Alphabetic town and related food game

Toluca. A city about 1 hour west of Mexico City, 2,600 mts (8,600 ft) above sea level. That was not my final destination, however; rather, an hacienda a little further out, at 3,200 mts (10,500 ft), where I'd been signed up to undergo a "Team Work Course" . The course director was an astonishing, inspiring man called Carlos Carsolio. We arrived at about 9am and the altitude struck us. We sat on the terrace, he introduced himself, and then served us a round of tequila. And a second! That week was Mexican food, all the way.
Taxco is a delightful town about 3 hours southwest of Mexico City, which we visited after a gruelling week in Toluca. The town was built around the silver mines there. Can't for the life of me remember what I ate, but we walked through an indigenous market where people were waving tortillas and packets of stink bugs at us. They filled their tacos with meat, fresh chiles and a few bugs for good measure.
Tequesquitengo (20 years later) is a lake resort, about 2 hours from Mexico City, which we went to for New Year when my son lived in Mexico. The entire family was there because that's where we baptised my first grandson. That week (since the kids were there) we ate chilaquiles, tacos, and BBQ about 3 times a day.
Tequesquitengo 4.jpg
 
I’m struggling with U, except for Union City, I don't think it’s a food town.

V is for Vancouver, it used to be my favorite Canadian city to visit until they moved the Chinatown there to somewhere. I remember when my kids were younger and we went here, there were live frogs at Chinatown, very fresh tropical fruit like Longan, mangoes, etc.., not sure what happened. But it was an exciting city to visit.
 
U is for Utrecht.
Capital of the province of Utrecht (I'm sure they do that to make it easyfor the kids to learn ;) ).
Town near the centre of the Netherlands.
Couple of canals, lot of nice small reataurants
 
Can't do a "U", but V:
Valencia is a city about 2½ hours from Caracas. I used to travel there frequently in the 80s, 90s, because many industrial companies have their factories there. Can't think of any special food, however. Probably hotel muck!
Villa del Rosario is on the other side of Lake Maracaibo, next to the Colombian border. We stopped for lunch at a tasca. When we sat down, there was this gigantic chair at the head of the table. Orders? Mixed grill (which was enormous) and chicken for me. All of a sudden I felt this huge paw on my shoulder, and when I looked around, there was the owner. A true giant. He must have been 6"6, and probably weighed over 180 kgs (390 lbs). Really nice guy, very friendly - but then I understood the chair...
 
Catching up S is for Sydney, or at least the North Shore and the Military Road (A8) in Cremorne. There was a small restaurant called Josephs, sadly no longer there. On our first night in Sydney 2008 we didn't want to venture too far from our B&B as we had just had a long flight in from Fiji. Josephs served me fillet steak on mashed potatoes with veg and a peppercorn sauce. It was the best steak of my life, so much flavour from the Australian beef and cooked to perfection, nothing has come close, it was on a level of its own.

Further down Military Road is The Oaks. In 2008 they had a BBQ pit outside in their courtyard and a butchers counter. You would select your meat (what vegatarian choice 🤣) your spuds and any sides then go to the pit and cook it yourself. Infamously it was the place the England Rugby team went the day after winning the World Cup and it got messy. I just checked their website and the fitepit appears to have gone - well it was a H&S nightmere.
The Oaks remains the place of my favourite interaction with restaurant staff:

We walk in and are greeted.
Waitress, an older woman with a full Paul Hogan accent "Hi, have you been to The Oaks before?"
Me "No, we haven't"
Waitress "Why not?"
Me "Because we live in England"
Waitress "Well that's no bloody excuse"
She then explained how it worked whilst we exchanged sarcasms and I decided I wanted her to be my friend for life 😁
 
V for Vienna - very good chocolate tort here

W for Wells in Maine USA, we like this area, south of Kennebunk Port, ME, North of Ogunquist, this is where I bought 6 lobsters for dirt cheap price, they boiled them for me and I took them back to my hotel and ate. After this experience, I never need to order another lobster while I was there, very good experience to not blow your dough on lobsters.

X for nothing, i can’t find anything I’ve stayed at that starts with X

Y for York in UK, good British food, but I forgot what we ate that were memorable

Y for Yountville in USA, near Napa area so the food here is excellent or better than Napa

Z is for Zurich, I can’t remember what was good here, but my husband was gluten free so he had steaks every night. I don’t remember what I ate either.
 
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Washington, yes!
In 1996-97, I was travelling to New York at least once a month for week-long meetings . My best mate lived in Great Falls, Virginia, so I'd go there for the weekend before heading back to Caracas. The one place that I clearly remember (because I bought the T shirt :laugh:) is the Old Ebbit Grill, Washington's oldest saloon. And I also remember eating Maryland crab cakes.
X for Xochimilco, south of central Mexico City, and home to some ingenious canals. You can hire a brightly- coloured barge and take an hour/ 2 hour trip around all the canals built by the Aztecs. Never mind the food; just take plenty of beer and have fun!
Y for Yaritagua, the capital city of Yaracuy state in Venezuela. I travelled there in 1989/1990, when working for a French engineering company. They were building sub-stations. We probably ate at a steak house, because that's about all there was available!
Z for Zipaquirá, Colombia. The big attraction is the salt mines, and the "cathedral" carved out of the ancient salt mines. Can't remember what we ate, but it probably had salt in it.
 
Morning Glory said:
Theres a place called Xenia in Ohio (maybe someone over that way has been there). TastyReuben?
Click to expand...
I live exactly 14 miles from Xenia and go there quite often (or through there on the way to somewhere else). Xenia is also famed as a tornado magnet, is home to Historically Black Colleges and Universities institutions of higher learning, played a significant role in the post-Revolution Indian Wars, and was founded by a Dutchman.

Food…let’s see, our favorite diner was there, until a group broke in one night, wrecked the place, and beat the family nearly to death, and they abandoned town as soon as they could. Rumor mill said drug trafficking and owed money were involved. 🤷‍♂️

My favorite fried cheese stick type thing I’ve ever had was in Xenia, at Nick’s. Big cubes of mozzarella, breaded in panko and deep-fried and served on skewers, like cheese kabobs.

Our current diner we frequent the most there is owned by a Muslim couple and they serve a mix of (or a fusion of) American diner standards and Middle Eastern favorites. It’s worth mentioning because it’s deep-red conservative around these parts, and Muslim-owned businesses tend not to exist here. It doesn’t hurt that they’ve decked the diner out in an OTT patriotic theme - red, white, and blue everywhere, “GOD BLESS THE USA” painted on one wall, flags here, there, and everywhere…but you do what you’ve gotta do to survive and thrive.
 
Any one else?
Otherwise we are done ;)
I am just wondering if there is a reasonably well known town that comes later than Zürich in the alphabet...

There is Zwijndrecht and Zwolle of course in the Netherlands, anyone with one further down?
 
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