Book Review: Roadfood 9th Edition

What is your favorite restaurant? McDonald’s? Wendy’s? Cracker Barrel? Maybe Bonefish Grill? While the odds are good that you have patronized one or more of these establishments in the last couple of months, unless you are under twenty-five, we doubt you named any of them as your favorite restaurant. Perhaps you named that five-star, white tablecloth restaurant that costs a small fortune, but we’ll bet the place that came to mind was a mid-priced restaurant that serves good food, probably in a style for which your part of the country is known. Lobster rolls are great in Maine but we don’t expect to find them on the menu in Kansas – there we expect beef.

The restaurants in Roadfood:

The Coast-to-Coast Guide to 900 of the Best Barbecue Joints, Lobster Shacks, Ice Cream Parlors, Highway Diners, and Much, Much More, now in its 9th edition are arranged by state. While not much space is dedicated to any one restaurant, the type of cuisine is described, along with the price range.

In preparing to write this review, we looked at the section on New Orleans, because we are familiar with the area restaurants. We had heard of all fifteen restaurants that were mentioned, and we had patronized nine of them. They ranged from Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, which is only open part of the year, and which mainly sells snowballs to Galitoires, an expensive French Quarter restaurant that is “the” place to be and to be seen on Fridays at lunch and all afternoon. we’ve seen the restaurants in this book listed on other “best of” lists, and they have all been around long enough to have earned their reputation. The reviews in the book give you a good idea of whether you will like the food.

We also polled friends around the country about the restaurants listed for their areas and the response was generally positive. People liked the listed restaurants and often patronized them. While you will never find a restaurant guide with which everyone agrees, we think keeping this book in your car when you are on a road trip could lead to much better and far more interesting food than the homogenized fare available at the chain restaurants at Interstate highway exits.

If you want to get a flavor of the type of place they recommend you can visit their website and check out restaurants in your area.