Foods from L.A./California:
[ul]
[li]Tommy Burgers (burger or hot dog, with or without cheese, with or without chili … that’s the entire menu)[/li][li]Jack in the Box Super Tacos[/li][/ul]
Foods from Indonesia/Southeast Asia:
[ul]
[li]Peanut sauce[/li][li]Satay (without decent peanut sauce, it’s just meat-on-a-stick)[/li][li]Padang curry[/li][li]Krupuk (shrimp chips)[/li][li]Fried sweet-potato wedges[/li][li]Some sort of Indian fried omelet thingie from The Stalls in Singapore, across from the Cold Storage. I think it was called “chapati” or “martabak”, or something like that.[/li][/ul]
Rachel’s Brownies… the original ones, before they sold out to the horrible conglorporation that changed the recipe, overpackaged them, and killed them.
Tiger’s Milk powder. Looooovved that stuff.
Danny Bars–frozen yogurt with a chocolate coating. Nom.
When I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, there was a simple little neighborhood bar called Ol’ Sweig’s. They had a huge family room… I can still remember it, the knotty pinr paneling, the cracked red leatherette booth seats, pictures of race horses on the wall.
They made the best fried chicken in the world. I am talking THE BEST. OMG… it’s been 20 years since they closed and I can still smell and taste it. I have NO idea what was different about it, but I have never had anything close.
I’d like a Banana Flip by Mickey Cakes. I think the company is gone now. I loved those little folded over circles of yellow sponge cake filled with slick-feeling banana-flavored cream.
Trader Joe’s breaks my heart every once in a while when they discontinue my favorite things. Last year, it was the green tea muffin mix.
I miss all the Bay Area food that you can’t get here, like Cheeseboard pizza, Gregoire’s potato puffs and bread puddings, Fenton’s ice cream in Oakland, La Farine’s morning buns, Semifreddi’s cinnamon toast, Acme bread in general, and all the produce at the Ferry Building.
There’s plenty of Taiwanese foods I miss too. Things such as really good oyster noodles, little round spicy meat pastries, and thinly sliced goose meat. Most of all though, I miss gua bao. It’s deceptively called a Taiwanese hamburger, but it’s really nothing like a hamburger. It’s a very mildly sweet pac-man bun stuffed with fatty stewed pork and relish with a thin layer of peanut powder inside. Coupled with some soup and it’s the best meal in the world.
Jones Brothers breakfast sausage links, or “little pigs” as my mother used to call them.
Butterscotch ice cream.
The burgers of my youth, before McD went berserk and ran everyone out of business with their frozen crap. Happily, the mom-and-pop burger has come back in a lot of places.
Speaking of things like this, why isn’t Hawaiian kettle potato chips making their plain signature chip anymore? All I’ve seen on the shelves for months is that flavored shit.
I get hankerings for various Asian and Hawaiian foods pretty regularly but it’s not impossible to come by (laulau is a bit hard to pick up, though). Except for the fruit. I haven’t had a decent starfruit in years, much less lychee or guava or all those things I don’t even know the proper English terms for (pohas, strawberry-guava, etc). When I lived in Belgium I desperately missed decent tacos, and now I desperately miss my favorite doner/shoarma place.
Belgian frites and mayo.
Moules provencale (although I make a killer version)
Having a baguette with butter and a cafe au lait at a sidewalk cafe in Paris
Pepper steak and frites in a Brussels pub
Fish and chips in London
Plantar’s Cheese Balls. They still have the cheese doodles/cheetos thingies, but not the cheese balls. Oh, and Cheetos Paws. Those things were awesome.
