The Best Places in the United States

Hongdae 33 is an all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue spot in a Bellaire Boulevard strip center, where $36 buys a tabletop gas grill and a 90-minute clock. You cook the brisket, pork jowl, and baby octopus yourself, so the work is shared and the smoke follows you home. Kimchi and pancakes arrive free, while soju costs extra. It stays busy late, with groups racing the timer between flips.

A San Francisco fish market that planted a second flag inside Proof Lab Beer Garden in Mill Valley, where the obvious move after a Marin hike is a fish taco. The fried rockfish comes out of the oil crackling, buried under a carrot habanero salsa that uses sweetness and acid to dial back the heat rather than just announce it. Order at the counter, find a sunny spot, and let the endorphins from the trail and the chile sort themselves out.

The menu here is basically a suggestion, since the family running this Chinatown restaurant has been known to steer you away from it entirely and just decide what you're eating. That's not arrogance so much as confidence, and the Shanghainese cooking that lands on the table tends to justify the approach. Pork confit egg rolls with basil and chile sauce are a signature. Cash in on the experience; just don't expect to be in charge.

How Ya Dough'n is a casual pizza counter on the third floor of BLVD Las Vegas, which is the sort of address that requires an escalator and a little faith. The hand-tossed sourdough pies run from classic pepperoni to a pistachio number with honey and truffle oil. Dough boys, wings, and meatballs round it out, and Eater lists it among the best pizza in Las Vegas, so the mall detour has company.

The chopped steak comes with peppercorn sauce, peas, and onion rings for $25, which tells you most of what you need to know. This dinner-only diner on Warren Street is the project of the Meat Hook's Brent Young and a partner from Mel the Bakery, and the menu reads like a greatest-hits of unfussy classics: shrimp cocktail, steak tartare, burgers, half a Greek chicken. Affordable on purpose, not by accident.

The delivery vehicle is called an Emergency Donut Vehicle, which tells you everything about the vibe here. This 24-hour doughnut shop leans hard into nostalgia and spectacle, piling its yeast and cake rings with candy bar crumbles, cereal, roasted marshmallows, and glazes in colors not found in nature. The flavors skew s'mores and Little Debbie rather than artisan restraint, so come hungry for dessert energy at any hour you please.

Hypsi is the Italian restaurant tucked inside Hotel Daphne in the Heights, which means you can start with breakfast and keep going until a roaming mozzarella cart rolls up to your table at dinner. The room is relaxed neighborhood stuff, with a fireplace worth angling for and a negroni on the list. Dress however you'd dress to eat pasta near your own house, only slightly nicer.

Ike's is a counter-service sandwich shop that came out of San Francisco, where the menu runs past 700 combinations and a good number are named after celebrities, so you end up ordering a Paul Reubens or a Steph Curry like you're calling in a favor. You pick the bread, from sourdough to gluten-free, and everything gets a swipe of the secret Dirty Sauce. Expect a line, plastic-wrapped napkins, and no dress code beyond pants.

Immm Rice & Beyond is a casual Thai street food counter on Broadway, where the hot bar up front does the talking and the staff will hand you samples if nothing looks familiar. At lunch you can build a plate of rice or noodles with up to three curries, stews, or wok-tossed things, and a chalkboard behind the counter tracks the day's specials. It's Eater's pick for Chicago's best Thai food, and you order at the counter.

This is a drive-thru burger chain, not a destination restaurant, though the line of cars wrapped around the Dean Martin Drive lot would suggest otherwise. The Double-Double is two patties, two slices of American cheese, and a spread, ordered by people who have never once looked at the rest of the menu. It's cheap, quick, and a ritual for Californians and tourists alike. Eater counts it among the best burgers in Las Vegas.

In-On Thai is a casual Uptown Thai spot with a short menu built around Central Thai cooking, the sort of place where the salad section gets more thought than most restaurants give their entrees. The green bean salad arrives with hard-boiled eggs and tender shrimp in a sharp, sour sauce. The fried chicken is the easy first order, and it's wise to say you can handle the heat and mean it. Online ordering is available.

A banana-leaf-wrapped fish fillet steamed with chutney is the kind of dish that tells you this old-school Indian restaurant takes its regional cooking seriously. North Indian classics anchor the menu, from chicken tikka masala to saag paneer, but Goan fish curry and chicken Ceylon give regulars a reason to wander off the familiar path. A daily lunch buffet draws the Richmond Avenue crowd in reliably.

Istmo is a Lakeview Mexican restaurant devoted to the food of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a corner of Oaxaca most menus treat as a footnote. It serves breakfast too, which is where the green enchiladas come in, built on the chef's mother's sauce, so there's a family stake in them. Dinner gets tlayudas and baked fish, and the drinks have their own point of view. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Mexican restaurants.

Tucked above B.B. King's Blues Club on Beale Street, this upscale Southern restaurant gets its soundtrack free of charge, bass lines thumping up through the floorboards from the club below. The room runs its own live music most nights anyway, so there's rarely a quiet moment. The menu leans coastal Southern, with she-crab soup, shrimp over smoked gouda grits, and a Cajun crab dip that disappears fast.

This is the dressier, sit-down cousin of the Archer Heights spot that made its name on pozole, and it keeps that dish while wandering off into aguachiles, mole, cochinita pibil, and grilled meats. The sirloin comes with pineapple-habanero sauce and avocado mousse, which is a lot of sauce for one cut and somehow works. Weekend brunch, plus a tequila and mezcal list long enough to need a plan, and sotol and raicilla for the brave.

Izakaya-style dining in Memorial Village means shareable skewers, cold Kirin, and a sushi menu that does most of the heavy lifting. The gyu kushiyaki, beef tenderloin on a stick, and the Cowboy Roll, seared beef with avocado and eel sauce, give you a sense of the register: Japanese comfort food leaning playful. The crowd fills in after work and doesn't rush out. A second location exists in River Oaks, though the menus differ.

The egg tart has a following from Jane Wild's farmers market days, and it followed her here to this brick-and-mortar bakehouse in the Heights. The menu rotates through toasts, sandwiches, and salads built around a no-waste kitchen philosophy, but the sourdough is a constant. It's the kind of neighborhood bakery where the sourcing matters as much as the output, and the regulars already know it.

Staten Island's thin, crackery-crusted pizza has its own grammar, and this old-school pizzeria on Victory Boulevard is where that grammar was written. The vodka pie, draped in a creamy tomato sauce, is the one people make the trek for, though the cheese and pepperoni hold their own just fine. Calamari and clams show up as toppings, which is either ambitious or correct depending on how Staten Island you are.

A West Oakland coffee shop where the jollof rice is serious business: sharply spiced Nigerian rice with heat that keeps building, served with caramelized plantains and your choice of stewed chicken, oxtail, or goat. Okra and egusi soups arrive with fufu. Seating is tight and the wait can stretch, so bring patience and a friend you want to impress with how good Oakland gets. The San Francisco Chronicle put it on their best Oakland restaurants list.

A Lower East Side slice shop open until 3:30 a.m. on weekends, Jonny's turns out thin, bubble-blistered pies that hold up at any hour, which is not something you can say about most places keeping those hours. The chef taught himself the craft through obsessive pizza eating and some deep Reddit rabbit holes, and the fermented dough shows it. The New York Times named it one of the city's 22 best pizza spots.

Joong Boo is a Korean grocery, and the cooking happens at Snack Corner, a few tables tucked in the back of the Kimball Avenue store. You can get bibimbap, soondubu-jjigae, or a bowl of rice cake soup, then do your shopping with a full stomach, which every grocery trip should begin with. A dumpling shop up front is there if lunch doesn't feel complete yet. Cheap, casual, and nobody minds the cart.

A taco spot near NRG where the trompo al pastor, shaved from a vertical spit with pineapple, draws the kind of loyalty that has nothing to do with proximity to a stadium. Weekends bring taquitos de canasta, basket tacos steamed soft under onions until they collapse on contact. There's also a dice roll and a buzzer game at the counter: land right and the meal is free, which keeps things lively in ways most taco spots don't bother with.

Kaito is a small sushi counter on El Camino Real in Encinitas, where the menu is whatever the fish and the chef's standards agree on that day. Some days a favorite is simply absent, and nobody apologizes. Most people hand over the decision and order the omakase, which saves you from pretending you know what you're doing. It's a sit-down, pay-attention kind of meal, so dress like you plan to be watched.

A strip-mall Indian restaurant near Hanes Mall that earns its keep by covering a lot of ground without cutting corners. The menu runs from chicken tikka masala and lamb rogan josh to gobi Manchurian and a generous spread of breads, including puffy bhatura that make a strong case for skipping the naan. Spice levels adjust to order, and the desserts, kulfi and gulab jamun laced with cardamom and rose, are worth saving room for.

Kfire is a fast-casual Korean American spot on Milwaukee Ave where you build your own bowl, and nearly everything on the menu bends to your will, including swapping the rice for salad. The galbi gets compared favorably to sit-down barbecue places, and the Impossible crumbles come marinated like galbi and pressed into patties, which is a sentence nobody expected to write. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Korean restaurants.

Pearland is not where most people expect to find a white-tablecloth steakhouse, which may explain the permanent crowd of pickup-order patrons outside. This is the fine dining side of a barbecue heavyweight's empire, so book ahead and dress like you're being seen. Wagyu runs the menu, sourced from three countries, and the beef wellington arrives under shaved black truffle. Creme brulee cheesecake closes things out, as it should.

Kingfisher is a casual, walk-in-only seafood spot on Bainbridge Island, which is a ferry ride away and therefore already a small commitment. It's the looser, cheaper follow-up to Seabird, with the same wood fire, local sourcing, and raw bar, minus the reservations and most of the fuss. Ask for a spoon if the ceviche shows up, since drinking the leftover broth is considered good manners here.

The sweet potato brulée, a potato starch custard torched to a glassy crust, gives you a sense of how this Berkeley izakaya operates: familiar enough to land, unexpected enough to stay with you. The menu shifts constantly around a core of Japanese small plates, with daily specials that swing from nigiri to okonomiyaki depending on the chef's mood. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best restaurants in Berkeley.