Customer Reviews

Eat Your Way Across the U.S.A., Revised Edition

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have been using the Stern's books for years to find unique eating places serving regional food. Even my kids like most of their choices. They don't just leave an impression on their stomachs, but also in their imaginations. I think they've done a good job of updating the book, down to adding a restaurant I was about to write to them about. If you want "fancy places" this book isn't for you. If you want real stuff, this is the source. R. Jeffs

I'm on the road 365 day a year, and acclimating to new surroundings is a survival skill I've learned over the years. When I roll into a new town, the first things I do are: buy a map, find a Post Office, a decent grocery, a good gym, the quickest route home from my work and call all the recomendations in the Stern's witty and unfailingly accurate guide for directions. I've not had a bad meal yet, and the person who gave me the book at the start of my tour told me the same thing. If you travel a lot, and you can't face another Applebees/McDonalds/Denny's/SouperSalad et.al. then this will steer you right to where you and your stomach want to be. It's just indespensible! Their descriptions of "shatteringly crisp fried chicken" and "glorious sloppy joes" are enough to cause you to drool embarassingly. But don't worry, the places in this guide are used to Pavlovian patrons! Enjoy.

The best parts are the "sidebars", short articles on things like different styles of clam chowder and lists of good steak houses or pie spots that you might want to copy down for quick reference if you travel a lot. However, the restaurant listings are far too incomplete to really use this as a comprehensive source of advice for long road trips. Even "500+" listings have to get spread pretty thin over a country as large as the good old USA! And be warned, this is a meat eater's book that lists LOTS of steak houses, hot dog stands, hamburger joints and bar-b-q spots.

There is an average of about 10-12 places listed for each state, with no apparent relationship between the size of the state and the number of restaurants listed: Maine gets 20 listings (surprise, there're a lot of lobster shacks along the coast up there!) while New York gets just 19, and our largest state, California, only gets 26 (of which 70% are in SF, LA and San Diego).

Western states are particularly sparsely covered. There are only 7 tips for Colorado, but the Sterns guide us to 16 culinary Meccas in Alabama. The Sterns can't find even one place to list in Phoenix (admittedly not a great restaurant city, although I managed to find a few good spots the last time I was there). "Oh well, Mildred, there's nothin' here, we'll just have to drive a few hundred more miles to LA before we can eat."

Based on the authors' selection of restaurants for the area of the country where I live, Seattle, I concluded that the Sterns have no more insight into the identities of good local restaurants than you can find in a typical travel guide. My experience is that most conventional city and regional guidebooks list at least as many worthwhile places as the Sterns and they are usually written by locals who really do know some of good spots. For metro areas I've had good results with the Zagat surveys.

I can't think of another restaurant guide that has so many brilliant tricks up its sleeve. Not only are the Sterns superb food writers (I cannot read this book without getting hungry), but they have an exquisite sensibility for picking the very best in downscale local cuisine. They lead you to the places that you'd eat in several times a month, if you'd grown up in a location, or lived there long enough to have clued yourself in. Add exceptionally useable organization to this, and you have a 5-star guide book.

Separating their reviews by region, and, most importantly, providing maps that show the relative location within a state, they've provided the best-possible organization. It answers the most important question of a hungry person: what's good to eat *near* *here*. Rather than having to flip back and forth from an index in the back, you can turn to the map of the state you're currently in (or planning to visit) and pin-point what's within driving range.

I've visited over a dozen of their recommended spots, including Primati Brothers in Pittsburgh (mmm, sandwiches with french fries and cole slaw loaded on top), and several BBQ joints in Texas, and they've never failed to be anything less than very good. Most are excellent, and every one is unique and full of local flavor.

Of the dozens of guidebooks I consult before travelling, this is #1.

P>Mark Twain once wrote that "a man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually waste away and eventually die."

Jan and Michael Stern's latest guide, "Eat Your Way Across the U.S.A." would certainly take issue with Mr. Twain, depending upon the part of the country they were in. The Sterns have regularly rambled across this country and have written numerous books on cooking and pop culture, and their latest book recommends 500 places to eat in the Lower 48, from Beal's Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor, Maine, to Andrea's Old Town Cafe, in Bandon, Oregon.

"Eat Your Way" is more inclusive than "Roadfood" and "Goodfood," the Stern's previous guidebooks. They recommend high-end fare such as Fiore's in Las Vegas -- "a swank bistro with a truly interesting menu and elegance more convincing than the Disney World standards that prevail elsewhere" -- and acidly note places to visit if you happen to be out that way sometime: The 50's Cafe in North Dakota was introduced with "unable to find a truly compelling meal in Fargo . . . "

South Carolina cuisine rates high with the Sterns, with no less than a dozen recommendations (twice as many as found in North Carolina). Five are found in Charleston, and the rest spread among Spartanburg, Holly Hill, Walterboro, Edisto, Jacksonboro, Summerton, Mount Pleasant and Columbia

What's most impressive about "Eat Your Way" is the number of compelling places offering tasty regional fare. There's thin-fried catfish and gumbo at Middendorf's in Pass Manchac, Louisiana. Sparks offers steaks and New York City atmosphere so thick that "we have stormed out wishing we were eating steak in Omaha or Oklahoma City. It all depends on who you sit near and your ability to tolerate the impertinence of New York's big spenders."

"Eat Your Way" does more than any cookbook to showcase the variety and quality of American cooking, and the Sterns' winning way with words in describing the succulent meals awaiting the traveler can spark a spontaneous road trip of your own.

I started reading Jane and Michael Stern in "Gourmet" magazine and soon realized that they obviously have no home other than their car, truck or trailer. They are ALWAYS on the road and when they are not busy eating, they are certainly busy writing. Here I am in New York City where many of the top restaurants in the world are located and, frankly, I'd rather be eating a stack of diner pancakes or snacking on a lobster shack crab roll or finishing the meal with a slab of chocolate cream from a pie palace! After all, I am the guy who drove once from Miami to Key West, stopping way too many times to decide whether Key Lime Pie was different on each and every Key.

The Stern volume can squeeze into your glove compartment and while you're driving, whoever's in the passenger seat can whet your appetites reading out loud about what's coming up ahead.

The book is easily, cleverly divided into large chunks of states and then again into individual states. Do you know where to get flannel cakes or schmaltz? Ever drunk a cabinet? (no, not a cabernet.) Do you know the difference between Indian and Grape-Nuts pudding? Read the book.

This is a funny, charming and totally informative volume. You'll love it. And you'll USE it.

There are only 10 to 12 restaurants per state, but the ones that are listed are great. If you are driving across the U.S. and would choose your route based on great food, as much as sightseeing, then this is the perfect book for you. If you rarely get outside of your home state, then this book will be a disappointment for you.

Hopefully, one day Jane and Michael Stern will have enough reviews to publish several big thick books covering different regional areas in the United States, where they will have 50 to 60 restaurants per state.

Cover up the bottom of the first letter of the title and you get a more accurate description of the kinds of places you'll be directed to by this book. Fried chicken, barbecue joints, pies and shakes are the types of cuisine most often referenced in the restaurant descriptions here. They're almost uniformly good and when my family traveled across the USA nine years ago we found it great fun to make detours away from our intended path to eat at the places listed in EYWATU.

I wish that the authors had put balance in the listings, with low-calorie, vegetarian and similar restaurants included in some reasonable proportion. For what it is, though, it is well written and the food is evaluated fairly.

Once in a while I am disapointed to find the mom & pop places are closed up & replaced by a corporate place. Those that pan out are right on the money with the reviews that are included in this book. Calling ahead is always smart.

For a book on travel, it seems that the index would be from the viewpoint of (in this order) State; City, Restaurant. In this book if you are in Podunk, Somewhere you can't find it in the index unless you know the name of the restaurant.

More "out-of-city" locations would have been preferable.

In the text, list the State, City and restaurant with maybe one or two lines of description with a rating code.

Sorry, I was't impressed and am returning the book.