I was contemplating my planned move away from Los Angeles yesterday, and realized the thing I will miss most is the readily available Mexican food. I know that other parts of the country CLAIM to have good Mexican food, but you don’t. Really. Ok, so some other parts of California do, as do portions of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, but other than that…no dice, and we aren’t looking at moving anywhere in the Southwest.
I would also miss local avacado. I have had the fruit people on the east coast claim is avacado, and if I lived back east I wouldn’t understand California’s avacado obession either. Those things you guys have are like wax.
What about you, what local foods would you miss most if you were to move to another part of your country?
ETA: Heh, please assume that is a question mark at the end of the thread title and not a period. :smack:
What you said. Cheap, good Mexican food available everywhere is something we Southern Californians take for granted. My 7 year sojourn in Alaska was a living hell, Mexican food-wise.
In a similar vein, green chile. Outside of a small area in the Southwest, it is virtually non-existant. Huge parts of the country don’t even know what it is.
It seems wierd to me that a food that is pretty much a staple in one part of the country is unheard of in the rest. It is as if the only place that ate potatoes was Idaho, and if you asked for one in Minnesota, they’d say “What the f$*K is a potato?”
Well, I moved away from Philly 7 years ago, and I still miss me a cheese steak. Especially a D’Allesandro’s cheesesteak.
Every so often I miss one enough to buy a local attempt. And it is what I imagine a hooker is like. Initially takes the edge off the need, but leaves me longing for the real thing.
I spent 6 years out of California in small midwestern towns. What I missed most was Asian food of all kinds. It was really culture shock coming from the Bay area. I learned to be a pretty good cook during that time, especially Indian food.
When I lived in Salt Lake City they had good mexican food as well. Big hispanic population there. I miss that a lot. Seattle has crap for mexican food.
However, leaving here I would miss Indian and Thai. I can pick out at least 6 good places for each within 15 miles of my house.
I would miss having Indian food and good pizzas. Most other parts of the country are severely lacking Indians and Italians. Chicken tikka masala pizza, anyone?
I’m from Texas, now living in Connecticut, and I miss good Mexican food (and avocados, too).
I have tried just about every Mexican restaurant in Connecticut, and neighboring states, too. They all suck. (Actually, there is one that would be just barely passable back in Texas, but far exceeds any of the rest here in Connecticut. When my wife and I first discovered it, we went there once a week for six months, even though it is 40 minutes away from our house.)
Anyway, we are going to be visiting my family in Texas over Christmas. Getting some decent Mexican food is about equal on my priority list with seeing my family. I’m counting down the days. Seriously.
(My wife and son love Italian food, and they have crappy Italian places on every block up here in the Northeast. If I never had Italian food again, I would be fine with that.)
When I moved from Ohio to NYC, what I missed most was Vernor’s Ginger Ale. Now that I’m back in Ohio, I miss ***everything ***from New York (and not just food).
Pork tenderloin sandwiches – not the “pork fritter” but the handcut and breaded pork loin. Really, that’s all Iowa has to offer that’s better than in other parts of the country, if we’re talking restaurant food.
It doesn’t have to be restaurant food. I just found out in another thread that I am going to be missing quality cheep fresh vegitables of all sorts when/if we move*. That is going to hurt.
*We both really want to get out of LA, but at the rate we are saving who knows when it will actually happen.
Oh, easy. I grew up as an AF brat, and whenever we traveled to the south, we would gauge how close we were to the south by the quality of the BBQ. If I ever left Tennessee, I would miss the ambrosial pulled-pork sammitches… like angel kisses, they are. That, and sweet tea.
I would miss being able to walk around the corner and get great, cheap Thai food that’s made for Thais, and they don’t ask you how spicy you want it (they just make it spicy like it should be) and they don’t put stars on the menu to warn you that a dish is spicy–after all, everyone there (except me) is Thai. Also good Armenian food.
I’m counting down the days. Seriously.