Diners, Roadhouses, Joints and Dives

Sorry, I won't be in Memphis again until mid July. DW found out about it in a travel book and when we went down there we were almost afraid to get out of the car but it is frequented by college students and business people and I guess is pretty popular as they have a bunch of celeb pics on the walls.

Also heard about Dyersburgers down on Beale (they deep fat fry the burgers and the grease has NEVER been changed since 1933). Guess they are incredible.

Now I'm getting hungry!
 
If you like great fried seafood New England style try either Lena's in Salisbury, MA, Brown's in Seabrook, NH they have great steamers too. Great place for a heck of a greasy spoon breakfast try Casey's in Plaistow, NH.

If you're in Boston there's the Union Oyster House or try The Chart House for the best clam chowda in Boston. Newbury Street has every kind of eatery you could want from healthy to not so good for you LOL.

Every Wed after our meeting my partners and I go to lunch, about 4 years ago we decided to never do the same restaurant and see how long it would take before we ran out of places within walking distance. We ate every kind of food you can think of and went for almost 2 years without a repeat, some places were great, some were ..well.. not so great but we had fun picking places and trying new foods.
 
OldAgePensioner said:
OK, let's get serious.  Most on here have travelled quite a bit.

Best overall (don't even try to top it) = Mama Dips, Chapel Hill, NC
Best Barbeque Ribs = Mr. Jims Beef, Los Angeles (you need no teef to eat his beef)
Best Hot Dog = Hot Diggity Dog, Chicago, IL
Best Burger = Fatburger, Orange Ave, Pasadena, CA
Best Chopped BBQ = Lexington BBQ, Lexington, NC (serve 3 tons per week)
Best Oysters = Pelican Landing, Cocoa Bch, FL
Best Shrimp = Bennet's Calabash Seafood, Calabash, SC
Best Chicken = Aunt Kizzie's Back Porch, Marina Del Rey, CA
Best Pizza = Pizza Show, Hawthorne Blvd, Los Angeles (2 Boston brothers)
Best Catfish = Catfish Place, St. Cloud Fl on Hiway 192
Best Calamari = Eastside Fish and Chips, Alice Spings, Aus (Thai cook)
Best Moreton Bay Bugs = Bugs Seafood Diner, Contarf, Aus
Best Pad Thai = Street vendors on Yarowat Rd, Bangkok
Best Pork Sandwich = Bayhorse Inn, Burn Bridge, Yorkshire, England
Best Onion Rings = Jerry's , Torrance Blvd, Los Angeles (served in brown paper bag)
Best Fish and Chips = Bizzy Lizzy's,  Skipton, N. Yorks, England
Best Marianted Chicken Feet = Kam Lok Rest., Nathan Rd. , Hong Kong
Best Italian Beef = Portillo's, Ontario St. Chicago, Il
Best Corned Beef = Ashkanaz Deli, Oak St. Chicago, IL
Best Reuben = Somewhere in NYC near 50th and ?
Best Spaghetti = little shop in corner at Trevi Fountain in Rome. Opposite church.
Best Balti = The Balti House, two blocks down Gray Chapel, from Kings Cross, Lon
Best Dim Sum = You's Dim Sum, Stockton St., San Francisco.
Best Vietnamese = Two block up from Ecole Militare, and Champs de Mars.  
Best Prime Rib = Bully's, La Jolla, CA (you will never find better, never!)
Best Big Cheeseburer = Green Flash, Pacific Beach, CA
Best Cheesesteak = Grunnions, Sepulveda, Los Angeles
Best Bouillabaisse = St. George Hotel, DC
Best Chili Crab = Phoenix Rest., London near Baker St museum of some detective
Best Tea = Betty's , Parliament St. Harrogate, England
Best Bratwurst = Viktulian Markt, Munich, Germany
Best Beer = Killian Red on draft at the Rat and Parrot
Best Reindeer = Gondolen, Stockholm
Best Grilled Cheese = Charbroiler Grill, Melbourne, FL
Best Chinese Buffet = China Inn, McPherson Church Rd., Fayetteville, NC
Best Breakfast = Bob's Diner, Polk St. San Francisco (old time waitress)
Best Deli = Moishe's Pippic, San Francisco

These are all places I've eaten and would recommend to anyone.
Click to expand...
Is your memory that good, or do you keep a notebook?
 
You know that looking at all these great menu's has caused me great consternation as I had to eat just a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. Those chili dogs are already barking at me :LOL:
 
Eagle43,
I kept travelogues. Always seemed to travel with either Joe, or Jon and both wrote travelogues also. We'd put them on computer and share.

Just lost my SF blog (some HTML glitch) and got to start over but it had lots of eateries in it.

Dex,
how could I forget the Varsity. I've always wondered how my Rambling Wreck friend Jon stayed alive. The Varsity is the best greasey food joint in the US.
 
Here a few of my favorites in San Francisco:

If you like burritos: El Balazo, 1654 Haight St
take out pizza: North Beach Pizza, 800 Stanyan (several other locations)
 
LL,
I'll give those places a try next weekend when I go to Amoeba Music for my browsing. I'm looking of some real old obscure jazz cornetists and that store is awesome.

Haight is surely one eclectic place.
 
At what point does a "dive" get ruined by popularity and become just another tourist attraction? Take, for example, OAP's Overall Best Pick - Mama Dips in Chapel Hill, NC.

My personal opinion is that it's severely overrated as a restaurant. The food is very average at prices about twice what you'd pay at a "real" dive. It is always busy though due to its fame and notoriety. The interior decor, cleanliness and general atmosphere don't scream "dive", either.

Maybe things have changed over time (for the better, in this case). :-\

Perhaps the life cycle of the "tourist attraction dive" is something like this: provide a unique atmosphere and good food at cheap prices. Get noticed and win a bunch of "best of" awards from the local media. Become increasingly popular and eventually get featured on a Travel Channel series on local restaurants. Increase prices and ignore food quality, knowing that your reputation will continue to draw tons of one-time or infrequent customers to your establishment.
 
Sorry to hear Mama Dips is that bad these days. Back 15 years ago, or so, it was really good food. Darn.
 
califdreamer,
had dim sum at Louies on Stockton today, I'll most def do the Yank Sing on Stephenson tomorrow.

I like dim sum. Cheap and scrumptious. and only a few blocks away
 
OAP,

I've always loved Yank Sing and have followed them as they have relocated around the city over the last 20 yrs. Always try to get there when I'm in SF. Would love to get your review for Louie's and YS... who knows, maybe I'm guilty of dim sum myopia?
 
OldAgePensioner said:
Best Burger = Fatburger, Orange Ave, Pasadena, CA
Click to expand...

Absolutely! There's a Fatburger in Westwoood, near UCLA. "Double king chili chees egg burger"

I'm in Fayetteville frequently, will try the China Inn on McPhereson Church Rd
 
califdreamer,
just today I ordered just 165 cents worth of shrimp dim sum (4 dumplings).  Yum, yum, from Louies on Stockton.  I've been informed that Chinese eat on Stockton, tourists on Grant.

There are 2 great  You's Dim Sums, one on Stockton and one on Washington.  Both are packed with Chinese.  Same prices and bad thing is they put all the dumplings in one bag, they start sticking together.

I think I found the holy graile of Chinese Dim Sum.  I'll try it out and let you know.

My good Chinese friend likes Kam Lok on Wahsington as his favorite.

Who knows, it's a big world of Chinese, I'm going to do my very best.
 
samclem,
if you go to Fayetteville, let me know. My brother will take you there and at $5.25 for lunch, I'm sure he'll treat. He is pretty cool, he has professional racing, golfing, and tennis friends and he's a retail businessman. Pretty laid back guy.

The China Inn place is awesome, I was there for 4-5 days last summer and surprised to find a 50-60 item Chinese buffet in NC. Damn.
 
OldAgePensioner said:
Sorry to hear Mama Dips is that bad these days. Back 15 years ago, or so, it was really good food. Darn.
Click to expand...

The folks I went with thought it was great. Of course they were all from the Northeast or Florida, so they wouldn't know good down home southern food if it jumped out of the frying pan and bit them. ;)
 
justin,
are you sure her food is not worth going over for anymore. Cause I just called my a friend in Cary goes by the name of Fat Duck on a couple of UNC boards and he said he still feels like the food is great.

Was the meal you guys had bad enough to write her place off as just a tourist trap?

I'm not going to reommend it anymore till I get some consensus. Lot's of taste buds and lots of opinions.
 
Moose's Tooth Pizza in Anchorage, Alaska

Order up their Thai chicken pizza and wash it down with a pitcher of their India Pale Ale. Have one of their excellent specialty beers for dessert. Take a cab home....
 
It's 3AM and since ITM recommended a few spots in North Beach I thought it'd be worth a shot.

Damn, I think I got a tatoo but I can't see my chest for this little floozy asleep on top of me. She thinks we're married. Right, there is no way I was drunk enough to marry an 18 year old stripper.

It'll all be straightened out first thing in the morning.

Damn, who are those people in my kitchen cooking?
 
Nona's Kitchen on coast, 15 minutes south of San Francisco is great little place. Great food, relatively cheap prices. I tried to meet Laurence and his wife there last year, but found it was closed. We went to the hideously expensive Mexican place next door instead. :mad:

http://www.nonaskitchen.com/
 
I was thinking over my grande this morning that the pursuit of the ultimate Ds, Rs, Js & Ds would be a worthy one.
An Early Retirement would be well spent in such an activity.

There might even be a book contract at Nolo for me - ESRBob could be my agent. ;)

Possible titles -
Zen and the Art of Eating In Dives & Joints

How I Found Early Retirement Enlightenment and Happiness in America's Best Diners, Roadhouses, Joints and Dives

An Alternative - those on the forum with too much time on their hands could each take an area and Nolo could issue regional editions. :D
 
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