More Than Applebee's

       It seems Tom and I have been guilty of a little bit of city snobbery.
       We had assumed, for some reason, that there would be nowhere interesting to eat out in the suburbs. 

       But over the last week, we have discovered three excellent and lovely restaurants serving sushi, Persian food and Vietnamese food. 

       After living in Toronto and New York, we have pretty high standards in our ethnic cuisine, but have been delighted by the offerings within a 10-minute drive of our new place.
       The Vietnamese food is some of the best we have had since moving away from our all-time favorite – Pho Hung – in Toronto. The food at the Persian place was actually better than at the Middle Eastern dive we frequent,  and was food-styled with such panache that I think the chef must have dreams of being Van Gogh. The sushi, admittedly, was not as good as some of the outstanding stuff we can get at our usual ultra-trendy place, but it was far less expensive and still good enough that I did not suffer gastric distress afterwards – surely an important test. And the eager staff at the otherwise empty restaurant checked on us after nearly every bite – Do we like it? Is it good? Are we happy?

       It seems the restaurant owners out here may be trying a little bit harder than those in the city. Perhaps it is because the surburbs provide the sort of place where they can afford to start out and try to make their dream come true. Maybe they haven’t yet become jaded or decided to cut costs. Or perhaps they haven’t yet compromised their native cuisines for what they view as American tastes. Whatever the reason, our experiences have been far beyond what we were expecting.

       And we have driven by many other tempting destinations we hope to explore in the coming months. Who knew that all these places were out in the suburbs, across from Home Depot or tucked between a dry cleaner and a nail salon? And they are all on the same street – a rather busy main road not far from our new home. 

       In the city, we had to decide in advance where we wanted to go and then drive to that ethnic part of town or to that specific destination. Now, we can just cruise the boulevard for a range of cuisines and feast our bodies and our senses at every stop.