# Strangest places you've found a good restaurant **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 4, 2015, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205 "2015-05-04T04:02:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/41 "2015-05-05T01:56:50Z")
The best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten in my life is at a little restaurant in Pellston, Michigan, near the tip of the Lower Peninsula. Homemade biscuits and noodles and their own canned preserves and relishes, including phenomenal pickled watermelon rind. I’d go there tomorrow to eat there again, but I don’t have a lot of reason to travel that way. More’s the pity–I could live on that fried chicken. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/42 "2015-05-05T02:01:43Z")
As much as I rag on Texas, I have to say the best Thai restaurant I’ve found in the US was in Lubbock. There’s several of them scattered across the city, and not sure but I think they’re all owned by different members of an extended family. Conversely, every Thai restaurant in Honolulu sucked while I was living there. Not only my opinion but that of every Thai student I knew there including my future wife. And that included the big fancy one in Waikiki that all the movie stars went to when they were in town. You’d think a place like Honolulu could do better than that. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/43 "2015-05-05T02:25:41Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > Some fine cheeseburgers and fries at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital cafeteria. Trying to drum up some business? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/44 "2015-05-05T02:46:19Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Trying to drum up some business? 😃 Yeah, we’ve all made that joke. They also have a Starbucks. Not just Starbucks coffee, an actual Starbucks. ---
**Author:** ![bb49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b38774/32.png) [@bb49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bb49)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/45 "2015-05-05T04:34:37Z")
Being sick while traveling by motorcycle sucks, so consequently we were stuck in Moses Lake, Wa. for three days last year. Just down the highway from our motel was a little Thai restaurant in a strip mall. Wow, fantastic food. Wasn’t expecting food like that in this place. I did a bit of searching, and it’s simply called Thai Cuisine. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/46 "2015-05-05T04:59:18Z")
I had possibly the best steak au poivre I’ve ever eaten in a small restaurant in Diego-Suarez at the northern tip of Madagascar in 1985. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/47 "2015-05-05T05:01:02Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > The best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten in my life is at… …fast food restaurant in Barbados, called [Chefette](http://www.chefette.com/). ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/48 "2015-05-05T07:21:20Z")
It must have been the winter of 1963–64, when my dad was taking my brother and me back home to Minneapolis after Christmas vacation in Joliet, IL. We had been on the road all day (must have been on old US 12 through Wisconsin) and it was a cold, grey late afternoon when we stopped for lunch at an Italian restaurant. I doubt the place is still there (wherever it was, it was in a very small town in the middle of nowhere), but we had some of the best pizza I’ve ever tasted, along with a basket of warm garlic bread dripping with real butter. Fifty years ago, and I remember that meal like it was yesterday. In Joliet in the summer of '65 (I think) we went for lunch at a British-style pub in a big red brick building on what must have been the bad side of town, because it looked like London after the Blitz (it was probably being redeveloped). We had the best flame-broiled hamburgers ever, huge and served in baskets with sides of delicious fries (they must have been fried in lard). There’s an outdoor museum of ethnic architecture on the outskirts of Riga, Latvia. I had spent the day there with my daughter (I’m pretty sure it was 2007, so she would have been 12), and we were going to take the bus back into town when we got caught in a thunderstorm. We ducked into the visitors’ center to get out of the rain and found they had a restaurant tucked into one of its corners. We decided to have dinner there and ate soup and a variety of delicious Latvian dishes. Very nice! ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/49 "2015-05-05T10:24:40Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Sea World in San Antonio, TX has some surprisingly good brisket. That wasn’t brisket. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/50 "2015-05-05T11:05:45Z")
Why hasn’t **grude** posted anything? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/51 "2015-05-05T11:53:43Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > In Woodland Hills CA, around the corner from my old office, there is a Sandwich Shop in the Chevron Gas Staion. > > IN THE GAS STATION!! There is an Indian restaurant in one of our local Mobil stations, back in the corner near the beer cave. Mostly takeout, but they have 3 tables and a deli counter. Only place for 40 miles that you can get really good deli meats, Indian curries, and made-to-order gyros. Not so hot for ambiance. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/52 "2015-05-05T11:56:06Z")
When I was last in New Zealand I had the best meal of the trip at an unpretentious restaurant in Twizel, a one-horse town in the middle of nowhere in the South Island. ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/53 "2015-05-05T12:07:19Z")
When I moved to the city years ago, my ex found this small, dirty looking, badly lit Chinese restaurant with no sign or anything to indicate it wasn’t condemned, next to a busway ramp. I never saw anyone sitting down and eating in the restaurant, but they did pretty decent takeout business. Sadly, it has gone (the owners moved back to Thailand), but I’ve not found better Lo Mein since. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/54 "2015-05-05T16:10:55Z")
I have no idea if it’s there are any good any more, but there was a steak place near the Wilson stop of the Red Line in Chicago that served, I swear, a _better_ steak than I had at Ruth’s Chris. It was a dingy, hole in the wall place, but this should have been shoe leather, instead it tasted like dry-aged prime beef. Another shocking discovery was a strip mall Chinese place in Overland Park, KS. We ate there late at night, and the printed menu was the usual, dull stuff. But the friend who brought me there ordered a bunch of stuff that wasn’t on the menu - “hot pots” and it was amazing. Everybody else in the place besides my friend and his family was Chinese, and this apparently was the place where people who worked at other Chinese restaurants ate after finishing their shift. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_Bowe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@Doug\_Bowe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_Bowe)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/55 "2015-05-05T17:11:30Z")
> [@Gothic](#): > > The Double Musky Inn. Girdwood, Alaska. A great place for dinner after a day of skiing on Alyeska. This is before the huge resort was built. The recipes used to be free and every year I try my inept hands at the salmon appetizer. > > Coconut Salmon > Salmon chunks dipped in beer batter then rolled in coconut, deep fried served with a sweet and sour plum sauce. > [Girdwood Alaska ~ Double Musky Inn ~ A New Orleans Style Restaurant](http://www.doublemuskyinn.com/framed.html) Great place, and you won’t be able to eat it all. Everyone leaves with bags and carryout containers. ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/56 "2015-05-05T17:31:08Z")
> [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](#): > > The best Thai place I’ve ever been (and reportedly the best in the country) is the Lotus of Siam, which is in an incredibly seedy strip mall well off the main drag in Las Vegas. Not near Lotus of Siam quality, but the best Thai restaurant in my area is in a strip mall on the outskirts of Binghamton stuck between two strip clubs, an S&M shop, a liquor store, and a laundromat. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/57 "2015-05-05T17:39:44Z")
The restaurant in the [Lee Vining, CA Mobil gas station](http://www.whoanelliedeli.com/) is well-known for it’s very good food. It’s become famous now but Dixie’s BBQ in Redmond, WA started out in one half of a car garage. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/58 "2015-05-05T17:49:43Z")
I lived briefly on an Indian reservation in New Mexico in the mid 1990s, and their best restaurant, which could best be described as “Mexican with frybread”, was in a building that looked like a decrepit tool shed. It had a couple of tables but was mostly carryout. MMMMMMMMMM! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/59 "2015-05-05T18:14:13Z")
That reminds me: Beaumont has a good pizzeria inside a trio of side-by-side shipping containers. One container had windows and a door cut into it for the entrance & seating area; the center container has the counter & take-out window. Seating is kinda cramped, though, which often results in a seating queue. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205/60 "2015-05-05T18:46:52Z")
There was a very good Mexican restaurant in the flyspeck sized rural village of Woodbine, IL back in the mid to late 1970’s. I’ve no idea why; it’s a very rural, white, isolated community with maybe 20 occupied homes in it. Sadly the restaurant didn’t last long. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-places-youve-found-a-good-restaurant/719205.md?page=4)