I am the only one in my family who will eat bluefish.
I grew up in NYC, but spent most of my adult life living in CT. I still prefer NY pizza, plain cheese with no other toppings. New Haven pizza is fine, and certainly better than alot of other places in the country.
New England is seafood - lobster, clams, steamers, clam chowder. Love them all.
DH says the best fried chicken he ever had was in Atlanta. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant.
Ok. I can’t believe we’ve gotten 141 posts without anyone mentioning New Orleans. Gumbo, Jambalaya, Etouffee, Crawfish boils, beignets, Red Beans and Rice, Muffaletas thats just to name a few. I can’t think of any other place in the country with a regional cuisine so tied to a place.
No one has mentioned the delicious green beans served in the South. They are cooked with ham or bacon and seem to appear on every menu.
OMG. Fresh hot glazed doughnuts straight out of the deep fat fryer…the manna of my college years. Nothing like a couple of those at 2 AM.
I’m still a pushover for the Krispy Kreme chocolate coated, cream-filled doughnuts. It makes my blood sugar rise just to think about them.
And my favorite Chicago pizza is Pequod’s - a thin pizza with a caramelized crust. Amazing.
I think of pizza like pasta - there’s no one kind but a huge variety under the umbrella. Essentially pizza is dough, sauce, seasoning, maybe cheese, maybe veggies, maybe protein. Pasta is pasta, sauce, seasoning, maybe cheese, maybe veggies, maybe protein. I could say I prefer a chicken limone with angel hair pasta to a baked lasagna, but that doesn’t make one better than the other! I like deep dish, thin crust, New York style…heck, I grew up on Domino’s pizza and lived to tell the tale!
Or Catfish Shacks where you can get fried catfish (whole or fileted), coleslaw, french fries and hush puppies and often all you can eat. Oh and sweet tea.
I move around a bit, or at least used to before the pandemic, so I will mention a few things.
In eastern Canada, I would try the poutine. I have had pretty good poutine in Burlington VT, Montreal, and Quebec City. I have had mediocre poutine in Montreal and Quebec City. The best poutine that I have ever had (not counting what I make myself) was in a tiny restaurant in Fredericton. It was wonderful. Unfortunately on my next trip to Fredericton I was not able to find the same tiny restaurant – I did look for it.
I have had very good crepes in a tiny restaurant in Montreal. I do not remember where but it was close to McGill.
In coastal Maine, I would go for the experience rather than the specific food. You should have your fish and chips or your lobster rolls outside on a dock in a small town overlooking lobster boats and lobster traps, or at least overlooking the water. There are lots of places to do this.
In Dublin again I would suggest an experience rather than an unusual food. I liked getting fish and chips in a brown paper bag, and then taking it next door to the pub to down a beer along with the fish and chips. There was something about the brown paper bag and the draft beer that made the whole thing more authentic. They did make me sit outside – perhaps due to the fear that I would get drunk and drop the fish and chips (I did not).
Since this is allegedly a college oriented site, I will point out that anyone visiting Bowdoin College should go down the street and try some Gelato. It should be obvious where, once you are in Brunswick.
@lvvcsf wrote:
I believe someone mentioned gumbo, but we could add green gumbo and gumbo yaya to the list, also chargrilled oysters, poboys, and muffalettas.
Wash it down with a Pimm’s cup, hurricane, brandy milk punch, ramos gin fizz, sazerac, absinthe frappe or cafe brulot, while you enjoy some bananas foster. There’s too much to list!
Driving from Nola to AZ to get D3 from college, I felt really blessed to be going through Texas and New Mexico. I love Texas brisket, and the beans they have on the side are pinto beans, not goopy and sweet, just delightfully piquant and a bit tomato-y.
I’ve had chili verde only once, and that was at a local chili cookoff, not in Texas. It was amazing! I wish I could find it more regulary.
I love all the green chile foods in NM, especially chiles relleno. So disappointing to get them somewhere else and they’re using poblanos and fillling them with pork, walnuts and pumpkin. I’m sure it’s not awful, but if you’re expecting the best… sigh.
I also love posole and sopapillas. I was lucky to find posole once in a Smithsonian museum cafeteria. They sometimes surprise you! And the kitchen at the Indian Museum there always has good tamales. I had a green corn one once, in Tucson. I’d love to have more!
@Marilyn - I have to disagree. Growing up in a mostly Italian family, pizza is pizza. Stuff that has pineapple, venison, corn, or crabmeat on it is flatbread. Every culture has a kind of flatbread. If it’s thin like a matzo, it’s flatbread, not pizza.
I’ve had the Detroit style pizza and I would say it’s pizza. The crust and dough were excellent and I don’t recall pineapple, venison or any other strange toppings, so it passed.
The “obvious” place is Gelato Fiasco. 
They have locations in Portland ME as well.
Re: bringing your fish and chips into a pub, lots (most?) pubs offer their own fare, some quite gourmet with the who gastropub concept. I’m not sure how polite it would be to bring outside food into an establishment that serves food. Might be why they asked you to eat it outside?
Nah, this whole thread is about regional differences embracing what people have done with food - not keeping some sort of register about what’s supposed to be X because of tradition somewhere.
Some of the things folks mention on here get me drooling and wishing we were still traveling. Some things make me inwardly say, “tried that, wasn’t for me.” Then there are some that make me wonder why anyone would eat it and others I’d love to try.
It’s all very interesting to read about. Differences are fun.
If you cannot travel to it, bring it to you! Graeter’s has their own website and will ship with dry ice. If you want to try Graeter’s and Skyline you can order at Cincy Favorites, but the Graeter’s flavors available are limited.
While I currently live in TX where BBQ is aplenty, I was raised in CA and still miss Santa Maria style BBQ–tri-tip grilled over red oak with pinquito beans.
One summer, DH and I were on a two week road trip up the CA coast and enjoyed tri-tip for breakfast courtesy of the local scout troop’s fundraiser.
Atlanta fried chicken-- tons of great choices - how long ago did he eat it in Atlanta? JCT kitchen? South City Kitchen? Table and Main? Busy Bees? MaryMacs? The Colonnade? Paschals?
Shocked it took 6 pages and 112 posts before someone mentioned Taylor Ham, Egg and Cheese! Little pepper and ketchup and you have the the ultimate breakfast sandwich. And cheese fries with gravy, while still yummy, were much better when drunk at the diner at midnight on a Saturday in high school.
Regarding Philly cheesesteaks - Geno’s and Pat’s are for the tourists (whether you order with or without wiz), but I love me a Schmitter from McNally’s in Chestnut Hill.
And anytime I’m in the south, I gotta get the shrimp and grits!
Since lots of pizza talk on this thread, putting this here.,
“The pizza contingency theory, first offered by food writer Sam Sifton, states that whatever pizza we first come to know as a child is the pizza that we judge all other pizza against. It’s the ultimate pizza to each of us, regardless of its flavor or form. The strong emotions and memories triggered by pizza could be one reason why pizza seems to be booming in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
@jym26 - We were in Atlanta in 2007 with S2 to check out Emory, but the restaurant wasn’t that close to the campus. Obviously, he didn’t go to Emory since we haven’t been to Atlanta since.