What is essential Detroit food?

14 comments

• NigelCharles

  •

  9 years ago

  Faygo soda. Specifically: Rock and Rye. Best soda ever.
• NinaBambina

  •

  9 years ago

  IMO, essential Detroit food includes:
  
  -The Coney Dog, and Coney Island restaurants in general.
  -Greektown (Greek food, saganaki, lamb, etc)
  -Mexicantown, in southwest Detroit, is filled with Mexican restaurants
  -"Soul food" restaurants, which serve food similar to southern cuisine. Baker's at 8 mile & Livernois, the "world's oldest jazz bar," has great food of this cuisine and has a great atmosphere although it is almost always busy.
  -I will put middle eastern food on the list because of the high population and therefore plentiful restaurants of that variety.
• AnonymousJim

  •

  9 years ago

  Dancer pussy. If you haven't eaten some of that before you leave, you haven't experienced Detroit.
• sinclair

  •

  9 years ago

  NinaBambina gave a good breakdown. Here are a few more ideas.
  
  American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island are two coney dog places right next to each other in downtown.
  
  Detroit is known for deep dish pizza. It comes in a square instead of being round like Chicago deep dish. Buddy's Pizza is delicious. Go to the original Buddy's at Conant and McNichols.
  
  Faygo soda comes from Detroit. The same with Vernor's Ginger Ale. Vernor's has more of a ginger taste than Canada Dry/Seagram's. Stroh's use to be THE Detroit beer. I am not sure how popular it is any more. I think it started dying off after Pabst bought out Stroh's.
  
  A few restaurants that are always getting hyped on the food and travel shows on cable are Cadieux Cafe (Belgian food) and Slo's (barbeque). There are a few good Polish restaurants in Hamtramck.
• sinclair

  •

  9 years ago

  In Detroit strip clubs, they serve delicacies like bearded clam, pink tacos, beef curtain, whisker biscuits, meat muffin, red snapper, furback turtle, and fish lips.
  
  For desert, it is usually fur pie, yeast cake, or smelly jelly hole. Bon appetit!
• ButterMan

  •

  9 years ago

  I agree with anonymousJim..stripper pussy is known to be readily available for tasting in Detroit.
• whodey

  •

  9 years ago

  AnonymousJim is absolutely correct and Sinclair listed some of the fine dishes available for dinner and desert.
  
  Just be careful of the girl you choose or you may sober up and find out she's been serving you Blue Waffles.
• ReiDetroit

  •

  9 years ago

  What Nina said, plus Slows BBQ and also Bucharest Grill on downtown. If you are a Reddit member, there are some awesome threads about Detroit food and a list of places to check out on the side bar of the Detroit subreddit. Just Google Detroit Reddit if you aren't a member. :)
• jackslash

  •

  9 years ago

  People have covered Detroit food well. I will mention the Bread Basket delis, small sandwich shops with the best pastrami and rye sandwiches outside NYC.
  
• lotsoffun201

  •

  9 years ago

  I have to agree. The Delia's in Detroit are the best because of the special breads they use. It's not available anywhere else. I have to disagree with jackslash though. I think Detroit delis are better than NYC. Also Detroit bagels are among the best.
  
  You should also try Detroit Chinese food. They make a dish called Almond Boneless Chicken. It's a Detroit staple and you can't get it anywhere else. Empress Garden in Southfield has the best.
• samsung1

  •

  9 years ago

  The strip clubs have decent food in detroit. I even remember a few years ago penthouse ran an advertising campaign on a site similar to groupon.
  
  Little Caesars pizza is from detroit as well.
• vincemichaels

  •

  9 years ago

  Thank you Mr Ilitch,(owner of Little Caesars.Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings.
• Hugh_G_Rection

  •

  9 years ago

  If you're in the Mexican neighborhoods just off the beaten path from Mexican Village there are some mobile burrito and taco vans that serve awesome Mexican food on the street- and it is authentic, as in the local Mexican community is their normal customer base. I'm a big fan of these Taqurios on Wheels.
  
  My favorite local Deli would be the Plaza Deli in Southfield, on Northwestern at Franklin Rd. Nearby is the Southfield location of Fishbone's Rythem Cafe, which also has an original downtown location- it is an awesome New Orleans Cajun restaurant which adds another gastronomic dimension to the culinary delights of the Metro Detroit area.
  
  Other than those two submissions the rest of what was said in this thread was totally on target. Coney dogs, Greek, Polish, Soul Food, Middle Eastern, Delis - Detroit has it all!
• ime

  •

  9 years ago

  Look up Detroit Stir fry on urban dictionary, i think i'd avoid that one though.