We have hummus and arugula and heirloom tomatoes bought at the food coop or the farmer’s market all the way up here in da UP, too. Really, moving here from Boulder, I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to buy even the basics - cilantro, chiles, tahini, hummus… but it’s just not true. We have 3 Thai restaurants in this town, a couple middle-Eastern, and even a foofy small-plate hipster tapas place.
About the only midwestern stereotype in this thread that applies to us is that it’s true, there are no decent Mexican restaurants. But that’s true of anywhere east of Colorado that I can tell.
But we never thought of ourselves as midwestern up here anyway. If anything, we think of ourselves as Canadian step-children, or North Coast, or Northern Wisconsin.
I assumed he was being a smartass. Did you see my reply? I wasn’t kidding. Thai-Lao, Turkish, and Ethiopian, all in a row, and all delicious. (Also: About a ten-minute walk from my apartment. With two awesome Indian places on the way, though they’re not the best in the city, which is reserved for Bombay Sweets on the south side.)
I’m sure there are, but my point (which I didn’t make very well, I admit) is that Mexican in the west and southwest is ubiquitous - you don’t have to go to a city to find it. Every little town has at least one or two Mexican restaurants, and chances are, they’re pretty good. You just don’t get that in the midwest/north coast/whatever you want to call it area, and I miss it.
The Mexican restaurants I have found in this area are almost always disappointing (WTF is a “wet burrito” anyway?!?) And they all seem universally scared of using any kind of hot spice (which is weird, because there are plenty of Thai restaurants in this area that will blow you socks off with the heat.)
We were in Chicago last November, and we went to Rick Bayless’s restaurant, and it was great. But the funny thing was - Bayless is such a celebrity for bringing Mexican to Chicago, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have really made much of a splash at all had he opened up in, say, Santa Fe, where really good Mexican style food is everywhere.
Yeah, I know, I’m originally from California. The lack of good Mexican food in the Midwest overall is a disappointment.
Rick Bayless is famous for bringing Mexican food to Chicago only in his own mind. There are a million little taquerias and nicer sit-down places* all over Chicago serving up very nice Mexican food. (Chicago has the second largest Mexican/Mexican-American population in the US, after LA.) I think what makes Rick Bayless’ restaurant unusual - which I’ve never been to, although I’d like to, I hear great stuff about it - is that it’s really fine dining Mexican, which is kind of unusual anywhere, I think. I’ve been to a bazillion Mexican restaurants, from holes in the wall to nice places with cloth napkins, but never to one that people actually dress up for.
*I like Enrique’s in Uptown, by the Sheridan Red Line stop.
Discover Columbus. From the Buffalo (NY) News off all places, but an excellent comprehensive write-up, IMO.
We love artglass.A lot. (Lino is my all-time favorite, but the Chihuly exhibit at the Art Museum - as opposed to the permanent collection at the Conservatory - is my favorite so far).
Which is, I think, the interesting thing about the Midwest. You’ll run into lots and lots of people who are originally from small towns (and not-so-small towns) and who have absolutely no interest in any of the above, but there are enough of us [del]snobby-elite[/del] more adventurous types to keep some interesting places in business, including the four or so restaurants within 5 walking minutes of my front door that are probably serving arugula on/in something at this very moment.
When I grew up in West Texas, no one, and I mean no one, considered us to be Southwest. Maybe El Paso and that area, maybe, but certainly not up near the Panhandle where I was. But in trips back there as a young adult, I started seeing a lot of tourist merchandise – coffee mugs, T-shirts and the like – using a Southwest theme, even to the extent of adopting that “howling coyote” logo I used to see in New Mexico when I lived in Albuquerque. Obviously, at some point someone decided to promote Texas as being in the Southwest in order to cash in some tourist dollars, but I ain’t buying it.