# Restaurants that don't serve essential dishes/items **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [February 18, 2025, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451 "2025-02-18T13:21:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/101 "2025-02-19T20:34:24Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Thanks, I’d never heard of or seen one of these places, so I was confused. Not here. Not surprised. There was one open for business in Sacramento as recently as 2018. I know because I saw it while I was there. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/102 "2025-02-19T20:39:50Z")
Well, that’s over 400 miles away. I’m not likely to travel that far to eat at a chain restaurant! ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/103 "2025-02-19T22:01:11Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > I’m not likely to travel that far to eat at a chain restaurant! You say that, but sometimes it’s something you just want/miss. So you find another good reason to go there and happen to hit it up because you were there _anyway_… Speaking as a man who accompanied a friend on a 600+ mile drive to have Jack in the Box. Or, rather, I went and visited my folks, and he was there for a deep fried Jack taco. I have so far managed to not drive 300-400 miles for a _good_ green chile cheeseburger, but there have been times when the temptation was high. I can’t deny Stranger’s point that New Mexicans consider green chile to be an essential condiment/spice, right up there with salt and pepper. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/104 "2025-02-19T22:09:20Z")
I have friends who drove a few hundred miles to eat at the Imperial Dynasty restaurant in Hanford, CA. But it was an excellent restaurant. Sadly, now closed due to ill health of the owner. Personally, I’d never drive hundreds of miles for fast food. I don’t eat it much anyway, but for me I’d only do it if it were for a special particular reason, and there was some other reason for me to go or thing to do once I got there. For Jack in the Box? You’d have to pay me. A lot. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/105 "2025-02-19T22:22:59Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I should have realized everyone here at the Straight Dope has rarified taste when compared to the hoi polloi and would never eat at a chain. All of us eat at an authentic, pardon me, auténtico restaurante Mexicano, where the tortillas are made by someone’s abuelita using the same recipe and method passed down to her from her Aztec ancestors. Heck, I had Taco Bell a couple of days ago, and it was just what I was in the mood for. I’m just not under any illusions that it’s in any way Mexican. > [@Johanna](#): > > A traditional restaurant in Italy has cuisine from only the region it’s in. Locally-sourced ingredients and all that. The vast majority of Italian immigrants came from il Mezzogiorno. Red sauce cuisine became the norm in America because it’s shared by Sicily, Calabria, and Campania. The only regional cuisine most Americans have ever seen represented is Campanian i.e. Neapolitan. If your restaurateur is from Tuscany, for sure you’re getting white sauce. Lombardy or Piedmont, brown sauce. Liguria, green sauce, etc. My grandmother was from Italy, and one time, someone took her to an authentic Italian restaurant as a special treat. Grandma ended up horribly offended, because it was a southern Italian restaurant, and she was a proper Roman. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/106 "2025-02-19T22:34:07Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Oh,god. I hate those sticky tables Not that you would ever do it, but don’t go into a photo both that shows porn flicks. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/107 "2025-02-19T22:36:45Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > Food historians are quick to tell you … Is that a gig? Where do I sign up? ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/108 "2025-02-19T22:39:04Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Their brie and caramelized onion cheeseburger is the best burger I’ve ever had. That does sound good. And it is only $6.50?? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/109 "2025-02-19T22:50:03Z")
Best chain fast food burger is a Whataburger patty melt with green chile added. Well, maybe not the best, but a pleasing enough sandwich. Anyway, I’m amused at the idea that Mexican food is even supposed to be easily defined. It’s a big country with lots of local cuisines. I go far too often to a place that does food in more of a Mexico City style, there’s a few Mexican seafood places in town, of course there’s New Mexican everywhere, and while there are places that do a good queso dip it’s still going to mostly be cheese and green chile. And then there’s whatever the deal is with all the similar sounding taco places all over the southwest. Heck, even Taco Bell and Taco Cabana have their places. Of course, this is also the town where you can get a banh mi while also getting your car’s emissions test done. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/110 "2025-02-19T22:52:12Z")
> [@Jaycat.again](#): > > Is that a gig? Where do I sign up? The real trick is parlaying that into some documentary series on the BBC. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/111 "2025-02-19T23:24:17Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I don’t mean to suggest that an On The Border might have reasonably cromulent food product; I mean, I don’t personally know because I’ve only considered it in desperation during a layover, and it is one of those restaurants which seems ubiquitous in airport terminals, but people seem to patronize it, and I’m sure it has its devotees. But if you have multiple options of truly good Mexican food (of a variety of styles) within a mile radius, why would I chose a mediocre chain? We were visiting Arizona and when we flew in we were starving. The lady at the rental car desk raved about this Mexican place close by. Very authentic, very good. I was looking forward to getting some good Mexican food in the Southwest. We went there. The bars on the widows and fortress like appearance gave me pause. It seemed like the kind of hole in the wall where you would get great authentic food made by recent immigrants. It was awful. Not just awful but bland and tasteless. I would take On the Border over that any day. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/112 "2025-02-20T00:43:42Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > Anyway, I’m amused at the idea that Mexican food is even supposed to be easily defined. It’s a big country with lots of local cuisines. I had to explain to someone that Mexico had the ocean to their west and their east, so of course they had seafood. He was shocked to see a Mexican seafood place open up in the Little Rock area…though to be fair I was a little surprised myself. But he honestly didn’t know they ate seafood in Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/113 "2025-02-20T00:51:58Z")
Consider that queso fundido isn’t necessarily aka choriqueso – that’s queso fundido con chorizo. There’s simply queso fundido (without chorizo), and queso fundido con rajas (also without chorizo). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/114 "2025-02-20T00:56:42Z")
Yeah, in my Chicago neighborhood, there’s like a half dozen Mexican seafood places within a mile radius. I don’t think I’m even exaggerating a little. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/115 "2025-02-20T01:11:59Z")
I noticed when I was in Chicago last year that the city has its own style of Mexican fast-casual food - tacos can be ordered American-style with lettuce, tomato, and cheese, or Mexican style with cilantro, onion, and salsa (which is what I would call “taco truck style” out here on the west coast). Burritos invariably seem to come with exactly one set of fillings - meat, white cheese, refried beans, lettuce, tomato, salsa, and sour cream. The lettuce is the weird part to me, because hot wilted lettuce is gross. In San Diego, burrito fillings depend on the protein, but it’s usually just meat, salsa or pico de gallo, and guacamole, whereas a taco truck burrito comes with meat, refried beans, rice, cilantro, onion, and salsa. I suppose there’s a lot of variation in American Mexican food depending on local gringo tastes and what part of Mexico the local Mexican population hails from. San Diego and the west coast in general is mainly Baja-influenced, other parts of the country get central and southern influences. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/116 "2025-02-20T01:14:33Z")
My favorite place in San Diego (El Agave) is the only Mexican sit-down restaurant I’ve been to that does not serve chips and salsa. When I recommend it to people I make sure to mention it–I think many would consider it an essential menu item. They do, however, have Queso Fundido as an appetizer on the lunch menu. (Not to mention 2000 kinds of tequila to chose from.) ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/117 "2025-02-20T01:43:04Z")
I am still getting over the shock of no butter served with the waffles at Waffle House. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/118 "2025-02-20T01:46:26Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Burritos invariably seem to come with exactly one set of fillings - meat, white cheese, refried beans, lettuce, tomato, salsa, and sour cream. It really depends where you get your burritos. Those are probably the most popular style here, but you can get more minimalist styles from other parts of Mexico (like Juarez) that many people wouldn’t even identify as burritos. And you can always say “no lettuce.” It’s not a requirement. I hate rice on my burritos, but some places here will put it on by default. Yuck. Give me lettuce for contrast any day. I don’t ever recall it getting so warm that it wilts. Here’s a barbacoa burrito from Burritos Juarez that used to be near my neighborhood (that place is now gone, but there’s a couple places down the street whose name I don’t remember that have something similar to this): [![](https://fooditor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/juarez7-1409x1024.jpg) ](https://fooditor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/juarez7-1409x1024.jpg) Don’t think Chicago Mexican food is one thing. It’s from various parts of Mexico and the style and offerings may change from place to place. You’re right in that you had a typical Chicago burrito, but that’s not the only kind of burrito in Chicago. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/119 "2025-02-20T01:50:03Z")
Traveling North on the East side of Mississippi, we stopped at McDonalds and they didn’t serve carbonated soft drinks. No Coke (or Pepsi) or Sprite or Mountain Dew or anything similar. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451/120 "2025-02-20T01:50:49Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Here’s a barbacoa burrito from Burritos Juarez that used to be near my neighborhood (that place is now gone, but there’s a couple places down the street whose name I don’t remember that have something similar to this): That looks closer to what your typical walk-up or drive-thru fast Mexican place in San Diego would call a “beef burrito”, which is close to a foot long, weighs at least a pound, and is filled with shredded beef stewed with onion, tomato, and bell pepper, with no other ingredients (unless you want refried beans, which makes it a “mixed burrito”). > [@pulykamell](#): > > Don’t think Chicago Mexican food is one thing. It’s from various parts of Mexico and the style and offerings may change from place to place. You’re right in that you had a typical Chicago burrito, but that’s not the only kind of burrito in Chicago. I asked on r/chicagofood after my trip and was told the burrito I described isn’t uncommon in the Midwest. It is notably the same ingredients as Taco Bell’s burrito supreme (except for the use of white cheese instead of cheddar), so I wonder if that version originated as a fancified version thereof. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restaurants-that-dont-serve-essential-dishes-items/1014451.md?page=7)