Restaurants

The unassuming strip-mall joint where they know our family’s order by heart.

It takes about .01 seconds inside the bakery to understand just how seriously these people take bread.

“Very few people ever touch the laminated menus. They order what they’ve always ordered, what their parents ordered, what their grandparents did.”

Let’s just say no one’s going there for the tasting menu and wine pairings.

Maine is for lobsters and chowder...but also catfish tacos and pulled-pork mac and cheese.

My strategy at this Lebanese restaurant was to try and order one of everything. The owner noticed.

Worshipping at the altar of sweet tea and collards in southwest Atlanta.

There are a lot of Indian restaurants in Edison, but I’m loyal to Swagath.

The Charleston restaurant has been passed down from mother to daughters, and their buzzing energy fills the room with love.

My first stop off the plane in Puerto Rico is the roadside kiosk where the fried food is crispy and the beer is ice-cold.

This diner with wall-to-wall carpeting lets me eat my home fries in peace.

All preconceived tourist trap or “Florida man” notions you might have of Orlando, and Florida in general, go out the window once you enter the restaurant.

A true story of my hapless dating life…and where I ate through it all.

An ode to Zippy’s, the island’s beloved restaurant chain

Astronauts are hard to spot in the wild, but lunch hour is the great equalizer.

Big Chicks was an old-man bar on the north side of Chicago. Then Michelle Fire made it the place everyone went to drink, dance, and hook up in a dark corner.

When you want to actually dine in secret, you have to give up one tiny thing: the food.

Joe’s Bakery opened 56 years ago. Maggie Flores has been waiting tables there for 48 of those years.

In a former Toys “R” Us, you can buy Nepali dumplings, get your eyebrows threaded, and pick up merguez sausages.

I meet sources, hold court with friends, and even conduct interviews with television networks at a taco truck.

I waited six years to work in this weird restaurant with comically sad snowmen paintings on the walls and Trivial Pursuit cards lining the bathroom shelves.

Carey Bolton runs the bar, kitchen, floor, and door of Reel M Inn on its busiest nights. She’s a hero.

People have been hanging out at The Broken Drum for 13 years. Now, there's finally good food.

My partner and I both lost our jobs within a week of one another. So we got oysters. And a lobster roll.

Waffles for breakfast, bánh mì for lunch, and tacos all the time.

Someone either brought you to Hugo’s, or you’d been coming there your whole life.

Behold the heavenly funk of smoked fish at Barney Greengrass, New York’s legendary appetizing shop

When I eat at this Jamaican restaurant, it ties my life in the Hudson Valley back to the babysitter who helped raise me.

Fresh flounder, rainbow trout, and hushpuppies where you’d least expect it.

The small fridge covered in those clunky, colorful magnetic letters wisely spits out life’s bittersweet truths.