LATEST REVIEWS
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JoJo’s Grill-a-Dog
Redlands, CaliforniaHot dogs get the craftsman’s touch with homemade buns and condiments at JoJo’s of San Bernardino. Don’t miss funnel cake fries.
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Hopkins Farm Creamery
Lewes, DelawareHopkins Farm Creamery is a Delaware best bet for the creamiest ice cream around. Flavors we especially like are black raspberry and chocolate banana walnut.
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Harbor View Cafe
Pepin, WisconsinNorwegian with a Mediterranean accent, Harbor View offers soulful renditions of northern European fare. Delcious, from scratch, worth a trip!
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Sugar Pine Café
Mariposa, CaliforniaSugar Pine is a country café on Yosemite’s doorstep serving masterful scones, biscuits, and muffins.
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Morning Call Coffee Stand
Metairie, LouisianaMorning Call serves what may be the best beignets on earth. Expertly made cafe au lait and an on-the-ball uniformed staff make it a NOLA essential.
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Marcy’s Diner
Portland, MaineAt the well-worn counter of Marcy’s Diner in Portland, Maine, tuck into hearty plates of corned beef hash, pancakes & chili cheese omelets. Good muffins, too.
GUIDES
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Best Local Restaurants on the Hot Rod Power Tour Route
The 24th annual HOT ROD Power Tour is a seven-day, seven-city journey expected to bring together more than 6,000 vehicles and 100,000-plus spectators making it the largest traveling car-show in the world! Starting in Bowling Green, KY, the route winds through Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, eventually ending in Concord, NC. A region so rich … Continue reading Best Local Restaurants on the Hot Rod Power Tour Route
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Northeast Pizza Throwdown
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey: all can lay claim to the best pizza in America, maybe in the world. You be the judge. Take this tri-state tour of cream of the crop pizzerias in each venue.
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America’s Byways: Michigan’s Copper Country Trail
America’s Byways® are a collection of 150 National Scenic Byways and All-American Roads designated by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Some take you through beauty so remote that there’s nothing to eat along the way, but several also happen to lead to great regional Roadfood specialties. Michigan’s Copper Country Trail, up through the Keweenaw Peninsula, … Continue reading America’s Byways: Michigan’s Copper Country Trail
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The Best (Real) Burnt Ends in Kansas City
Barbecue’s newfound nationwide popularity has put burnt ends on menus across the country, but in all too many cases, the burnt ends are bogus. The best burnt ends in Kansas City are genuine cutting-board scraps: crunchy edges, veins of fat, shreds, and debris that fall from slices destined to be served on plates or in … Continue reading The Best (Real) Burnt Ends in Kansas City
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5 Great Seattle Sandwiches to Know About
Seattle beckons to anyone in search of great seafood, Asian fare, breakfast, donuts, or coffee. In addition to those well-known assets, the Emerald City also is a treasure-trove of sensational sandwiches. These are 5 of the best sandwiches in Seattle that everyone should try. The itinerary includes one of the kaleidoscopic Caribbean inventions that have … Continue reading 5 Great Seattle Sandwiches to Know About
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America’s Best True Drive-Ins
“Drive-in” has come to mean just about any cheap-eats restaurant with car-friendly parking. A genuine drive-in is a place where customers park and are waited on and eat in their cars. Meals are served on trays by car hops (originally named in the 1920s because they hopped onto the running boards of arriving customers). While … Continue reading America’s Best True Drive-Ins
DISHES
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Chicken Fried Steak
It seems logical that the southwest’s favorite comfort food, chicken-fried steak, traces its heritage back to central European immigrant cooks who found themselves without the fixin’s for a fine, tender cut of veal to make wiener schnitzel. Instead, they took a hunk of cow and beat the chaw out of it, then fried it up … Continue reading Chicken Fried Steak
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Five Way Chili
Nothing like Texas chili, Cincinnati Five-Way is a layered dish of spaghetti noodles, spicy sweet (but not four-alarm) ground beef sauce with a distinct Greek accent, kidney beans, raw onions, and shredded yellow cheese. Every Cincinnatian has a favorite among the city’s dozens of chili parlors.
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Lexington Barbecue
There are literally dozens of styles of barbecue across the wide state of North Carolina. Lexington-style is king: pork shoulders cooked over wood coals until fallapart tender, dressed with minimal vinegar-based red sauce. Have a platter or sandwich, sliced or chopped, and ask for extra pieces of crunchy skin.
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Beef on Weck
Beyond perfectly cooked and expertly sliced roast beef, the “weck” aspect of Buffalo’s favorite sandwich is essential. From the German word Kummel, meaning caraway seed, a kummelweck looks vaguely like an ordinary hard roll spangled with caraway seeds and coarse salt. But it is not ordinary. A correct weck is delicate, its freshness evanescent. Lightness … Continue reading Beef on Weck
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Smith Island Cake
Not every state has an official dessert. Named for one of the two inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland’s Smith Island Cake is a 10-layer tour de force of fluffy cake and creamy icing in all the colors of the flavor rainbow. It’s well worth trying to eat it on Smith Island, where the … Continue reading Smith Island Cake
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Boudin
A specialty of butchers throughout Cajun country, boudin is a sausage of pork, rice, onions, and spice. It is not firm like an Italian sausage. Once cut, it tends to spill, tumble, or gets squeezed out depending on the link’s consistency. It comes in shades of beige, hot ones tinged pepper red, some speckled with … Continue reading Boudin
FEATURES
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Jane’s Diary: On Books and Babies
Michael and I never had kids. It was not a formal decision, it was more like that classic cartoon that shows a woman looking in the mirror exclaiming, “Oh my God, I’m forty and I forgot to have children!” The funny thing is that when I review my life, I feel like I have had … Continue reading Jane’s Diary: On Books and Babies
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Jane’s Diary: The Worst Meal I Ever Ate
People always ask Michael and me what was the best meal we ever ate. This is a hard question to answer, as it changes day to day and often is keyed into what we are craving at the moment. Nobody ever asks about the worst meal we ever ate. This is an easier question to … Continue reading Jane’s Diary: The Worst Meal I Ever Ate
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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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Yellow Church Cafe
Expertly crafted artisan fare, including house-baked breads and world-class cakes, make meals in Ellensburg’s adorable former church restaurant truly heavenly.
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Model Pharmacy
A vintage lunch counter serving true New-Mex green chile stew, warm fruit cobblers, and soda fountain specialties, Model Pharmacy is a taste of old Route 66.
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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.