Regional foods

[grommet]

Building off Gerald's travel thread, what are some foods that you consider a must-try or a local's favorite for a certain area?

I'll start - While Seattle, WA and Vancouver, BC share many things in common, such as high per-capita Starbucks coffee shops, and a love of the outdoors, one where they differ is that if sushi is your thing, Vancouver, with over 600 establishments, wins hands-down. You can't walk around any district or mall without running into several sushi restaurants.

San Francisco, in Chinatown. Fried bitter melon, and also beef tendon. Bitter melon tastes bad on its own but the bitterness cuts through the grease in the frying and makes a wonderful combination. Most people who are not Cantonese do not know about it.

Beef tendon. I did not want to even try it but when I did it became one of my favorite foods. It is made in a seasoned broth that gives it the most wonderful flavor and the tendon is very tender. It is hard to stop eating. I am sorry if describing an animal part is upsetting for some people. I was not sure if I should but people eat different foods.

Jook is really good too if you can find it well made. It is rice porridge. Rice is boiled with a lot of water and seasoning. you can add lots of things to the jook, it tastes good with almost anything but it is hard to find really good jook. Some make it too watery but that is still better than the ones that are too thick and start to seem dry. It has to be just right. My friend told me so many times how good a cook her mother was but the only food she would not make at home was jook because hers was bad.