathly-spicy tomtato-based sauce and left to soak for about 20 seconds or so. Since the bread needs to be somewhat hard when the sandwich is made, this actually softens it just a bit and is then garnished with tomatoes, ground pepper and lemon. Now, keep in mind that is a sauce so hot and spicy that it has made whimpering pussies out of the most boastful spicy food enthusiasts I’ve ever met. The secret, or course, is always in the sauce and there’s only one place here in the U.S. that I’ve ever been to that has come close to emulate that spice titan of a sauce and it’s in a tiny taco stand in East L.A. I only wish I could remember the name of it. :/

This place in Philly I forgot to mention called Nifty Fifties has the best shakes in the world. They home make a lot of their ice cream and their shakes are just amazing.

Jin would be right in saying that Hilo, Hawaii would probably be known for its LocoMoco. Because i have been to some places in the mainland, hell even japan that saidthey served locomoco's HAHAHAHAHAHAHA please!

Paella. >_>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paella

Miami and Cuban Sandwiches. Shit, I just had a Medianoche, a modified cuban sandwich on dark, sweet bread.

Makes life worth living.

In 6th grade, there was a world's fair. I had the New Zealand exhibit and after much research I decided to serve pavlova and peanut butter and banana sandwiches. People loved that shit.

Those are Cuban? I was seriously under the impression that they originated from Puerto Rico. I had a friend in high school who was Puerto Rican and her mom used to make those when we'd have study groups at their place. It was lamb on a toasted and honey-sweetened bread, I think and I'm almost positive that they called them "medianoches".

What a trip... =o

Oh Paellera means in german Paella-Pfanne. I ate in former times already several times, it taste super! *yum*


From my home town:

Munich and Bavaria
Leberkäs' (meat loaf, doesn't contain liver), various dumplings, Käs'spatzen (pasta with cheese and roasted onions), Spanferkel (pigling), Spießbraten (skewered roast), Weißkraut mit Kümmel (white cabbage with caraway seed), Schwammerln (forest mushrooms with dumplings) mit Knödeln (forest mushrooms with dumplings), Leberknödelsuppe (liver dumpling soup), Nürnberger Rostbratwürstchen (roast sausages), Weißwurst mit süßem Senf (white sausages with sweet mustard), Brezn (Pretzel), Obatzder (spread made from camembert, butter and onions), Bayrische Creme (Vanilla cream), Strudel (filled cake made from very tin dough that's rolled), Nürnberger Lebkuchen (ginger bread from Nuremberg), Steckerlfisch (skewered trout, grilled).

The generally wide variety of food and drinks in Germany should include something for everybody. The advantage for diabetics is that they hardly have to limit themselves. In restaurants you'll always find light dishes as an alternative to the typically German meals, which indeed are quite substantial and contain a lot of fat; normally various salads and low-fat meat products are offered. Apart from that you will find international cuisine almost everywhere in Germany. So there's no problem if you need a little taste of home.
German bakeries offer a big choice of bread variety, so a diabetic can always choose between various wholemeal rolls and bread. Many ice cream parlours are also prepared for diabetics and offer ice with sugar substitutions.

I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles where there exists a huge Taiwanese-Chinese population and because of that, the Chinese and Taiwanese food there was unbelieveably great.

Now this is not your typical Panda Express type Chinese food, this is the real stuff, Shanghai dumplings, Beef Noodle Soup, Cold Chicken Noodle Salad, Pork Chop Rice, Stir-Fried Rice Ovals, I can go on and on. It's tricky because while the shops there are a dime a dozen, you have to really know your stuff because there are great finds within the crowd of good but overall mediocre resturants.

That area is pretty much know for it's amazing Chinese food, Cantonese, Taiwanese and Chinese. In fact, it's hilarious because the food there is just as good if not better than the food I get when I visit Taiwan or China.

Being from Adelaide (SA, Australia), I have to say it would be the 'Pie floater' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_floater), which is essentially a meat pie in a thick pea soup. At a recent tourism convention/expo it was served to delegates and met with mixed reaction (not surprising) along with all the other regional goodies: wine, oysters, seafood etc.

I'm from a town called Lilo-an in Cebu, Philippines

http://www.made-in-cebu.com/titays/i...llos%20MIC.JPG

It's some sort of cookie/biscuit

Oh wow...I remember reading that town's name in an orchestra presentation about Dvorak XD.

A dressing sandwich doesn't sound too appealing to me, but my parents go on and on about my grandma's stuffing at Thanksgiving...maybe it's a use for all the leftovers....

Around here, in North Carolina, the big thing is BBQ'd pork. Most of the time, people here just cook a whole pig and slice it off while sitting at the table. In my small town alone there are around 5 places that specialize in the Carolina' style BBQ with the vinegar sauce. Lexington BBQ, only a half hour drive from here, is supposibly the best BBQ you can get...Anywhere. Even Bojangles has brought a BBQ plate to the table, however I am bet they do that elsewhere too.

Another thing my area is kind of known for are the 'carolina' style hamburgers. It's got chilli, slaw, and mustard and it's really good. When you order a hamburger at a local joint around here you get that, not a regular hamburger. Wendy's has even named a burger for us; the carolina classic.

I live in a beach city, so a lot of our food is stuff that the surfers can get quickly before heading back out. We have a great Mexican restaurant right by the beach. They have some of the best burritos. We've also got a lot of pizza places and old diner style restaurants. People don't really come here for the food, though. they come for the "small beach town" aspect.

I found an awesome picture of this sandwich. Check it:

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/3...0622001bf3.jpg

well...
 

Depoe bay seems to have several restruants each offering the "world's finest" clamb chowder.

one being moes...I know that.

lol, it would be funny if you were one of my old friends from taft high...

never went to taft...im in SoLame so yeah

Not anything that I know of(I need to get out more -_-). Down here in the south, I often seen biscuits fly off the shelf like no tomorrow. I swear, as soon as we open(I work at a fastfood rest, no, not McD) people order biscuits like no tomorrow. Though i like to make my homemade biscuits from scratch.

Here in Tucson? It's an Eegee, bar none. Kind of like this...umm...snocone? That's the closest approximation I can come up with. More of a combination of snocone and all-fruit smoothie. They have thing called 'flavor-of-the-month' plus two or three regular flavors.

Not bad, if I do say so myself. Definitely good when you're getting your wisdom teeth pulled (or any other dental surgery, for that matter).

Here in St. Louis, we're apparently known for our toasted ravioli. I've heard that it's difficult to find anywhere else.

I live in Palmdale. It's in the middle of the desert and has a population of 143,227. It doesn't have a specialty food. It doesn't have a specialty anything. Nobody even knows about it. Although it does have its own Wikipedia page, which is a pretty big step for it.

Before I moved to AZ I was in ABQ, NM (Y'know, the place where Bugs Bunny should've taken that left turn). ABQ has awesome New Mexican, Mexican food. One thing that makes New Mexican, Mexican unique is green chile which is pretty awesome.

Here's an awesome burrito at one of the best burrito joints in town, Dos Hermanos where the tortillas are handmade fresh everyday:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...lfling/dos.jpg

Montreal has a number of specialties including poutine and Montreal smoked meat.

http://www.jonno.com/now/poutine_400.jpg
http://www.tims-winterfeldtplatz.de/...eat_teaser.jpg

Muck, that first picture looks like intestines on top of french fries. =(

My hometown is a back-country company town where the mill is now defunct. I guess we've got some really authentic country cooking. You know, the kind that'll give you a coronary by the time you're thirty, and guarantee you weigh about 400 pounds in the process. <.<;

More like fresh cheese curds and gravy! You've obviously never seen intestines, because that looks nothing like them...

I live in Syracuse, NY, and our specialty food is...salt potatoes. Kind of boring, but I do like them a lot. Chicken wings are a pretty big deal here, too, but I rarely eat them.

Dinosaur BBQ is pretty great, too, though there are two more of them - one in Rochester, NY and one in NYC.

Canterbury has, like, nine or ten fish-and-chips places. Same goes for Bath. And the rest of Britain. :( Whenever I'm actually at home (France), the nearest town has some killer oysters on market days, though. I fucking LOVE oysters.

You are a good person. Giordano's kicks ass. I had a big stuffed crust Hawai'ian pizza while I was in Chicago, and it was damn near the best pizza I ever had.

As to local specialties. The city where I was born, Owensboro, Kentucky, calls itself BBQ Capital of the World. I don't know if that's the truth, but Moonlite BBQ is about the best BBQ restaurant I've been to. Where I live now, Georgetown, Kentucky, is the town where bourbon whiskey was invented. But none of it is made here now.

I live in Rochester. Go to the Dinosaur on occasion. Good stuff.

As far as I know, Rochester is most famous for Garbage Plate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_plate

It is just a pile of goodness. Pretty much you get your choice of the main dish, 2 burgers, hots, fish, etc. (its all in Wikipedia) with two sides. Get onions on top and then the best part. Four or five ladlefuls of Nicks hot sauce. Good stuff.

Up until...uh, a couple of days ago, I've lived in the Quad-Cities.

In spite of having four times more cities than most...cities, I can't really think of any regional specialties. There's a restaurant called Ross's, which serves a rather fascinating food item called the Magic Mountain. It's basically a huge pile of toast, meat, fries, and cheese...if it had eggs, it would be like every item that Denny's serves, but it doesn't, so it's special! It's quite impressive in scale...I tried one once, and I couldn't finish half of it, though that might not mean too much because I have a tiny stomach. The Hungry Hobo chain of fast food places is all over the place in the Quad-Cities, but hasn't spread anywhere else. It's sort of like Subway, except that they serve baked potatoes too. Their sandwiches are kind of lame, to be honest...not really on par with Subway, and a long ways behind Quiznos. They are cheap, though.

As a side note, everyone in the area is apparently obsessed with barbecue, because there are lots of BBQ places of varying quality in the area. There are tons of farmer's markets, too, as you might expect in Iowa!

The only thing that my small commuity has is a take-out joint, which has the fried chicken, fries, and burgers. not bad though...