Favorite, the more obscure the better, places to eat, history a plus.

In My Humble Opinion
21

I heartily second Carl’s in Fredericksburg, VA. For something similar, but not quite as cheap but not much more, try Del Ray Dreamery in Alexandria, VA on Mount Vernon Ave. They do flavors like Chocolate Covered Cherry and Tollhouse Cookie and much more. Plus they have great sorbets! (The Red Bull sorbet is pretty good!)

Roma Cafe in Fredericksburg has great Italian. It’s across from Renato’s, the more expensive and just as good Italian restaurant.

I’m a sucker for FireFlies pizza on Mount Vernon Ave in Del Ray, Alexandria. Their brownies are so good!

22

From the Bayou, a small, unique place in Parkland, Washington. The place is always packed, but the food is AWSOME!

Next, an Italian place called Armandos, up in Renton, Washington. The place is small, and certainly not very fancy, but the food is just great!

Finally, King Street Station, or is it King Street Bar and Grill? Anyway, right across the from Seahawk Stadium. The BEST pizza I have EVER eaten.

23

When you get to Key West, you’ll want to have dinner at El Siboney on Catherine Street. It’s family style inexpensive Cuban cooking. Just thinking about a #3 makes me weepy and homesick. You got your shredded Cuban roast pork and yuca marinated in mojo sauce, God’s decoction of citrus, spices and garlic. Plus you get morros y cristianos (blacks and whites - rice and beans!) Then you have a con leche. The your cholesterol goes up to 8,000, but you die happy.

24

Somewhere in the backwoods near Eureka Springs, Arkansas is a restaurant called Dowd’s Catfish. The menu is limited but fabulous; you order either whole catfish, or catfish fritters. Then, sit back and grin as plates piled with golden fried fish and bowls full of hush puppies, cole slaw, pickled beets, and green tomato pickle are loaded upon your table. Ohhhh heaven.

25

I like the Red Robin chain, which can be found in several towns in WA.

They actually have one here in Houston too, but it’s just not quite the same for some reason.
If you ever get over to Bremerton (for whatever reason) go to the Red Apple Diner. Have an Oreo Shake.

Then you can die and go to heaven.

26

Ah, I forgot my hometown…

If you ever happen to go to Brunswick GA, you MUST go to Twin Oaks. Ask anyone, they will give you directions. BBQ and fries, I’ve never found anyone who made fries like that ever again…

~drools~

27

I think there’s a Lambert’s in Birmingham (over at the Wildwood) too, Ogre.

My favorite obscure eating place (for barbeque, anyway) is Top Hat, in Blount Springs, Alabama. Oh. My. GOD. There are no words to describe the food there. But I’ll try.

The barbeque itself is simply the tenderest, most succulent meat ever shredded. I have never found one smidgen (that’s a small amount!) of fat, bone or gristle mixed in. There’s no need for any salt, pepper, etc. You can cut it with a spoon…it’s that tender. You don’t even need any of the sauce, that’s how great this barbeque is. The sauce is wonderful, but Top Hat’s meat is so good, it really just isn’t necessary.

Did I mention their catfish? (sigh…) It’s fried, but it is absolutely delectable. I never could stand catfish until I had theirs. I don’t know what seasonings they use, but whatever they are, they’re heavenly.

I won’t mention the homemade fried pies with ice cream. Whoops! Just did. Suffice it to say, no matter how stuffed you get, the meal isn’t done until you’ve had an apple or peach fried pie with ice cream.

This place has been around for at least fifty years (possibly longer) and has gotten more and more popular and well known in the past ten years or so. It went from being a little tumble-down wooden house/shack looking thing to a bit more upgraded with paint on the outside. They have a newer sign with a painted pig in a top hat outside (as opposed to the plastic pig they had on the roof many years ago).

I heard some time ago the original owners sold it, but I am not sure this is true. As long as nobody’s changed any of the recipes, I don’t care if they make the restaurant itself into a replica of The Enterprise. If you want the best barbeque EVER, it’s down here in Blount Springs, Alabama.

28

One of my favorite places to eat is Ed Debivik’s, in Chicago. The food is normal (like hot dogs and stuff), but the novelty of the place is that everyone there is rude to you. The waiters sit down in your booth to take your order, and everyone there complains about their jobs. When they bring you your food, they just randomly throw the food and napkins someplace on your table. Things from the vending machines cost 51 cents. They have annoying, bad dancing at regular intervals. There are signs saying such things as “The more you tip, the nicer we are”, and (over the exit) “Help keep Chicago clean; Please wipe feet before leaving.”

29

There’s Mail Li on Delmar off I-170 - they have the most wonderful dish with chicken in coconut milk with curry and lemongrass.

My other favorite is Shu Feng. It’s in U City (in St. Louis) on Olive. It’s near a shady part of town, but they have the very best water dumplings I’ve ever had! Plus they have their own version of the soupl nazi, only she’s really the seating nazi.

30

I haven’t been back to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in about 12 or 13 years, but there was a place up around Lake Dallas called the Duck Inn that had the best fried catfish (fillets or on the bone) and this home-made blue cheese dressing that was nectar of the gods. They must have served something else, but all I ever has was catfish, pups, fries and salad (at a really minimalist salad bar but you just needed something to transport the dressing to your mouth without obvious use of a soup spoon).

Sonny Bryans bbq is now defunct but they had the most awesome beef bbq I ever tasted.

Campisi’s Pizza on Mockingbird Ln., increadible place! I haven’t been there since Joe Campisi died (late 80’s and that’s a story in and of itself) but back in the early 50’s my mom and dad used to go there when they were dating and they swore that neither the booths nor the jukebox had changed a bit for thirty years. When it was mandated that Joe Sr. had to put in a non-smoking area, he plunked one of those little table top signs saying no smoking on the crappiest table in the joint (right in front of the front door) and that one table was his non-smoking section. Pizza was great, sauteed crab claws that will make my mouth water just thinking about, no credit cards but they would take personal checks. What a great restaurant!

31

and I even previewed, sorry…bug scuttles away in shame

32

Best frozen custard ever: Foo’s Fabulous Frozen Custard in Kansas City, Missouri. They make concretes and sundaes, and it’s this little hole in the wall place with Polaroids of the employees and customers on the walls, and drawings that people have made. Kansas City Dopers will probably have been there.

33

I lurve Cobb salads from the Baldwin Saloon in The Dalles, OR. All other Cobbs pale in comparison. Order with the poppyseed dressing if you aren’t a bleu cheese fanatic like me. Others are very fond of the seafood lasagne. It’s also a great old building that used to be a train station. Weekend nights, there’s often an organ player up on the indoor balcony.

Chope’s Mexican restaurant, in La Mesa just outsideLas Cruces, NM. Only open for dinner, IIRC. Show up at 5:30, because the dining room is tiny and fills up quickly. Have a $2.50 Corona the the bar next door first, or they’ll walk the drinks across the parking lot for you. I recommend Chile Verde.

Great thread idea!

34

Noticed you were looking for Seattle restaurants. If Lombardi’s in Ballard is still around, check it out for good Italian.

For breakfast, the Surrogat Hostess, which I think is Queen Anne Hill area, but my memory is rusty.

35

In Abbeville, Louisiana, bout 15 miles west of Lafayette in the heart of Cajun country, there is Richards. the place for crawfish. When we first went 24 years ago they served them on beer trays, but by the last time they invented a special tray with a divider, so the shell section grows as the crawdad section shrinks. Get some potatoes and onions cooked with the crawfish too. They serve other things now, but no one eats anything but crawfish there.

36

Close, but no ceegar. There was indeed a Baldwin Saloon in the late 19th and early 20th century in The Dalles. But the building in which the Baldwin is now located was for decades Garth Bonney’s saddle shop. True, it sits across First Street from the railroad tracks, but it was never a train station.

I myself am a fan of the Baldwin’s luscious bread pudding with whipped cream and blueberries. Yum!

37

Thanks, I should know that; I remember going in there one of the last years it was a saddle shop.

38

The Singapore is a Chinese vegetarian restaurant in downtown Philadelphia. Alexandro’s pizza is a nice take-out restaurant in northern Philadelphia that serves more than just pizza.

I learned about both these restaurants while working on summer research in applied math at Temple University.

39

Ogre writes:

> It was called the Food Factory, and they served the best damn
> tandoori lamb and yogurt mint sauce ever.

There’s also a Food Factory in College Park, Maryland, run by the same people.

40

De nada, fizgig. It’s one of our favorite spots to bring relatives when they come to town, and everytime my daughter comes home for a visit, it’s almost automatic that we eat at the Baldwin at least once. I’ve never had a bad meal or a bad experience there.