Food that you miss

[elswinger]

Sizzler: I do miss the time before it became a big chain and they focussed more on the salad bar than when they were a good place to get an affordable (ie. under $10) steak. I remember they used to serve the steak, fried, and mushrooms on sizzling metal and wood plates.

I also miss Dairy Queen*. As far as mass produced fast food, I always thought their burgers were better, their onion rings couldn't be beat, and except for maybe local mom&pop joints, they had the best chocolate dipped soft serve ice cream.

*All the one's in Seattle have closed. Ditto,almost, Burger King and Wendy's.

[reesek]

love the topic...

potato pancakes at Parkway Deli in DC - they look more like pucks than pancakes, but they have just the right amount of matzoh meal and onion, and they're fried in some sort of contraption that ridges them on one side so you get 3 extra raised crispy lines. stupendous.

reliable crisp, plain, buttery hash browns. (perfect at the aforementioned Parkway Deli when ordered "well done") none of this "herbed grilled potato" business.

patatas bravas - a spanish tapa i had everywhere i could. (cubed fried potatoes with a spicy, thin tomato-based red sauce and if you're very lucky - a dollop of aioli) best ever at a tiny place in Barcelona near Sagrada Familia.

(are you sensing a theme?)

pizza - Vace in DC has the most impossibly thin onions and roasted red peppers - making the most delicious pizza i've ever had.

indian food. specifically the dal makahni they used to have at Moti Mahal on Devon Street in Chicago. it's gone...not moti, but the chef has left - it won't be the same eaten in a different setting.

crepes from paris. preferrably shared and eaten in huge crisp cheesy bites.

to kiliki's point - i don't think i'd want these things here - they're all very linked to me with the places in which they're located - but i long for them.

[duckduck]

The combo pizza at Pierre's Delicatessen on 39th & Powell in Portland. They said the reason I loved it so much was because my mother ate so much of it when she was pregnant with me. I can almost remember the smell as you walked in the door. It's enough to make me cry. Nobody has ever made a pizza as good as Rosa's. I miss her. And her pizza.

[fierydrunk]

I have missed Shakey's for YEARS so anyone that goes, report back!!!

Being from Memphis and living on PDX for the last 4 years, I miss the following:

(1) a good pulled-pork BBQ sandwich with cole slaw on an outrageously huge bun.

(2) grits that are creamy with a dash of butter...not these dried-up baked monstrosities they serve here...baked grits are great, but no one has gotten em right here.

(3) A place that really does Southern cooking right, you know, as advertised. Unfortunately, even the soul food spots aren't that great. Well, with the exception of the Soup n Suds on Mississippi, which ruled. But I heard they sold it to The Man. Wah. No more banana pudding with Nilla wafers, cornbread catfish and greens.

[mags]

Mostly, stuff from the UK. Double cream, Cox's orange pippins (apples -- the best apples I've ever had), roast pork with crackling, bacon sandwiches eaten with a mugfull of tea strong enough to strip deck paint. I miss Neal's Yard as well -- I used to work about 50 feet away, and that's where I would buy my lunch.

From the Boston Years...Steve's ice cream with smush-ins

[NW_Texan]

<OK, I may have to turn in my eG card after this, but down in Fort Worth, there are two places I miss so baaaad sometimes. One is Pancho's Mexican on West Camp Bowie, the other is Peony's on the Weatherford Traffic Circle. Pedestrian...yeah....cheap...yeah...good in and out with a workcrew...YEAH...food good?...YEAH>

Mabelline...I'm a FW native (Paschal HS))...Pancho's has gone corporate...they even have TV ads with an annoying jingle..."Raise the flag, raise the flag". Peony's...jeez...haven't eaten there in decades. In reference to the W.Tx. native who posted earlier...I'll have a Chix-fried from Massey's on 8th Ave (big as a hub-cap), BEEF brisket plate from Angelo's and chillaquilles from Joe T's bakery (Esperanzas) on Hemphill.

[Sleepy_Dragon]

I sort of miss NY pizza, though not as hardcore as I used to miss it. Good bagels too. And having a bustling Chinatown. Definitely miss Australian fish 'n' chips. But, it's ok. Seattle's got plenty good going for it, so I try to focus on that. Much rather live here than there even though I was born and raised there.

Sucks about the race to the bottom at agriculture and food worker expense has combined with increasingly crazy food handling regulations to ham-handedly mitigate the consequences of that race. Can't help but think those things have an effect on what we can do here.

Pat

[Mabelline]

NW_Texan--My heart is in little bitty bits around the desk...Now I guess I can quit thinking of Pancho's and just dwell on memories. I agree with all your other choices too. I reckon I've just gotten stuck on the 'joint' type-places, speaking of which, Jesus' on South Main--bad place, good food--pronounced Hay-Sues, just so nobody confuses it with Bread and Fishes (another place, I swear), also on Southside.

Edit for a Joe T.'s Marguarita; equal parts Tequila, Triple sec, and fresh lime. Barbed wire swizzle sticks. Oh yeah!

Edited May 23, 2004 by Mabelline (log)

[petite tête de chou]

The now defunct Rico's Red Pizza between Holgate and Foster Rd- pizza, soda and Asteroids, awesome! Anything resembling food-stuffs from a Newberrys restaurant (esp. their fries with mustard), Fred Meyer Eve's (pick a dizzy slice of pie) or Kings Table Smorgasboard (neat looking meat!)...the nostalgia itself is nearly edible!

[braincell]

Wow. This is going to make me hungry.

I miss grilled pizza from Bob & Timmy's in Providence, RI. (I was just there in March, and it is as fabulous as I remembered it.)

I miss spinach bagels (also from Providence)--I couldn't find any when I was there. Definitely will need to try again. Generally, I miss REALLY GOOD bagels. Can't seem to find any here in Seattle.

I miss fougasse from this bakery in Paris (in the Marais district). Tried to go back several years ago--a bakery is there, but not the same one. Seriously depressed.

I miss chilean sea bass--I think some restaurants do still carry it--but there's something wrong about eating something endangered. So, I suppose this is something I will not be experiencing again.

But truly, I probably miss my mother's cooking the most. She has a garden (more like a small farm) in her backyard in So. Cal. Everything is picked and cooked within an hour. Nothing can compare...

--sel

[luvtoeat]

I'm originally from Burlington, Vermont and one thing that I truely miss the the soft serve ice cream at Al's French Fries. I grew up getting a chocolate vanilla mix with crushed peanut M&M's in a cake cone. I have never found soft serve so good! Boston has a lot of great icecream places, but VT truely does it right :)

[bbqer]

I'm from the midwest -- Milwaukee, Wisconsin, specifically. What I miss most that I haven't found in the Seattle area is frozen custard. Although it looks a lot like ice cream to an outsider, custard is made from cream and egg yolks and has considerably less air added than ice cream, which makes it denser. And because it gets to your mouth before being refrozen, unlike ice cream, custard is creamier and softer than its more famous cousin. Bratwurst I can get here...frozen custard, I can only enjoy in my mind. Perhaps it's just as well...the waist is a terrible thing to mind.