NOW DEFEND THIS

[WhiteSox]

You can eat at 5 restaurants and one fast food place the rest of your life. Only five. For the sake of argument, they're all easily accessible to you, so you can pick from all over the country. Who you taking? DEFEND IT! EVERYONE IS INFERIOR TO ME DUE TO MY PREFERENCES!

1. Terry Black's BBQ in Austin. I've only ever had the beef ribs, but if everything else is half that good, I'm set on BBQ.

2. Monelle's in Nashville. Gets me the best breakfast on the planet, plus the southern cooking that I crave.

3. Puckett's Grocery in Nashville. Gets me another breakfast option, plus more southern style options but a more diverse menu. This is only applicable if they put their chicken fried steak back on the menu.

4. Pre-covid (don't worry Dan, you can wear a mask) Mulate's in New Orleans. The menu changed after 2020 and it isn't the same, but it was the best meal I've ever had before that.

5. Texas Roadhouse. The first Texas Roadhouse was started at my local mall. Roadhouse is fancy eating around here and it's good shit even if it's a chain.

6. Chick-Fil-A. It's fast, good and I want peach milkshakes in the summer.

[BlueJays]

I can't rank them, but I'll list them.

El Gaucho - Aruba. A cute Argentine restaurant in the non-tourist area of Aruba. Some of the best steak I've ever had.

The Big Cheese - Cranston, RI. Some of the best pizza I've ever had, and their Mozzarella Bread is incredible.

Aunt Carrie's - Narragansett, RI. Fried food, but my favorite post beach stop for seafood on the drive home. All fresh ingredients from the docks of RI at nearby Port of Galilee.

Chester's BBQ - Groton, CT. Burnt ends quite possibly are my favorite food, and this place serves them with homemade slaw, and their own homemade BBQ sauce.

The Square Peg - Warren, RI. Honestly, I cant stop drinking their house margaritas or Sangrias here, but their food is also good. But I go here to drink, and I've never had a light pour.

Fast food:
Chipotle. I don't know what they put in it, but I cant stop eating there.

[Yankees]

Think more categorically on my 5 favorite types of food to eat at restaurants...

PIZZA: Modern Apizza - New Haven, CT - Best pizza I've ever eaten and I've eaten pizza everywhere in this country.

FARM TO TABLE: Emmer & Rye - Austin, TX - Best farm to table on earth and the owner/head chef is my best friend's cousin. Even my kids love their craziest of dishes.

BBQ: The Shed - Ocean Springs, MS - I've had Franklin BBQ and it doesn't touch The Shed. Playing in a league all by itself.

AWARD WINNING SHIT: e' by Jose Andres - Las Vegas, NV - I've eaten a lot of great food at a lot of great places in Vegas (best value is Best Friend), but I may have never enjoyed a meal as much as my wife and I did here. Incredible human, incredible meal.

TEXMEX - The Original Ninfa's - Houston, TX - One of the OG Tex Mex places and still absolutely the best Tex Mex in the best Tex Mex city in the state.

FAST FOOD - Chick Fil A - It's not even that close.

[Rockies]

I'll have to come up with my favorites later, but I just want to give a shout out to the Monelle's and Puckett's Grocery calls in Nashville. Monelle's might be one of the best breakfast meals I've ever had.. everything from scratch. Those biscuits. The cinnamon rolls. The fried chicken. I ate there the morning I had to leave town, and I've been longing to go back to Nashville for another meal here ever since.

[WhiteSox]

I'll have to come up with my favorites later, but I just want to give a shout out to the Monelle's and Puckett's Grocery calls in Nashville. Monelle's might be one of the best breakfast meals I've ever had.. everything from scratch. Those biscuits. The cinnamon rolls. The fried chicken. I ate there the morning I had to leave town, and I've been longing to go back to Nashville for another meal here ever since.

I never go to Nashville overnight without eating at Monelle's. A couple of summers ago, me and a buddy I taught with woke up and drove to Nashville just to eat breakfast there, then attempted to tour the Hermitage with food baby triplets to make it seem like we didn't drive 200 miles just to eat. Their bacon is always just the right amount of crispy. The one at the airport closed due to airport expansion but luckily the one in east Nashville is still open

[Twins]

1. George & the Dragon, Minneapolis

2. Cecil's Deli, St. Paul

3. Crown Candy Kitchen, St. Louis

4. Humble Pie, Seattle

5. The Mucky Duck, Sanibel Island

FF: Freddy's

[Orioles]

Here's a list of a bunch of my top spots in a few categories. A handful of them I found in a book I had back in 2003 called Roadfood that my SF coworkers gave me before I drove back across the country from California to Boston for law school. Fantastic book for a fat guy, with loads of greasy spoons, BBQ joints, pizza parlors, and other local gems from everywhere in the country. They now have a website (Roadfood.com) which is worth checking out. As you know if you've ever encountered me, I can be a creature of excess, and food is no different, so this list is fucking long. Some places I've been to 1000 times, a few of them only once. All of these are worth checking out if you're nearby though.

Steak - Grill 23 (Boston, MA); Jockey Club (Washington, DC - No longer exists); Peter Luger's (New York, NY); The Wolf Lodge Inn (Coeur d'Alene, ID - burned down this Sept)
Pizza - Modern Apizza (New Haven, CT - slight edge over original Pepe's); Lombardi's (New York, NY); Ernesto's Pizzeria (Boston, MA)
Burger - Neptune Oyster House (Boston, MA - fried oyster burger); Brant Point Grill (Nantucket, MA - also has killah clam chowdah); Ruby's (New York, NY)
Crab/Seafood Salad - Swan Oyster Depot (San Francisco, CA)
Donuts - Bob's Donuts (San Francisco, CA)
Fish Taco - Any roadside stand/food truck/restaurant in San Diego ending in "-berto's." Umberto's. Aliberto's. Roberto's. Any -berto's works.
Burrito - Anna's Taqueria (Boston, MA); El Pelon (Boston, MA); Taqueria Cancun (San Francisco, CA)
Fish 'n Chips - Leo Burdock's (Dublin, IRE)
Italian - Jackson Fillmore (San Francisco, CA - my personal favorite restaurant of all time)
BBQ - Speed Queen BBQ (Milwaukee, WI)
Chili - Ben's Chili Bowl (Washington, DC)
Mexican - El Cholo (Los Angeles, CA); Red Iguana (Salt Lake City, UT); Taqueria Mexico (Wallingford, CT)
Fine Dining - Chez Panisse (Berkeley, CA); Babbo (New York, NY)
Thai - Ploy II (San Francisco, CA)
Irish Pub Food - Kitty Murtagh's (Nantucket, MA)
Halal meat - that place JP and Levine took me to in NY (the Village somewhere maybe?). Loaded up w/ hot sauce and white sauce over rice. Amazing shit.

FF: In 'n Out, Golden Krust, Chipotle