New York has what they call "pizza." Chicago has REAL "pizza" and ribs, too. I mean, the best on the planet! Italian beef and meatball sandwiches, too. California has the best burritos I've ever had, and the Chinese food is the best, too. Here in Vegas, it's all about cheap prime rib and all you can eat buffets. In Hawaii, they have this stuff called Poke that's one of my favorite foods, period. I'm not a big fan of Poi tho. Philadelphia has its cheesesteaks. With cheeze whiz and everything! What is the food that Portland or the Pacific Northwest is best known for? I've never been there.
Do they serve food at those places? In California, they have microbreweries where they make dozens of flavors of beer (raspberry even) and serve exotic food like buffalo steaks.
I forgot to add that NY probably has some of the best delis around. LA's Fairfax Ave. has awesome delis, too. And the Farmer's Market.
Are there, like, fast food venison places? Some famous restaurant that serves it? I bet the steelhead is great.
I love Chicago deep dish. I also love the huge slices of thin crust New York pizza. California (and Oregon and Washington) tends to have top-quality cold water seafood...crab, lobster and various fish.
I guess good seafood is what I think of most as being Oregon food, but I don't know of any special way we have of making it like the NY and Chicago pizzas. As somebody else said, microbreweries is probably what we are best known for around here, but as far as food in them goes, they usually just have the standard bar food fare.
Even when it comes to thin crust, chicago pizza wins. Here's one of the tastiest pizzas you'll ever try:
I mentioned Poke earlier. In case you're wondering, it looks like this: That would be raw tuna in soy sauce with chopped onion and a little hot pepper. A twist on sushimi. There's many different varieties of poke, including taco (octopus), lomi lomi salmon (which is like a salsa with diced smoked salmon), and kim chi shrimp. Many Hawaiians will buy a quart of it and chow for dinner. Others will buy a pint of a couple/three different kinds and have some of each (like sushi).
Chinook Salmon Dungeness Crab Lots of fresh, locally produced ingredients There is a lot of asian influence on many of portland's dishes The stress is the quality of the ingredients, sourced locally.
There was a place on Maui that had the most amazing fast food fish sandwiches. It was in a hole in the wall built onto a hardware store of all things. Hugely popular. They had a handful of tables outside to eat, but most people took it elsewhere. It was basically 100% carry out.