We love food.
There. I said it. We freaking love food.
It’s just so delicious and when we find a restaurant that’s amazing, we just want to sing it from the rooftops and let everyone know all about it.
As travelers (and therefore, mediocre-at-best travel blog followers), we’ve come across a lot of blogs that claim to know the best food hubs in America, or in Europe, or in a country. Or they claim to know the best places to eat in LA, even though they’re just visiting for a couple of days. I mean, my goodness, how they managed to rack up all that knowledge of all 114 Angeleno neighborhoods and therefore all the best cafes and restaurants in just a few days is quite an astonishing feat!
We travel a lot, but we’re not going to tell you The Top 5 or The Top 10, or The Best Places to Eat at Whateveritscalled. That’s simply not how we roll. We just want to share our Three Favorite Food Hubs in the United States. If you happen to have a little time on your hands, or maybe you travel for food, or maybe you’re planning to visit these cities for business, check out our favorite places to eat. Who knows, you may want to praise these places from the rooftops, like we do.
Miami
My husband and I have had a long-standing argument of which place has the best Mexican food: Frank thinks it’s San Diego and I think it’s my Aunt Bea’s house… I mean LA. This argument, however, did not get settled in Miami because we were trying everything Cubano, Central American and South American.
It all started with the plantain. Now, pardon my ignorance, but I always thought a plantain was just a fancy-pants banana. I honestly don’t know if I’m wrong, but this “love affair” with the plantain started with some garlic plantain chips bought somewhat randomly at a liquor store in Miami. I couldn’t believe it: plantains are more than just a fried dessert. They’re a chip, too! And they’re also a burger bun.
Pincho Factory
A while ago, Frank introduced me to a place called Mos Burger, a fast food place that makes rice buns. I’m a very in-the-box thinker (hence my writing, heh) and didn’t believe that buns could be more than bread…or in this case, rice.
Cue Pincho Factory. It’s a fast-food kind of place that leans more toward a restaurant. We ordered their Toston Burger and some sweet potato tater tots.
This may be one of my favorite burgers now. The sweet flavors of the plantain meshing with the delicately-cooked ground beef was something I won’t soon forget. So, please, Pincho Factory, open up a place in LA!
Platano fantastico. Mmmm….Bolivar
One word: patacones. a fried, circular plantain chip topped with either some surf or some turf and different dips to drizzle on top of them. This was our main must-try at Bolivar and this place was poppin’.
Charlotte Bakery Cafe
Ok, here comes a BasicBitch alert: I watch Keeping up With the Kardashians. I don’t remember any of the episodes, because they’re Basically my go-to Sunday morning hangover cure and I’m far too tired to care what other people think. But, what I do remember is Basically an episode where Khloe ran all over Miami trying to find Cortados.
So what did we do? We Basically tried to find a Cortado. Turns out Charlotte Bakery was the place. Cordatos are a very strong coffee with cream and froth at the top. We also ordered some pastries with guayaba (that’s sexy Latino-speak for “guava”) paste in the middle. Let’s just say a Cortado and guayaba pastries are a much better way to wake up on Sundays than the Kardashians.
Nom!!Kansas City
There must be some kind of food revolution going on in Kansas City. Or maybe Kansas City has always been a food gem of the Midwest. Maybe some KansasCitians can chime in and let us know: have Kansas City’s restaurants always been this awesome?
The truth is, we were floored by all the amazing food we tried in Kansas City. From fusion to the burnt ends of barbeque, every last bite was like a unicorn farting glitter on a cloud of cotton candy (which is a fancy, whimsical way of saying our food was delicious).
Some highlights we loved were:
Novel
A place where East most definitely meets West, these dishes had elements of East Asian cuisine mixed with good ol’ ‘Murican food tastes. Each dish was delicately prepared to be presented on our plates. Sides were hearty enough to fill us up. The atmosphere was also hipster-y without being all-in-yo’-face about it.
Everything about this place is novel, indeed!Le Fou Frog
That crazy frog has us all riled up for French-American food. Much like Novel, Le Fou Frog was also nestled inside a reformed house-turned-restaurant, which has a real East Coast vibe to it.
Larry the Lobster is on my plate.New Orleans
Oh, New Orleans, where do I start? The funky, French vibes going on in this city had us as giddy as little school girls. We wrote about New Orleans before, but here are some highlights and be sure to check out our post of favorite places to eat:
Cafe Du MondeWhat’s better than a donut? When it’s a square-ish mound of dough all smothered with sugar. Sure it’s simple, but the cafe has been around for a while, and I guess they’ve been doing this whole square donut thing really well, because it was delicious.
Beignets at Cafe de MondeAcme Oyster House
One of our favorite dishes at Acme Oyster House was the Poopa, which did not live up to its name at all. There was nothing poopa about it. Instead, the Poopa was rice and red beans in a bread bowl and sausage on top. The line to get in looked a little long, but it was totally worth it.
Poopa: Doesn’t taste poopy at all.It’s about time we got off this roof now. Let us know what you think! Any places you would add to this list? What about your favorite places to find food? Let us know in the comments!
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