I grew up in Baltimore, where steamed blue crabs were a regular part of my diet, whether just the crabs, or crab soup, or crab cakes. All are among my favorites.
So imagine my dismay when, as a stupid 19 y/o in Memphis (in the Navy at the time) I saw crab cakes on a menu and decided I deserved a treat. Apparently in Memphis, at least in 1973, a crab cake was, in fact, a patty of soggy bread-like substance, seasoned, over which someone whispered the word crab.
I could have wept…
But they do cater to local tastes in “Mexican” cuisine. Which, in this Californian’s opinion, leave a lot to be desired outside of Mexico and the border states.
At the Pueblo Cultural Center in Albequerque, I got a bean and veggie burrito that nearly made me weep with its elegant, simple perfection. Every bite was a marvel, despite having only ingredients I was familiar with.
That was almost thirty years ago, and I still get misty just thinking about it.
Edit: Oh lord. I just looked up their menu. I was vegetarian then, and I’m not now, and I wanna drive out there just to eat again at that place.
I was in the Philadelphia airport a few weeks ago and sadly their own menus advertised “Philadelphia cheesesteak”, and for that very reason I decided to go with the pizza instead. The time previous to this, they were just “cheesesteak” so I went with it and it was good, and definitely excellent for airport food. It was a different company, though, so maybe I wasn’t in the right location in the airport.
I think this is true. My wife and I have a term for this when encountering restaurants evidently loved by locals, but a bit off in authenticity: “Gringo Mexican” or “Gringo Chinese” or “Gringo pizza.” In my area many Chinese restaurants sweeten everything, so finding a great spicy savory dish that’s not over-sweetened is rare, yet we hear people raving about it, so the place gets that name.
I guess that largely depends on the local community then. How many recent Mexican immigrants you have versus tacos sold in some largely non-Mexican location. In any event, my personal experience this week has been that the tacos here in New Mexico are basically the same as tacos back home on a median level (there’s better and worse ones in both places). This is, of course, referring to Mexican food from little independent joints and not the tacos at Chili’s.
Anyway, just my opinion after being here. Was expecting food to “make me weep” and it’s been “Yup, that’s a taco.” Perfectly good taco but still a taco. Nothing I’ll miss when ordering at the local strip mall “Taco King” style joint run by six immigrants and the register run by the one 14 year old daughter who knows any English.
I tried one at the Philadelphia airport and was greatly disappointed. I do plan to eventually visit Philadelphia as a tourist so I am still holding out hope.
Most of the Indian places around here, if you read the reviews online, they fall into two categories. There’s “Well, I never had Indian food before, but this was pretty good”, and there’s “Of all of the many Indian places I’ve eaten at, this was the worst”. I was very excited when, a year or so ago, I finally found an actually-good place, that actually spices their dishes properly.
And the thing with a cheesesteak is, it’s a fundamentally very simple dish. If you set out to make a grilled beef and cheese sandwich on a long roll, and didn’t know anything about other attempts at the same, and didn’t try to embellish it too much with ingredients it doesn’t need, there’s a good chance that you’d converge on something similar to what’s ubiquitous in Philadelphia. Where most attempts fail is in trying to get too fancy. Which doesn’t work, because it just isn’t a fancy dish.
For cuisine anywhere, there is another problem that isn;t evident. Turnover.
We had an awesome New Mexican restaurant that opened nearby. It was…transcendent! We loved it. Went all the time.
Then one day, it wasn’t quite right. But hey could have been a bad day. But after two more times, it never got back to what it was.
Turns out it was under new management, and they “improved” the recipes. No visible change on the outside. If you went there now on my recommendation from last year, you’d say “meh”.
A couple of decades ago, I flew through Philadelphia and, having time, asked a volunteer where in the airport I could find a cheesesteak shop. I think they were stumped, which should not be the case. I think any city with a local specialty should make a point of having it available in the local airport.
I live in the DC area, where you can find restaurants serving the cuisines of a hundred nations.
But good luck in finding good regional cuisine from other parts of America.
Three examples:
I would pay a hundred bucks for a plate of crawfish etouffée like I had when I was last in New Orleans, fifteen years ago. There have been restaurants in this area that have had it on the menu. Pale imitations, every time.
Cuban sandwiches. No problem getting the real thing if you’re in central Florida. (My wife and I - she grew up in that area - are partial to the Cubans at La Segunda bakery in Ybor City.) Again, you can occasionally find restaurants in the DC area making something that claims to be a Cuban sandwich, and what they tend to do here is make something really effete that is nothing like that excellent working man’s sandwich known as the Cuban.
Guava pastries. (Another thing that La Segunda does so well.) Never even seen them anywhere outside of Florida. Dammit.
If your ears are burning, it’s me, swearing at you. I’m sooo tempted to just call in sick the first part of next week and drive to Albequerque right now! Gods, that menu sounds delicious.
They are, however, restrained by their surroundings. Offer the real deal someplace that has Taco Bell tastes is a sure road to bankruptcy. You are unlikely to find a great “ethnic” place anywhere there isn’t an immigrant population of that ethnicity who long for the foods of home. This isn’t an ironclad rule, but it has served me well over the years.
I’ve had terrible Mexican in the Panhandle more than once.
Sure. In the case of Mexican, that’s a number of places throughout the United States. Which is why I find the “No one makes real tacos outside this band” claim amusing versus, say, Iraqi populations in Michigan making authentic food you’re unlikely to find in many places. There’s a lot of places in the US with very substantial Mexican immigrant populations and communities.
Not far from NYC it is very hard to find a proper Egg Cream. I was born in the City and use to be up there a lot and while living fairly close, very hard to get a proper one here even in Central Jersey.
Bagels: They’re getting better. No more pathetic Manhattan Bagels being passed off as a Bagel. But the further you are from NYC, the harder it is to find an excellent Bagel.
While it is true you can’t get a proper Philly Cheesesteak outside of Philly, they make far better cheesesteaks in many places outside of Philly.
Yeah, the airport doesn’t count as Philadelphia environs. It’s its own world, festooned with national chains looking to prey upon unsuspecting tourists. I wouldn’t order barbecue in the Kansas City airport for the same reason.
The airport doesn’t have to be dominated by national chains. I think San Francisco tries to have branches of local restaurants at SFO.
I’m in NYC and they are hard to find even here - the candy stores/luncheonettes that served them have basically disappeared. Last place I remember being able to get one was a bowling alley that closed 20 years ago.
That is sad. The Court Deli near Yankee Stadium still had excellent ones as of 2019. I can’t help beyond that.
As part of the job which I just left last week, I regularly flew into Birmingham (which is actually a really nice little airport). They did have a BBQ restaurant there (along with a Chick Fil A and a Burger King), which was a local chain (Jim 'N Nick’s), and was likely the biggest BBQ chain in Birmingham.
However, that chain was widely known as being about the lowest common denominator when it came to Birmingham BBQ; it had the advantage of name recognition, and was a big enough company that they could afford to rent a space in the airport, but their BBQ just wasn’t very good, compared to all of the little mom-and-pop places. If someone had heard that Birmingham had great BBQ, Jim 'N Nick’s would not be a shining example of it.
They closed the airport location during the pandemic, and there’s some other sit-down restaurant in that spot now.