my amazing surprise recommendation doesn't seem that crazy but the summer before last a new ice cream parlor opened up next to my favorite sushi place and i decided i'd get a little treat after my lunch. i had the wild idea of making not a rootbear float nor an orange creamsicle float but a bizarre fruity bastardization float with rainbow sherbet in this locally bottled lime soda. it looked radioactive and tasted like an industrial disaster but, like, in a good way.

Normally at Vietnamese restaurants I'd always get a bahn mi, hard to go wrong with a delicious tasty sandwich, but I decided to try the pho.

Pho is a soup made with raw meat in hot broth. It looked mildly unappetizing when I first got it, but it was one of the best meals I'd ever had in my life.

Maybe it's more commonplace now, but where I lived, there was only one Vietnamese restaurant in like a 20 mile radius, so it was completely new to me.

Also, Egyptian food, I found a place called kebab in Portland when I was driving through on vacation one year, and I stopped there because they said they serve Egyptian food and I've never had Egyptian food. The food I picked was called chicken kusharia.

It was grilled chicken with a tamarind sauce on top of a bed of rice and a slightly crunchy chickpeas. The dish had the aroma of patchouli, which is not something I associate with food.

It was an experience. From the very first bite, it was like I was very present in the moment. Each and every single bite had a new flavor, a new twist to it. There was like lemon juice and lime juice and side salad and one of the best hummus sides I've ever had in my life.

If I just stuck with plain, ordinary fast food because I was on vacation, I never would have gotten to experience that.

Not a restaurant but I feel like I've tried about everything from the fridge or pantry on a peanut butter sandwich.

Banana fluffernutter is as awesome as it sounds. Pickles are weird but not exactly bad. Jellybeans are kinda good, or maybe I'm weird. Peanut butter pepperoni is surprisingly good. But I especially love savory applications of peanuts (like OMG a good satay) so what you should really try is curry powder and a fried egg with scallions on your PB sandwich.

Just get the regular eggs Benedict. The California benedict adds nothing.