Your favorite meals from favorite restaurants

I LOVE FOOD.

Tell me the wonderful foods you have where you are, so I can read about and imagine them!

I didn't like having to move to Florida, but the town I landed in has dining options surpassing anything I ever had growing up in Maryland or anywhere else I'd even visited. The best things within a short drive are as follows:

THAI KITCHEN - authentic little Thai eatery where a HUGE meal is only 6.99 with a complementary spring roll and tea. I can't get enough of their Panang curry, which is a creamy peanut-butter based dish with peppers, cucumbers and your choice of meat. All of their food is just of the most succulent, lovingly crafted quality for such a small, inexpensive place.

SAKURA - a generic name, but I doubt better options for sushi could conceivably exist. It's as good as sushi from a bar, but it's an all you can eat buffet for under eight dollars. I dare you to beat that, sushi-wise. They put out up to thirty types of roll at a time, and there's non-sushi offerings like tempura, seafood salads and a hibachi grill. I haven't tried any of this because when I can have my fill of sushi for that price, that is all I am going to do.

THE SHACK - crummy sounding name for a gorgeous seafood restaurant. I crave their thick Louisiana gumbo all the damn time, but I also love their french onion soup, fried calamari with assorted dipping sauces and their perfectly made creme brulee dessert.

PHO CALI - authentic Vietnamese. Eleven dollars gets you a tremendous bowl (practically a bucket) of noodles, veggies and fried shrimp cakes with sugarcane centers. The quail appetizer is also wonderful, difficult to get the meat off that tiny skeleton but the seasoning is so sweet and tangy.

And lest I forget...

CHIK-FIL-A - I crave everything here, all the time, especially the plain old original chicken sandwich and nuggets. Good lord, what do they do to it that tastes so addictive!? I just wish I could order it without the sprinkling of homophobia. I try to limit eating there to a couple times a year.

edited 6th Mar '12 3:07:37 PM by scythemantis

Dave and Busters nachos, Chicken Fried Rice from a local chinese restuarant in my town, and Applebee's cheese sticks top my list.

Cheese sticks are so wonderful. Normally nobody presents just big lumps of cheese as a viable food in itself, except in stick form, and moreso in fried stick form.

Ah, I know! When you put it that way, it makes them sound a bit less delicious, but still, they're fantastic. My junior year after school me and my two best friends used to go on cheese sticks runs. (which meant half hour walks during which you cross the highway)

There was this little hole in the wall Chinese place where I went away to college that, during the fall, put apples and cinnamon in their cashew chicken. It was amazing. I think it was called China Wok Express...? It's been far too many years.

edited 6th Mar '12 5:18:03 PM by Bur

AJ's BBQ: It's a Mongolian BBQ place and it's pretty good. I usually have: chicken and/or beef, the thin wheat(?) noodles and copious amounts of most of the sauces available. End result is rather tasty.

Genghis Grill: Another Mongolian BBQ place, I prefer to have the Mongo BBQ recipe, but with my own selection of sauces.

That's all I can think of right now that isn't a fast-food place.

Fast Food counts! My favorite things from each chain are as follows:

Mc Donalds: my favorite thing is also probably their most nauseatingly unhealthy, the Sausage, Egg and Cheese Mc Griddle. That maple pancake flavor with all that greasy stuff is just heavenly, until five seconds after finishing it anyway.

Wendy's: the spicy chicken sandwich is all I order every single time, ever since I was little. Sometimes they make it dry and unpleasant, but when it's fresh and juicy it's amazing.

KFC: their original recipe sandwich used to be my favorite, but they inexplicably got rid of it. Then I loved the Honey BBQ wings, then they ruined them. The crispy strips are still great, at least.

Popeye's: the Crawfish Po'Boy was delicious, but only available for a limited time! Chicken is good, sure, but that was my first experience with crawfish and I've craved it ever since.

Burger King: least liked fast food place, but sometimes I crave that cheap quality in its own special way. I like the original chicken sandwich. Such a crappily made little patty of spongy chicken, but there's a nostalgic appreciation there.

Never liked Arby's, nothing at Sonic ever stood out, and I've only seen a Jack in the Box once in my life.

Pupusas, from a small Salvadorian restaurant in my town.

Then again, i'm freakin' always sold out on Salvadorian cuisine. Just can't get enough of it.

Wendy's:

You never forget your first Baconator.

A&W. Every time I go to one, I order chubby chicken with fries. I dip the fries in the table syrup they usually have.

I have no idea why I find this so delicious. I don't do it with any other fry or syrup, it's just not the same.

In other news: There was this Greek place called Socrates Taverna that we used to order from before we moved, and they made awesome lasagna that I had every time we ordered from them. On a side note, this actually led me to believe lasagna was a Greek food back when I was younger.

For fast food - I like Oporto chicken nuggets, and Bondi burgers with MILD sauce. Nandos chips are the best chips. I've never really been much for other fast food places, though, except Mc Donalds.

Generally speaking, though, I find I enjoy my mother's cooking just as much as restaurant foods, so does that count? There's this chicken dish where you marinate breast pieces in yogurt, mustard and dill...

Mmmm... hole-in-the-wall Chinese. There's a Chinese place around here that serves fantastic sesame chicken. They cut in these really bizarre thin strip-like shapes, like deli cuts but thicker, and it gets all curvy when it cooks. Plus, their sauce is rich and tangy and spicy, and the best way to eat it is to roll the chicken around in the rice so the rice gets all sauce-y and the sauce gets all rice-y. Delish.

Hmm, my favorite places...

The Thai place down the street from my office: Everything is good there, but I especially like their beef fried rice and the beef with basil leaves. The chicken curry is good, too, but I prefer the brown sauce to the creamier stuff.

Chinese places in general: Crispy beef, General Tso's chicken, bourbon chicken, steamed dumplings, beef or chicken stir-fry if they keep it simple (no water chestnuts, bell peppers, baby corn, etc.) One of my favorite places back in Manassas calls it "Szechuan beef" and it has shredded carrots, celery and peppers in it, but I'm not sure if that's closer to kung pao or something else (there's no peanuts in it).

Wendy's: The chili. Really.

Being in the Philippines, in any fast food restaurant i go to, it's nearly a reflex that i order the fried chicken.

I like getting enchiladas from this Tex-Mex place near me, called La Parilla. It's incredibly popular where I live, to the point where there often is a 45 minute wait (weird for just a local place). Also, this Chinese place has good crab rangoons.

There's Greek-owned restaurant near here that makes braised lamb shanks that are to die for. Only once a week — as one of the daily specials on Saturday — and if you aren't there by about 5:30 you aren't going to get any. They'll be sold out. They also have a fabulous lemon meringue pie.

Chicken and skirlie in whisky sauce from the pub down the road.

I'm going to add the grilled chicken from El Pollo Rey. It doesn't hurt that their only menu item is grilled chicken. Glorious grilled chicken.

Five Guys has the best fast food burgers ever.

This little hole in the wall Chinese place in my hometown has this amazing lunch special; your choice of three types of chicken and two sides for 4.99. Why it's awesome:

-The serving sizes are massive for the price. You get about three quarters of a pound of the chicken entre, and nearly as much of *each* side. For five dollars, it puts every other restaurant's lunch special to shame.

-The food is so, so good. A guilty pleasure, but still delicious. Their bourbon chicken is made with their own recipe, and completely unlike anything you've ever gotten at a mall food court. Their honey chicken is the only honey chicken I'm willing to eat, because they actually add spices to the sauce; not like the shitty Chinese places that just seem to pour honey over breaded chicken nuggets. The third choice, orange chicken, is my least favorite, and still somehow better than any dish I've ever gotten at any other Chinese place. And the sides? Their fried rice is, IMO, perfect; they don't fill it full of carrots and peas and bloody corn, like the food courts. It's just rice, grease, and flavor, perfect for covering with your leftover bourbon sauce (which they don't skimp on) and devouring. Similarly, they don't dump a bag of frozen mixed vegetables in the lo mein; it's noodles, grease, bamboo shoots, and onions, all the stuff with a nice texture that tastes good. Fries are also an option; not exactly authentic szechaun cuisine, but they are big, chunky home fries cooked to near perfection, and they give you enough that they sometimes have trouble closing the box. Again, not health food by any means, but great comfort food.