I've lived in both state's major areas (minus San Diego and it's overrated burritos, San Antonio and El Paso) and there are things I miss in both that I can't get elsewhere. Texans know how to bbq and they know how to make fajitas. You'll have to look far and wide for good Tex Mex in Cali. With Asian food, you'll find more abundance in California or NYC. Houston is okay with Chinese food, but think 10 times more blocks with that quality or better. Vietnamese and Thai more than just the take out variety there too. It's just the community size. I also miss the omakase tables and the Vietnamese garlic butter noodles served with lobster (or is that the reverse...). The food trucks with the aforementioned fusion foods are nice, but imo they're overpriced for work lunches. Makes eating interesting but not something I'd make an event out of unlike a trip to Franklins or some new Austin BBQ spot. SF had a pretty trendy high end gastropub scene where some cashed in on the name w/ buzzwordy food and markup, while the torch bearers for the scene could rack you up 50 per meal minus drinks. You'd get microfoam foie gras and all these other experimental foods I can't bother remembering anymore. Cali's bbq scene is like their immigrant food scene. They don't have their own identity for it and the interpretation comes from St. Louis, Nashville, or Texas. It's an inconsistent mess of low expectations and incredibly sweet bbq sauce.... Philly was a great food experience. Wasn't fancy but who needs to live fancy to live well? Never worked/lived in NYC but the visits were always an experience. https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/every-state-ranked-by-its-food-drink 9. Pennsylvania 8. Washington 7. Illinois 6. Oregon 5. Tennessee 4. Louisiana If New Orleans was its own state, it would probably still end up in the top 10, because of not only the foods that’ve come out of there -- muffulettas at Central Grocery, po-boys, oyster Rockefeller, beignets, King Cakes, pralines, sno-balls, turtle soup, bananas Foster, BLACKENED REDFISH (RIP Paul Prudhomme)— and the legendary restaurants (Antoine’s, Commander’s Palace, Galatoire’s, Dooky Chase) but also a modern food scene that can go toe to toe with any other city in the country, thanks to the likes of Nina Compton, Alon Shaya, Donald Link, Sue Zemanick, Isaac Toups, Kristen Essig, Tory McPhail, Justin Devillier, Adam Biderman, the whole Turkey & the Wolf crew, and you could honestly keep on going forever. And we haven’t even gotten into the incredible Vietnamese food at places like Magasin Kitchen and Tan Dinh. It’s also featured in the only Disney princess movie where said princess is an incredibly skilled chef who dreams of opening her own restaurant and befriends an alligator who plays a mean trumpet. But beyond that, there is a uniqueness to Louisiana’s food culture that separates it out from other states, the whispers of history are all around the food, and -- not to get philosophical here as we arbitrarily rank states -- maybe that’s true with literally every food, which had to come from SOMEWHERE, but in Louisiana the mishmash of those historical footnotes is so damn interesting and delicious. Do you want to go to Gonzalez for the Jambalaya festival? Or LaPlace for an Andouille festival? Or Avery Island to see where Tabasco is made? Or go to Scott, Louisiana, which is the BOUDIN CAPITAL OF THE WORLD?!?! The answer, of course, is yes. Yes you do. 3. New York Even though the Big Apple only has mostly normal-sized apples, it also has just a FEW other things going for it, from the advantages that come from being a major immigration hub for generations (the pizza’s just the tastily foldable tip of the iceberg) to the delicious results that come from waves of chefs flocking there to try and make it among the scores of Michelin-starred elites already doing their thing. Basically, any kind of cuisine you can crave can be found somewhere in the state, and often in its purest and best form. Oh yeah, there are also BUFFALO WINGS. Fresh Long Island seafood is spectacular. The bagels that NY expats won’t stop talking about really are that good, too, and more than make up for the fact that the hot dogs are questionable unless they're coming from upstate. Even garbage plates are delicious here. Apparently, the New York state of mind is one induced by a food coma. 2. California Imagine the country of Sweden. Now put that in the United States and replace the meatballs and knäckebröd with an incredible agriculture and farming system that helps provide the staging ground for every imaginable food culture. Sizzling Sonoran hot dogs and fresh fish tacos drizzled with crema and burritos stuffed with fries and Mexico City-style chilaquiles. Soba and udon noodles and karaage and gyoza. Mapo doufu and lazi ji and soup dumplings and egg tarts. Dosas and uttapams and chaat. A style of griddled, thin, American cheese-laced double burgers copied all over the country. Another type of burger out of Sacramento with a “skirt” of cooked cheese nestled around it. A style of pizza that blends Neapolitan with the glorious bounty of all California has to offer. Both garlic and cherries in Gilroy. Avocado trees in your backyard next to the Meyer lemon and REGULAR lemon trees. Oysters up by Point Reyes. Cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery. Weed mixed with food up Humboldt way. The bounty of wine country. And then the other wine country you’re not even thinking of. A food scene in Los Angeles that is currently the hottest in the nation and not just because David Chang is currently forced to make the Hemsworth brothers wait hours to eat at Majordomo. A food scene in the North that is somewhat overrated in SF, but properly rated in Oakland, and underrated in Sacramento. On paper, California should win this thing going away, but it won’t because we are MONSTERS (and also, we no longer use paper). 1. Texas Earlier this year, Brett Martin penned a beautiful love letter to the city of Houston, convincingly making the case that it is the best food city in America basically for reasons that used to never make sense: It is sprawling and random and unregulated. But amongst that sprawl, it also happens to have one of the most diverse immigrant populations in the country, and as anyone who’s ever watched Netflix documentaries about foodways knows, the best places to eat are always where the most different folks collide. And normally you wouldn’t think of Texas on the whole as a place where diverse populations intersect, but rather a place where folks wearing big belt buckles meet folks wearing BIGGER belt buckles to buy American-made trucks to drive to high school football games. But just for a moment consider the glory that is the Texas food world: A barbecue scene that is the best in the world, thanks to not only the dominance and perfection of the craft of Central Texas-style brisket at places like Franklin and Snow’s, but the fact that there happen to be several different styles of barbecue just in Texas alone. A Tex-Mex style of bastardized food that is admittedly delicious, and for a second in the late '80s, was elevated into a national culinary craze, once it was made fancier and marketed as “Southwestern.” Four substantial cities with their own unique food scenes and styles: Dallas’s perfection of the meat-centric steakhouse and hybrid, modern steakhouse (think Knife). Houston’s incredible mix of ice house, seafood, and immigrant cultures, all often colliding at once. San Antonio’s small but mighty scene (oh, also: it was named a “Creative City of Gastronomy by UNESCO”) filled with puffy taco joints, chorizo burger spots, the best overall Mexican food of any Texas city, and a growing nouveau food culture thanks to European-style food halls and young, modestly tatted chefs. Austin’s ability to disguise itself in the clothes of the Good Food Revival Movement and be seen as the most non-Texan place in Texas draws chefs from all over the country to come and try their hands (nothing is more illustrative of this point than the fact that Detroit-style pizza basically first became popular nationwide thanks to Austin), WHILE maintaining the best traditionally Texan barbecue and breakfast taco scenes, plus a food truck culture that continues to innovate.
California.....can't say I've been there, not since Tahoe in 2004. I remember my sister and her husband and their kids tried to move to San Diego a while back and said it was often difficult to even find a restaurant and when they did the food was no comparison to Texas'. But I can't say one city represents the state. Personally, no great BBQ nor true cajun food and you can't be #1.
Georgia should be higher on the list. In the few years that I lived there, I've never had comfort food on their level in all of my years living elsewhere. Their southern cooking and soul food is really some over 9000 stuff.
Dated a girl in LA for a bit in the early/mid-2000's and the LA food was incredible. The sushi destroyed anything I have ever had anywhere else (obviously have not been to Japan).
Admittedly I've never been NY or CA. I agree that Louisiana should be in the top five but Houston tops it by itself. Here's where my bone to pick with anyone who hasn't lived in Texas or only spent a short amount of time here doesn't understand. Texas is HUGE and has separate geographic cultures. We all stand up for each other but it's more of a family than one specific person. (I realize that Cali and NY are the same to some extent). When I hear or read someone saying 'You have a Texan accent' I think, what part? East Texas and the Valley are distinctly different. The food is just as different. That said, I would say that Dallas and anything north of Dallas or west of Fort Worth is bland as ****, with the main 'spices' consisting of salt and pepper. I would rate Texas food as the best if it weren't for these areas. Fort Worth itself has some fantastic food and there's no better place to get affordable cow product, BBQ, steak, leather, whatever, than Ft. Worth. But Dallas is as cookie-cutter as it gets for food and most other things. I guess if you love chain restaurants it's good. If you draw a line past the northern blandness zones, Texas is king for food, and Houston is ground zero for variety.
Bay Area and LA has great food, for everybody questioning California. I’m not ranking anything that seems a bit silly with the diversity of taste and options, but I don’t find it odd California would be ranked highly.
I've been to all those places. The Chinese food is great in both those cities but for overall Asian, very few places compare to California. Chinese food in the Bay area. Viet food in San Jose and Orange County. Korean food in Koreatown. Indian food in Silicon Valley. There are just tons of great restaurants all over California. That being said, there are tons of **** food also like In and Out. The only places I think are better are Singapore and Melbourne Australia in terms of diversity and quality.
don't forget Cerritos and the South Bay San Jose can't compare w Little Saigon in Westminster in the OC think they're not as diverse and good as HK. in HK, besides Cantonese and Northern Chinese food, i've eaten food from Malysian/Indonesian/filipino/Thai/Korean/japanese/Viet cultures, as well as Filet mignon, Philly Cheese Steak, Tex/Mex, Mac n Cheese, Cajun, Russian, NY-style Jewish Deli and Cuban sandwitch IIRC, the only thing missing from the HK food scene is pizza
I haven't been to Hong Kong in 10 years, so things may have changed but I get much more excited about going to Singapore. Melbourne is fairly new on the list. It wasn't great the first time I went but it was excellent the last time I went about 3 years ago.
Not to mention cuisines. We have Polish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Mexican, Cajun, Creole, German, many more... We have them all individually and we have fusion between them.... and, of course, our own fusion (such as Tex-Mex). I agree - people who aren't familiar with Texas don't understand this.
