Originally Posted By mousermerf I think Conch is great because I think all foods should have tools created especially for consuming them and them only.
Originally Posted By TP2000 Get up into the Great Pacific Northwest and the local seafood is FABULOUS. Salmon obviously, and the Scandinavian-American dishes of course. But much more unique is the Geoduck - a treat if prepared well, all manner of clams and mussels and oysters, and of course the traditional Seattle feast of cold Dungeness crab served on big sheets of butcher block paper or the entire Sunday edition of The Seattle Times. They really know how to feast up there. That said, one of the very few things I remember fondly of my time living in Boston was the Legal Seafood restaurants there. Consistently fabulous seafood served there, and the Lobster Rolls! Oh, my! Interestingly, SoCal doesn't have an intensely local seafood culture here. There's some great local foods, but the seafood here tends to be a wide assortment of whatever is available in any big city in America. Nothing typically "SoCal", although an early summer fish fry when the Grunion are running might count. I can't wait for summer and Grunion runs in San Clemente! But that's not something that typically translates into the local restaurants, it's more a families-on-the-beach thing.
Originally Posted By TempestsPrince SoCal is very heavy with Mexican fare, and it's noticeably different from Tex/Mex. Some modified imports like Rubio's fish tacos could be called SoCal fare. Don't really know if In-N-Out counts, as it's just a regional variation on the hamburger. I do love the Cotijan style of Mexican food that seems to be cropping up around here lately, and I haven't really seen those anywhere else, although they may be common in the whole Mexican border region.
