You can get the same great food in both cities, but Houston seperates itself from Chicago with Tex-Mex and BBQ. They can keep their deep, dish pizza pies
it depends on what type of food you're into. seatle is great if you want sea food... extra fresh. sf is great in general if you're from there and know not to go to the tourist places. the best sushi place i had was in denver but that costed me an arm. i love clammed chowder and the best place i had it was in providence, r.i. also, i've been to the l.a., boston, oakland and s.f. chinatowns. s.f. has the best chinese food, but the crappiest setting.
we've been over this ad nauseum> new york wins easily overall. however, there is a distinction that should be made between casual and formal dining. as regards the former, houston compares very favorably, especially when you consider regional specialties like bbq and tex-mex.
New York isn't even in the top 5 as far as restaurants go. They do have some of the best world class dining, but once you fall off of that tier they don't really have anything special to offer. They also have some really nice steak houses, and OK seafood, but not significantly better than you can find other places. You can not get good Tex-Mex there, you can not get good bar-b-que. It just isn't available. They have stuff that will pass if you are in a pinch, but for some place that is supposed to have the best restaurants it just doesn't cut it.
Houston lacks in good seafood and good italian. BBQ isn't something I go to a restaurant for very often, prefer to have it homemade. Tex-Mex is definitely better in Houston than other places. NY wins easily imo. Every corner has another no-name place to eat that has something you'll like.
completely disagree with you there... i'd say houston has some fantastic seafood and italian restaurants. are they on par with NYC or Chicago or San Fran? maybe not, but they hold their own.
No offense Houstonites, and I'll probably get a lot of crap for this, but I don't know if many people consider having great TexMex as a major advantage/tie breaker. It's nothing against TexMex...I just don't think it's high on the list when people evaluate best foodie cities. But maybe that's just me.
