LATEST REVIEWS
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Killer Seafood
Mexico Beach, FloridaKiller Seafood is all good: shrimp in glorious Simmerin’ Sauce, outstanding grouper, and 4-star Key lime pie. A fun seaside shack, decorated with dollar bills.
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Burritos La Palma
Santa Ana, CaliforniaBoasting some of the best flour tortillas anywhere, Burritos La Palma is regional comfort food for those that grew up eating Tex-Mex.
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Boss Oyster
Apalachicola, FloridaBoss Oyster is one of the best places to eat the oysters for which Apalachicola is famous. Plus Florida shrimp, flounder, grouper, and redfish!
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Fisherman’s Wife
Carrabelle, FloridaThis charming Carrabelle town cafe on Florida’s Gulf Coast really is run by a fisherman’s wife. Count on impeccable local seafood and perfect Key lime pie.
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Carrabelle Junction
Carrabelle, FloridaCarrabelle Junction is a coffee house, sandwich shop, town cafe and soda fountain enjoyed by locals and travelers for its good food and quirky personality.
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Apalachicola Seafood Grill
Apalachicola, FloridaA corner-store Apalachicola lunch room surrounded by a raised sidewalk, this town favorite restaurant serves exemplary Gulf Coast seafood at reasonable prices.
GUIDES
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Eat Your Way from San Diego to Los Angeles
The trip from San Diego up to Los Angeles County is only 115 miles or so, but with treacherous Southern California gridlock, the drive could eat most of your day. Instead, why not spend the day eating? Starting in San Diego, one of the most historic morning meals in the West can be discovered with the various permutations of house … Continue reading Eat Your Way from San Diego to Los Angeles
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The Best Local Restaurants in and around Palm Springs
Palm Springs is an eater’s oasis in the desert. If you come on I-10 from the west, stop in Cabazon at Hadley’s Fruit Orchards (where trail mix was invented) and at Crazy Coyote Tacos for hotter-than-hot sauce. From the east, visit Shields Date Gardens in Indio for a date shake, date pancakes, and date ice … Continue reading The Best Local Restaurants in and around Palm Springs
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The Best Gas Station Food in America
“Eat Here. Get Gas”: It’s a roadside jest as old as gas stations themselves. (Before gas stations, pioneering motorists bought gas in pharmacies.) The fact is that most food found in gas stations, if not actually odious, is forgettable. But the Roadfood roster contains a handful of places where you can fuel up, coffee up, … Continue reading The Best Gas Station Food in America
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8 Best Casual Outdoor Dining Spots in Chicago
Some of Chicago’s best Roadfood is eaten standing up at a counter or at outdoor tables. Here are eight of our favorite only-in-Chicago places where eating outside is the right thing to do on a beautiful spring day.
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Skyline Drive Detours
Skyline Drive, the 105-mile two-lane that threads through Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, has decent food at its National Park Service Oases. (Try the Smithfield Ham Monte Cristo or the roast turkey with cornbread stuffing at Big Meadows Lodge at mile 51.2.) But when big appetite beckons, we head for one of the four entry/exit points … Continue reading Skyline Drive Detours
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Pies Across Arkansas
Which is America’s #1 pie state? Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Maine all are contenders, but we’re tempted to give the nod to Arkansas. Cream pies and fruit pies, baked pies and fried pies are at their best throughout the state. So, when eating barbecue, catfish, meat-and-three, or country ham — all pretty darn wonderful in … Continue reading Pies Across Arkansas
DISHES
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Fry Sauce
A Utah drive-in chain, Arctic Circle, claims to have created fry sauce in 1948 from “a tasty, tangy mixture of tomato concentrate, lemon juice, eggs, and a whole bunch of other ingredients.” Throughout the Plains all the way to the West Coast, drive-ins and burger joints as well as loosemeats shops in Siouxland offer now … Continue reading Fry Sauce
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Hot Chicken
Created in Nashville, and still best there, hot chicken is crisp-fried and imbued skin to bone with peppers’ fire. It originated at the still-thriving Prince’s Chicken Shack a couple of generations ago when proprietor Thornton Prince’s girlfriend, wanting to get even with him for his carousing one night, sopped his fried chicken in a painful … Continue reading Hot Chicken
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New York System
Rhode Island hot dogs are known as New York System weenies, although there is nothing remotely like them in New York. (In New York City, that is. The Michigan of Plattsburgh, New York, is vaguely similar.) One logical explanation is that nearly all of the Ocean State’s wiener depots were opened by cooks who had … Continue reading New York System
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Hot Tamales
In the Mississippi Delta, from Memphis down to Vicksburg, tamales are sold by men and women, black and white, from street carts, off back porches, and in eateries of every kind. There is no clear genealogy that explains the ubiquity of a Mexican dish in cotton country, other than the surmise that workers from Mexico … Continue reading Hot Tamales
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Burgoo
Almost every place that serves barbecue in western Kentucky also offers the fork-thick vegetable soup/stew known as burgoo. Supposedly named when a Civil War cook with a speech impediment tried to say bird stew, burgoo traditionally contained meat from whatever small game the cook could get, usually including squirrel. Modern burgoo, a staple on Derby … Continue reading Burgoo
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Date Shake
Long ago, when California was considered exotic and paradisaical, dates were an emblem of its appeal. Grown in the stately palm groves of the Coachella Valley, the luxury fruit inspired a drink that has gone beyond the desert and has been embraced by all of Southern California: the date shake. As if an ordinary milk … Continue reading Date Shake
FEATURES
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Route 66 through Albuquerque
Route 66 did not bypass cities. It ran straight through their hearts. In Albuquerque the old highway is called Central Avenue, and it takes travelers right past or very near a bevy of excellent downtown eat places — some new, some dating back to the heyday of the Mother Road.
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Jane’s Diary: The Thing is…
For those of you who may not have committed to memory the complete works of Jane and Michael Stern, here is an interesting factoid. At the same time we wrote the original edition of Roadfood, published in 1978, we also wrote a companion book called Amazing America. It is a lame title for a book … Continue reading Jane’s Diary: The Thing is…
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Jane’s Diary: Death by Chili
Growing up, I never liked spicy food. Then again, I was never served any. My default meal as a kid was chicken ala King, white meat, white sauce on white rice. The pizzazz came from a fleck of pimento and a few green peas. I did not start to eat spicy food until I was … Continue reading Jane’s Diary: Death by Chili
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Michael’s Hometown Must-Eats
Since moving to Aiken, South Carolina, I have wallowed in legendary BBQ, unsurpassed peaches, and impeccable seafood from the coast. These six restaurants are local favorites to which I return again and again. Shealy’s is BBQ’s big gun hereabouts – a massive eating hall with a cornucopia buffet. Across the river in Augusta, Perry’s Pig … Continue reading Michael’s Hometown Must-Eats
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Perry’s Pig
At this hidden Augusta BBQ, chopped pork sandwiches are garnished with succulent bits of crisp cracklin: one of the great smoke-pit sandwiches anywhere.
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Golden Crown Panadería
Green chile bread is totally worth a detour to this squat bakery near Old Town Albuquerque. New Mexico’s state cookie, biscochitos, are great, as are pizzas.