The talented Sterns ( American Gourmet ) hit the highways again for this update of perhaps their most celebrated work. And again, American backroads and interstates come to life through livelier, more active? the authors' almost Grail-like quest for the kind of home-cooked food and restaurants that threaten to fade into oblivion, overshadowed by the homogeneous glare of the chain eatery. Roadfood celebrates venues most travelers would never venture near, let alone enter--like Lusco's in Greenwood, Miss. ("one of the weirdest, and most wonderful, restaurants in America"242 ), where green walls and grimy, chintz-curtained rooms belie the excellence of the "luxurious-tasting"243 (albeit expensive) food. Most of the state-by-state listed restaurants are, however, for dining on the cheap. They include Manny's Coffee Shop in Chicago ("a temple of honest food"129 ), the Smokestack Bar-B-Que in Kansas City, Mo.--where a "serious chaw of meat,"261 according to the Sterns, is "nothing less than the essence of the smoke pit, like barbecue bouillon"--and Duke's Barbecue in Orangeburg, S.C., where "there is no decor to speak of and . . . no music other than the thud of the cleaver hacking pork and the moans of pleasure, slurping, and licking that are a symphonic expression of people enjoying one of the great meals of the Southland."398 While one could hardly map a road trip by the Sterns' restaurant finds--some cities, like Chicago, are overrepresented, while the rest of Illinois is all but ignored--this fun and fanciful volume is pure pleasure.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"America's leading authorities on the culinary delights to be found while driving"
-- Newsweek magazine

See all Product Description

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.5 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars This is a great idea but don't tell your doctor!, Jun 18 2004

ChrisG (Torrington CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roadfood (Paperback)

My wife and I do a lot of cross country motorcycling and this is a great book for anyone that likes the tastes of roadside America. We have tried several places in the book, from greasy spoons to ice cream and the book was always dead on with its reviews. If you are a fast food chain lover this is not a book for you. If you want down home, local fun stops then this is it. The only reason why I didn't give the book 5 stars is that the book's web site is more up to date and has more content than the book itself. Thus we tend to use the web site more often. See you on the highways and byways!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

3.0 out of 5 stars Great reference, Dec 29 2003

K. J. Blake "Super Reader" (Phoenix,AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: ROADFOOD AND GOODFOOD (Paperback)

Roadfood and Goodfood: A Restaurant Guidebook
Jane Stern, Michael Stern

Paperback - Combined, updated, and expanded, 1987

Good fun guide book! Many of the restaurants are still open for business- would be great for a writer looking to set a book in the 1980s! Research and reference anthology of coast to coast eating in 1980s America

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but incomplete, Jun 1 2003

B. D. Marcus "ovenman" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Roadfood (Paperback)

Good places to eat are hard to find. Finding an edible alternative to McDonalds or TGI Fridays is a must for long road trips. This book offers a list of good eats when you're a stranger in a strange land. The picks are generally pretty good although with I have encountered a few restaurants where I walked out wanting to write a stern letter to the Roadfood editors. But generally if it's in the book, it's a good meal.

The main problem is that the book is mainly city centric, and is a finite work. There are some cities, and large pieces of states that have no entries at all. And if you know an area well, you may disagree on which restaurants they should have.

Overall a nice book. If you use the roadfood web site, it has more listings.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 16 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Want to see more reviews on this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 17 reviews 3.4 out of 5 stars

Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars 500 restaurants..and all of them serving the same things!
ROAD FOOD just doesn't do it for me. Each synopsis seems to be a repeat of the previous one depending on the region. Read more

Published on May 26 2003 by J. Carroll

5.0 out of 5 stars Support Our (Culinary) Troops
The Sterns are effectively acting in the nation's defense of good, cheap roadside eats. We should support them. Read more