Favorite 'hole in the wall' restaurants.

edited July 2011 in Life
I have quite a few good cheap places to eat that I have stumbled across over the years. They look like any other marginal eatery in a strip mall or bottom floor of a downtown building, but once you get closer you realize the place is packed, and something good is in the air when the door opens. A good restaurant, with consistent food, will always have customers, no matter where it is. Some great places are known only by people in the local area, little secrets that come out of the woodwork only when you get familiar with a neighborhood.

My best is a Vietnamese place called Pho Tau Bay, tucked away between a convenience store and a Subway. This place is usually so packed that if you come in alone, you will be seated at a table with any other singles that came in recently. For $8 you get a bowl of Vietnamese noodle soup with free tea included, hot tea on cold days, cold tea on hot days, Vietnamese people are smart like that. The portions are huge, and I have never had a bad meal there. I have found a hair in my soup many times as well, but it's worth it.

Of course checking out small places sometimes has a price, a bad meal, or worse, a day spent within running distance of the crapper. Usually if they are busy, they are good, but it's still a crapshoot. One I walked into was a gambling house, I bought a sub, avoided eye contact, and left with the feeling of eyes on my back, the meat in the sub was rotten too, bastards.

C/O
"no really, just step over the wino's, the food here is great"

Comments

  • ChupaloChupalo Regular
    edited July 2011
    Before I finished reading your post, my favorite Pho restaurant came to mind. Pho rules.

    The place I go to is open from 7AM to 3AM. THAT'S some hardcore Pho action. Regular sized bowl is $4.95. Extra large is $6.25. They give you a shitload of meat (about 8-10 slices of beef), and plenty of noodles. The broth is simply amazing - nice and clear. Everything is always fresh, and you get a free drink (good luck getting a refill, though). The place is a shithole dump, but is big and is always packed. The service could be better, but I'd hate my life too if I worked there. They all have that "I'm a family member so I'm forced to work here" look on their faces. Cash only, also, so I'm sure there's plenty of tax evasion going on...
  • Darth BeaverDarth Beaver Meine Ehre heißt Treue
    edited July 2011
    That is easy, the Sunrise Inn in a shitty town called Warren, Ohio. It has been in the same location since before prohibition and was a speak easy during prohibition. It is owned y a Greek family but does not serve Greek food. Instead they serve Italian food along with basic "diner" fare.

    Everything has that homemade thing about it, comes in huge portions, and is dirt cheap (real veal parm dinner with a piece of veal bigger than your head for like $8.95) But the thing to die for is their pizza. I have lived all over the U.S. (14 states) and have never seen pizza quite like this any where. The crust is semi thick semi pan style and the sauce is out of this world. The thing that makes it really different is their use of Romano in place of Mozzarella.

    I have been eating their off and on since I was a kid and had not been there in almost 15 years. Back in 2001 I had to go to Warren from NJ and made my obligatory stop at the Sunrise for a couple of slices and a beer. I was a little leery because you know how it is when you remember something a certain way from your past but someone changed it to make it more cost efficient and therefore causing it to suck balls and totally disappoint you.

    But as soon as I got out of my car in the back by the exhaust fans and smelled that aroma of their sauce coming from the kitchen I knew I had stepped back in time. When I left it was like I had gone back to 1975.
  • CaptainFalconCaptainFalcon Regular
    edited July 2011
    I concur. Sunrise Inn has great grub. Favourite in Pakistan would be a little Chinese place called Kim Mun in Islamabad. Over here, we have a lot of swanky Chinese places; there's Chinatown, a huge-ass place with carved door and ambient lighting, the local 5* Marriott hotel with their Dynasty restaurant and a few other great places.... But NONE of their food can match Kim Mun's. It's owned by a little Chinese family and the food there is !) cheap and B) kicks major ASS, mang.

    In Chicagp, it's got to be a little Thai place called Duck Walk. Dunno if it's a "hole in the wall" thing, seeing as it's sort of swanked up and in downtown Chicago, but the food kicks ass and barely anybody's heard of it.
  • Darth BeaverDarth Beaver Meine Ehre heißt Treue
    edited July 2011
    I concur. Sunrise Inn has great grub. Favourite in Pakistan would be a little Chinese place called Kim Mun in Islamabad. Over here, we have a lot of swanky Chinese places; there's Chinatown, a huge-ass place with carved door and ambient lighting, the local 5* Marriott hotel with their Dynasty restaurant and a few other great places.... But NONE of their food can match Kim Mun's. It's owned by a little Chinese family and the food there is !) cheap and B) kicks major ASS, mang.

    In Chicagp, it's got to be a little Thai place called Duck Walk. Dunno if it's a "hole in the wall" thing, seeing as it's sort of swanked up and in downtown Chicago, but the food kicks ass and barely anybody's heard of it.

    WOW

    You really know the Sunrise Inn? You would be the first person I have ever met online that has heard of that place.
  • edited July 2011
    Chupalo wrote: »
    Before I finished reading your post, my favorite Pho restaurant came to mind. Pho rules.

    The place I go to is open from 7AM to 3AM. THAT'S some hardcore Pho action. Regular sized bowl is $4.95. Extra large is $6.25. They give you a shitload of meat (about 8-10 slices of beef), and plenty of noodles. The broth is simply amazing - nice and clear. Everything is always fresh, and you get a free drink (good luck getting a refill, though). The place is a shithole dump, but is big and is always packed. The service could be better, but I'd hate my life too if I worked there. They all have that "I'm a family member so I'm forced to work here" look on their faces. Cash only, also, so I'm sure there's plenty of tax evasion going on...

    That's EXACTLY like my Pho place, right down to the family working the tables, and cash only at the till. If they have it, try the Hue Style, but get it with rice noodles instead of the vermacelli. It has a tangy hot flavor like hot and sour soup, and as well as the beef you get some funky Vietnamese sliced meats, a hunk of pig knuckle, and if it is really authentic, some cubes of congealed pork blood. I don't eat the cubes of blood, they taste okay,but the texture puts me off, they do add a lot of flavor though.

    A lot of my friends have their favorite Pho places as well, and they stand by them as religiously as I do mine, so when we meet for dinner, we always argue about whose Pho place we are going to. One good one is in a little strip mall near a transit center, funny thing about it is that there is another Pho joint in the same mall, but to get to the good one you have to walk by the first one, and go around the corner to a little door with a sign so faded you can hardly read it. The first one is full of typical commuters getting a bite, the second one is usually 90% Vietnamese.

    I love the 'ritual' of preparing to eat Pho, add the hot pepper slices, dump on the bean sprouts, tear up the Thai basil, fill your little dish with the red and brown sauces, then do the 'Pho Flip' to put the bean sprouts down into the hot broth. I used to squeeze the lime into the soup, but then I saw that the Vietnamese were taking some black pepper and chilli oil in a small dish, and squeezing the lime into it, then dipping their beef slices into it. Fuck I love Pho, it's a bitch to make at home, but I get pretty close.

    TDR; I am jealous of you having lived in so many places, I know the only way to really get to know a place is to live and work there for a while. Being a tourist is fun too, but you get so little of what the place is really about.

    C/O
    "hey ho, lets go, for Pho!"
  • RogueEagle91RogueEagle91 Regular
    edited July 2011
    There's a shithole diner in my old stomping ground called "Leo's".
    Family/local run since it started back in the 40's/50's.
    First time I had the biscuits n gravy, i almost came.
    Not hard to make, just hard to make that fucking good.

    Another is called Dinker's.
    Most that go there agree it's the best burger the city's got.
    Sometimes greasy, but always good.

    Noodle Zoo is another great one.
    Food's pretty decently priced.
    Similar to Panera, but is actually good food, and completely run by stoners.
    I don't mean your usual Panera college stoner.
    I mean people who are blasted out of their fucking skulls.
    Once went there trying to get a bowl of cheddar broccoli.
    The cook had eaten most of the batch.
    The replacement was chicken wild rice.
    They forgot the wild rice.
    But it was good to the point that bitching was pointless.
  • MorningsideMorningside Regular
    edited July 2011
    There aren't many places like that here. The ones we have close down soon after opening, it kinda sucks. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Jess's Lunch in (sort of) nearby Harrisonburg. They have good milkshakes and diner food, I don't know what else to say about it...
  • edited July 2011

    Another is called Dinker's.
    Most that go there agree it's the best burger the city's got.
    Sometimes greasy, but always good.

    If it succeeds despite the name, I have no doubt it is good.
  • Darth BeaverDarth Beaver Meine Ehre heißt Treue
    edited July 2011
    @C/O There was a lot I missed out on in the 25 years I was playing Gypsy but I would not trade it for anything.
  • STRAIGHTUPGANGSSTRAIGHTUPGANGS New Arrival
    edited July 2011
    I know a really great hole in the wall place. Its called Cottons Seafood. They have the best food ever. My family went there every Wednesday night for probably 12 years. They have the best cheeseburgers I have ever ate, they're also part of the reason I was a huge fat ass when I was a kid.
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