Suburbia can’t catch a break. The lifelong urbanite’s scorn of the sprawling cultural wasteland is palpable, and suburban-born, restless, creative types going back to Hemingway can’t wait to escape. Can we get over these biases? At least in terms of food? Look outside the edges of any major metropolitan area—say, the San Gabriel Valley to the east of LA, or Annandale southwest of D.C.—and you’ll find concentrations of highly specialized ethnic cuisines or chef-driven, farm-to-table outliers, tucked into highway strip malls or bucolic hamlets. You could spend a year eating Chinese in Richmond, B.C., 25 minutes south of Vancouver, and not put a dent in the choices (though a tourism organization is offering a food blogger an apartment, 50 grand, and a gym membership to try).
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North/Northwest
An Uzbek teahouse, pizza that’s graced the cover of Saveur, and Exhibit A in the case that the best Korean no longer exists in the city
South/Southwest
Middle Eastern soul food, an artist at work in a rib house, and pierogies made by mom well into the wee hours
West
Back-to-back Michelin stars, a hot dog like a Cezanne, and Bohemian cuisine consumed by the likes of Al Capone and George H.W. Bush
Seven suburban markets worth the drive
Where to shop for tsukemono, smoked Russian meats, Lyle’s Black Treacle, and crayfish from Armenia’s Lake Sevan
