We have a restaurant item (#18) but we need an item for out-of-A-squared area
eateries.

Last night, for example, I had dinner at "Beirut Gardens" over in Warren or
Madison Heights ... at DeQuindre and 12-Mile or so.

Fabulous "Foul" (fava pea spread served at high-temperature with lots of spices
and middle eastern "salsa")!  Elegantly presented hoummous.  The shish-kafta
(shish-kebob but with ground lamb instead of chunks) was a little dry, but
the coffee...ah!  Authentic cardamon spiced Yemeni beans.  I got that 
wonderful chocolate aftertaste when I put the cup down.  

Where have you eaten when you've been out of town?  What memorable little
dives have you been to, and would go back to?

54 responses total.

When I'm in Boston, I always try to eat breakfast at Henry's Diner 
in the Brighton section.  It's a real pre-fab diner, and the food is
good and cheap.

How far out of town are we talking about. . .I know this great local place
in Sagres, Portugal. . .but its a bit of a drive.

Far away fond places:  I like the Tablit in Guatemala City (if it's still
there...I was there in about '71).  A steak house where your plate is
a giant wooden tablet with the menu burned in, and the steaks are so large
that they flop over the sides.  As I recall, the restaurant was on the Calle
de Los Arboles.

We have a little family-run restaurant here in my tiny town of Morrisville
that serves wonderful 'barbeque'.  The service is quick, the prices are low,
and though I've only been there once so far, I'd go back again sometime!
They're open for breakfast and lunch [open from 6-3], so if anyone wants
to join me, let me know!  :-)

   On the slightly more accessable side, if you like Thai food, try
the Thai Cafe on 9 Mile, about 50 feet away from Sams Jams.  Really
good food, at cheap prices.  A warning though: don't underestimate
how hot they can produce food.  Mild is a good place to start off with
for most people.  If you know you like hot, try it at medium.  I
personally find their defintion of hot so hot, that it drowns out the
flavor of the food.

  I'm pretty fond of Thai Palace (on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn..)
Good cheap food, especially at lunch (but don't bother to show up
for sit-down between 11:15 and 13:00,  you'll never get in the door.)

  Also, they've been recommended before but I'd like to re-endorse
both Taco Especials (one's on Southfield in Ecorse about 1/2 mile
before the river and the other's at Allen and Goddard in Taylor.  I
prefer the one in Ecorse..

I just got back from NYC recently, and I'd like to comment on one
restaurant:

Mr. Chow's, on E. 57th between 1st and 2nd:

Mr. Chow's is a rather exclusive restaurant for New York; it does not appear
to be one based on it's exterior.  Instead, it looks like some sort of
private club.  One of my brothers lives next door to it, and did not know
what it was.  I have another brother who was introduced to it via a NYC
business associate, he took us there for dinner last Friday.

(The most exclusive restaurants in LA are so understated that they have
unlisted phone numbers.  The brother who took us to Mr. Chow's has the phone
number of The Olive, one of these unlisted bistro's out there.)

The restaurant specializes in eclectic, er, bent, dishes with an oriental
flair.  The service staff were all occidental, yet the service was confused.
(My brother say's it always is.)  Every table had bottles of San Pellegrino
instead of wine on it, which, I suppose, is the new High Culture that is 
oozing its way into fashion from the West Coast.  I never saw a menu.

We started with two of the specialties of the house.  I know there were
house specialties because every table seemed to have ordered them.  The
shredded seaweed with chili sauce was based on extremely thin nori that
melted in the mouth.  And I have high praise for their diced squab, which
was served with hoisin and large iceberg lettuce leaves to use as wrappers
(a la Peking Duck).  Both of these dishes are worth going back for.

Our middle courses were chicken sate, which was bright red, almost Tandoori
in color, shumai and hargow, which were unusually standardized in flavor
and appearance, and a startling chilied prawn dish with bright green prawns.

Fingerbowls were brought after the finger food (which the prawns weren't),
they contained lukewarm tea.  All part of the "bent" of this restaurant.

Our main course was not their Peking Duck, a specialty.  Instead, we opted
for their Peking Chicken... a spicy dish of chowed chicken, vegetables, and
candied walnuts.  


We declined dessert, though there were many interesting items to select from,
such as spiced mandarin oranges, and a panoply of standard tortes.

Be prepared for a strange bill.  Ours came with only two items on it:

     Beverages:    $8.00     (We had San Pelligrino water)
     Food:       $200.50     (Lord only knows how that added up)

This was for five people.  Expect to spend about $50 per person without
alcohol.

  Yow!

   ...Sounds like a lot of NYC places, to me.

   My stratgey when in NYC is to find a cab driver who understands
something about the food you want, and find out what he or she would
go to.  I'd done this three times there, and got *wonderful*, and I
mean *really wonderful* holes in the wall.  The phones file I had
at the time got damanged, so I lost these resturaunts and I consider
this a great loss.  Once you get out of the notion that you have to
go to a "good place" in NYC, the options really open up.   The little
places that look like they've been blasted out of some previous
business have been the best resturaunts I've ever been to in large
cities.

Ah, but most cab drivers have only been in NY an hour longer than you,
and they've just got off the boat...

My brother (the one who lives there) took us to the "Royal Canadian
Pancake House" on 2nd and 50-something.  Unbelievable.  An order
of pancakes averages around $8.25.  The price is the same if you
get the "small" or the "large" order, which is strange, because the
"small" order is a platefull of normal pancakes, and the "large" order
is -- 3 pancakes each about 24 inches in diameter and about 3 inches
thick.  Buttermilk, cornmeal, or buckwheat.  You can order the "large"
order and specify that 2 of the 3 pancakes should be donated to charity
rather than served at your table.  But, get this:  they allow sharing
between two persons but if you want to share with more they charge $5
per person.  Four of us went to the restaurant and had to order two
"large" orders rather than one, because it was cheaper.  We managed
to finish off 1/3 of one of the strawberry pancakes, and about 2/3
of one of the banana pancakes.  Whew.  My brother and his wife now
have a freezer stuffed to the gills with Royal Canadian Mounted
Pancakes.

re: cab drivers only being in NY for an hour longer than you.

Last time I was there, a couple of us hopped in a cab and told the
guy to take to the Carnegie Deli, arguably the most famous deli in NY.
The cab driver looks at us, and with a heavy Russian accent asks,
"Vere'z Carnegie Deli?"

   Humph.  Sounds like the cab drivers have de-evolved over time.

Some more drift on NYC cab drivers:

Douglas Adams writes (as Ford Prefect writing in the Hitchiker's Guide
to the Galaxy):

Tips for aliens in New York:  

Land anywhere.  Central Park, anywhere.  No one will care or indeed
even notice.

Surviving: get a job as a cabdriver immediately.  A cabdriver's job is to
drive people anywhere they want to go in big yellow machines called taxis.
Don't worry if you don't know how the machine works and you can't speak
the language, don't understand the geography or indeed the basic physics
of the area, and have large green antennae growing out of your head.
Believe me, this is the best way of staying inconspicuous.....

      (excerpted from So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish)

----

Dave Barry says of NYC cabdrivers, "Be sure to speak very clearly to the
driver, as he probably just arrived from a Third World nation where the
major form of transportation is vines."

     (quoted from Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need)

...

 
  Actually, being a cabdriver is an excellent way to learn the terrain...
When I was a new driver at Yellow, I knew where a few things were, but
I just kept my eyes open to and from orders and soon I was in the swing
of things. I really don't want to expand on NYC cabdrivers, but at least 
the one that drives Ann Arbor Taxi number 66 (or 6 double) at night is
one of this city's best...

  not that I'm modest or anything...

Speaking of 'on the road' places, I just entered an item in the travel
conference on B&B's; feel free to check it out and respond to it.

Also, I've downloaded a number of recipes from AOL that some of the B&Bs
have entered [that they serve at their own B&Bs].  Many of these recipes
sound wonderful!  I'd enter them here but there's so many of them and
with my being long distance and all, it would cost me a small fortune
to do so...  So if someone here would like me to USmail a hard copy of
these recipes, I'd be more than happy to send it on to you, to share with
the rest of you here online.  Just let me know where to send the recipes
too!

Could you enter a list of the titles?  Or at least the names of the
recipes that sound the best to you?

[I'll add some of them when I've got a little more time, Dan--in your
reference to recipes and titles...]

A couple good resaurants in the Raleigh area:

The Melting Pot which is a neat fondue place...
Kashin's which is a new Japanese restaurant,
and Maximillians, which is a wonderful, small Italian restaurant that
makes everything fresh after its ordered...

Now that's something a^2 doesn't have to my knowledge; a fondue restaurant.
Big news for those who care, "Schlotski's" (sp) is opening a restaurant 
in a^2 sometime soon.  A Schlotski sandwich is great.

For a great breakfast in San Francisco, try Mother's on Geary one block
east of Union Sq.

Avoid like the plague any place on Fisherman's Wharf.

Actually the food did kill someone there last year.

Steve, what's a Schlotski sandwich??

I was afraid someone would ask. It's been about 10 years since I had one in
Texas. As best I can recall, it's made with a large flat bread, and contains
various meats and dressings that were really quite delicious. Big help eh?:)
I only heard about this one in Ann Arbor recently and wanted to possibly
confirm it and find out where it is going to be located. 

  How is it compared with Y&S.... They make similar type sandwiches.

   I've read about a certain place in Pittsburgh that serves hamburgers
with coleslaw and fries *on the sandwich*. Rumour has it that Franco
Harris is one of the only people that can pick up one of these 'burgers.

Y&S?

I think i spotted a new place called Schlotzki's at the southeast
corner of maple and jackson (or whatever the intersection with maple
village and westgate shopping centers is).

Y&S is a yogurt and sandwich shop.  they've got at least two branches
in ann arbor, one on main street and one in the Traver Village shopping
center.  their sandwiches are served rolled in Lahavash bread.  yummy
food!

  you don't seem to understand, Valerie, I have been to Y&S and think that
it's a great place, I was asking how they compared to Schlotski's.

Yep, and I was responding to Steve Fox's question in #25, where he
asks "Y&S?".

RE 26: Cool. I am coming into town this morning and will be in the Jackson
I-94 area. I will definitely check this out. Y&S sounds good too hmm.

yep. Schlotsky's Deli is at the corner of Maple and Jackson, kitty corner
from the Shell station. It opens 8/12. Now if it only lives up to my memory
of the one in Texas.

On Friday night, I had a late dinner at "The Stinking Rose" in San Fransisco.
This is a restaurant which specializes in Garlic.  Everything on the menu,
in fact, has garlic in/on/around it.  Their slogan is, "We season our
garlic with food."  About $11-15 per person, if you don't include
anything from their "Stinking Wine List."

(On Columbus, near Broadway, in the Tenderloin District.)

I ate there a couple of months ago (but it's in North Beach).

<valerie turns a frightful shade of envious green>

garlic will do that to a pern .....

It does much worse things to me!

Uh, isn't this the "road food," item?

Uh, well, a friend just brought in some venison and I grilled it after
marinating in canola oil with cumin and rosemary, but I'm afraid I can't tell
you where to buy this for lunch...

Last week, I ate at Gustav's Jagerhaus in or near Anaheim, CA (the home
of Disneyland).  It wsn't as good as the Old German, but after a couple
of bocks I didn't mind.

Okay... This is road food?
Vidar is confused!

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss