As a foreigner, one could be forgiven for having very low expectations of American food. Mysteriously, what has been selected for export as representative of the USA tends to be fairly vile combinations of grease, beef, sugary bread and fake cheese. Many, many pre-made US foods contain ridiculously huge quantities of high fructose corn syrup, which to my tastes makes things taste sweet in a nasty, artificial way.
Travelling around the States, however, it became apparent that there were many fantastic regional foods which despite mostly being combinations of grease, beef, sugary bread and fake cheese were far from vile.
Below are some of the standouts from around the USA.
 Name: Underdog hotdogs
Location: San Francisco, California Comments: Excellent organic hot dogs served with potato gems/tots – probably the best hot dog I had in the USA. Went down very nicely with flavoured iced tea, which is ubiquitous in the US and cheap. Underdog is near the science museum in western San Francisco and worth the walk of a couple of blocks to visit if you are ever there. Rating: A- |
 Name: Fresh fruit
Location: Somewhere on the side of the road between San Francisco and Yosemite National Park, California (near a drive-through gun shop) Comments: So fresh food does exist in this country… Surprisingly juicy and delicious; blueberries were particularly sweet and the strawberries were about twice the size of Australian ones. These stalls are dotted along the highway to Yosemite, which travels through a large fruit growing region east of San Francisco. Compared to most food in the US this was cheap, too. Rating: A- |
 Name: Deep dish pizza
Location: Pizzeria Uno, Chicago, Illinois Comments: Without exaggeration one of the best things I have ever eaten. Insanely filling but insanely good. The crust was buttery and delicious, closer to something cakey or biscuity than italian pizza dough. The rest of it was made upside down, with filling, cheese, then tonnes of tomato sauce dousing the whole thing. Even the green capsicum, which I ordinarily dislike, was delicious. I was pretty hungry and could only eat one slice from a 9″ pizza (i.e. an Australian ’small’). Rating: A+++ |
 Name: Chicago-style hot dog
Location: Street stall, Chicago, Illinois Comments: It is some kind of crime to eat a hot dog with tomato sauce in Chicago. Instead it must be served as shown – mustard, relish, chillis, salad. This combination was ok but a little underwhelming – the chillis seemed to be hot for the sake of it rather than adding much, and the actual dog was nothing special, just a typical watery street hot dog. The relish was a good addition though. Rating: C+ |
 Name: Beef, gravy mashed potato sandwich thing
Location: Eleven City Diner, Chicago Illinois Comments: A mountain of roast beef and mashed potato on bread swimming in gravy. Simple, but extremely tasty. The restaurant was a New York/jewish style diner with all kinds of specialties. After too much oily American food this was nice and straightforward. I did feel like I was having heart palpitations by the time I finished. Eleven City is open late and located in downtown Chicago, which is another thing to recommend it if travelling. Rating: B+ |
 Name: Philly cheese steak
Location: By George, Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Comments: An epic combination of bread, roast beef and cheez-wiz. Absolutely delicious although very greasy too. Half of a standard sized cheese steak was more food than a normal human needed (but of course this is America we’re talking about, so these were available with chips and various other additions to make sure that at least 50 mega-calories could be obtained by starving workers in their lunch breaks). Quite hard to eat due to high density and grease factor but… well worth it. Rating: A- |
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