Ann Arbor is home to a great many restaurants. Of course, I may be a little biased and assume that they are all amazing, but when I found myself at Taste Kitchen, I was in new territory. You, back when I was a student Taste Kitchen didn’t exist. Plus, if it did it was definitely beyond my onetime student budget.

I quickly eyed the Berkshire Grilled Pork and settled on it if only one thing could change: the brussels sprouts. You see, it came with rice, an egg and nuoc cham (presumably some sort of sauce) and these were all good things. Fortunately, my waiter told me a change up was totally possible and I traded in the sprouts for fingerling potatoes. Clearly I got the better end of the deal. These are the best diet pills.

The food turned out to be fantastic. The egg was fried and runny. while the pork was perfectly tender and flavorful. A part of me kept thinking the pork would be better as steak, but this was about as close as pork had ever come to being steak. The nuoc cham was a nice sweet chili sauce that went well with literally everything on my plate and the fingerling potatoes made very good use of their newfound existence in this dish.

Taste Kitchen is a great spot and while it might not be for students on their own, it is certainly a great spot for older, more refined eaters.

A great ramen is hard to find. Good ramen, not so much, but great yes. So when Slurping Turtle in Chicago got so big that they decided to open up an outpost in Ann Arbor, I assumed great things. So on my last visit to Michigan amidst weather worthy of ramen, I made sure to make a stop in Ann Arbor for some slurping.

I quickly realized that Slurping Turtle was not simply a ramen spot, but a full on izakaya-esque Japanese restaurant capable of producing anything my heart could desire. Nonetheless, I had my heart set on ramen and it remained there. I settled on the Tan Tan Men Ramen, which the menu described as spicy with pork meatballs, pork chashu, pork miso, bok choy and bean sprouts.

And it was damn good. The ramen noodles were perfectly prepared, while the bok choy and sprouts were easily dismissable. Most importantly, the meatballs were perfectly tender and juicy while the chashu had a hint of sweet without the bonus fat that chashu usually comes with. Usually the fat adds great flavor, but in this case it wasn’t missed. The egg was boiled to a level of greatness in which it was perfectly runny inside. And then there was the broth, which was packed with great flavor and a spiciness that made me quite happy.

Undoubtedly, Slurping Turtle is a great ramen. It’s not the best ramen ever, but it’s certainly a place I would like in my town to get me through the winter.

2014 is here, but my 2013 may have been the best year of eating in the history of the world, so it’s time for another Unvegan Best of. The past year included a honeymoon, an epic month-long road trip and a move from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh, so my list has broadened beyond LA and narrowing down the awesome was quite the process. Nonetheless, I encourage you all to go back through my Reviews section to see what didn’t quite make the cut. Remember that the list only includes places new to The Unvegan and bear in mind that Honorable Nods this year would probably be winners any other year. Without further ado:

Best Burger

Plan Check (Los Angeles)

Double cheese, double bacon and an egg and patty cooked to perfection made the Chefs Favorite burger a winner in a very tightly contested category.

Honorable Nods to Edgewood Corner Tavern (Atlanta) and Matt’s Bar (Minneapolis)

Best BBQ

The Smoke Joint (Brooklyn)

Don’t waste time thinking about what to order. Just order everything. And the Beef Ribs.

Honorable Nod to YinzBurgh BBQ (Pittsburgh)

Best Steak

Delmonico Steakhouse (Las Vegas)

The Bone-in Ribeye here is like butter, which may be because it is cooked in butter, but I don’t care.

Honorable Nod to Taylor’s Steak House (Los Angeles)

Best Wings

Buffalo Blues (Pittsburgh)

I admit that these wings earn extra points because of their Buffalo Blue Fries, but the wings are still quite delicious.

Honorable Nod to Hot’s Kitchen (Los Angeles)

Best Hot Dog

Franktuary (Pittsburgh)

Grass-fed, snappy and with all sorts of good toppings, as long as you go with hot dogs, you can’t go wrong here.

Best Sandwich

Joey Broadway (Vancouver)

Somehow, Joey Broadway made an adult grilled cheese without ruining all the joy that comes with that most comforting of foods.

Honorable Nods to Primanti Brothers (Pittsburgh) and Philippe’s (Los Angeles)

Best Pizza

Mercato di Vetro (Los Angeles)

Blackberries and bacon on pizza. What could go wrong? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Honorable Nod to Lucifer’s Pizza (Los Angeles)

Best Breakfast/Brunch

Zingerman’s Roadhouse (Ann Arbor)

Grits and bacon in a waffle. If anyone still thinks Zingerman’s is just about sandwiches, it’s time to get to the Roadhouse.

Honorable Nod to Pamela’s (Pittsburgh)

Best ‘Merican (Formerly Gastropub)

North End Caffe (Los Angeles)

Everything this place churns out is gold (including their spelling of Caffe) and the staff there know it and love it even more than the customers do.

Honorable Nod to Buckhead Diner (Atlanta)

Best Mexican

Mexicali (Los Angeles)

Somehow Mexicali found a way to innovate Mexican food to a level Taco Bell still hasn’t thought of.

Honorable Nod to Leo’s Taco Truck (Los Angeles)

Best Random Ethnic (by region)

Africa

Arnold’s (Cape Town)

Best warthog ribs ever.

Asia

Night + Market (Los Angeles)

The Thai you’d eat if you were Thai.

Europe

Point Brugge (Pittsburgh)

Belgian Fries FTW!

Middle Eastern

Cafe Turko (Seattle)

The touch, the feel of Turkey. In Seattle.

South/Central American

Peru Chix (Los Angeles)

Who knew Torrance was a hotbed of Peruvian delights?

For 2013 Only:

Best Place to Stop on a Coastal Drive

We have a tie!

Splash Cafe (Pacific Coast Highway)

The best damn chowder.

And:

Chapman’s Peak Hotel (Chapman’s Peak Drive)

The best damn calamari.

And that’s a wrap. Meanwhile, you can also check out 2012 and 2011 for more listage.

After an awesome Michigan Football game, I was a happy and hungry unvegan. Fortunately I had dinner plans outside of normal Ann Arbor at a restaurant called Carson’s American Bistro. Although it was still in Ann Arbor, it was far enough from the Big House that it wasn’t hard to get a table. The name, Carson’s, evoked thoughts of some sort of a cowboy steakhouse, but when I walked in, I found it was anything but. Also, there is no such thing as a cowboy steakhouse in southeastern Michigan. It was actually a pretty upscale place with a nice selection of food. I wasn’t exactly ready for something huge (having partaken in some cheap pizza while leaving the stadium), so I looked to the burgers.

The best looking burger to me was the Bison Burger. It came with lettuce, tomato and choice of cheese. The phrasing was a little bit ambiguous regarding the involvement of caramelized onions, so I brought them up while ordering to ensure they would not be a part of my burger. Then I chose their Vermont cheddar as my cheese. It also came with fries. PLAZA-ESCORTS

Soon enough, it arrived, but apparently the ambiguous phrasing had failed me. I found onions of the caramelized sort hanging on top of my burger and had to send it back. It came back a little too quickly, but at least there were no onions. Yet, I found something that had escaped my vision in the first place: a pickle. Gross, but at least it wasn’t on the burger. I brushed the vegetable aside and dug in to the burger. Biting in, I found that this wasn’t the best bison burger I’d ever had. In fact it was far from it. It was quite dry and definitely not the medium I had ordered. It actually kind of tasted like they had scraped off the original cheese and onions, tossed on a new slice and thrown it back on the grill long enough to re-melt the cheese. So the cheese was delicious, as was the bun, but the patty itself left a lot to be desired.

It was disappointing, and although everyone else seemed to enjoy their meal, I felt like mine could have turned out much better. The bison burger is a very difficult burger to cook, and Carson’s was not the right place to keep that burger moist.

EDIT: Blimpy Burger has moved due to a rent dispute, but it is reputedly as good as always.

After four years of living in Ann Arbor and countless other trips to the city of my alma mater, I have finally made my way to Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger. Although I always knew of the place while I lived there, I didn’t realize just how big of a deal it was until I saw it on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Since that time, it has been my goal to eat at Blimpy Burger and I can finally cross that place off of my list. But is it any good?

Yes, it sure is.

Let’s start with the look of the place. It’s tiny and the line to order runs through the eating area. The counter is for ordering only and behind that counter is one medium-sized griddle and a deep-fryer. The choices are on the wall, and you know it’s gonna be awesome when the menu has the quin burger on it (five patties!). The patties are small and slider-sized so that it takes 3 to be the size of the quarter-pounder, but still the idea of a 5-patty burger was pretty enticing. Yet, knowing I would be getting on a flight shortly after, I wimped out and only got the triple burger. I didn’t feel too bad, though, because on my triple burger I got cheddar cheese, bacon, fried egg and salami. Yes, salami! I had never seen this offered on a burger before and I wasn’t going to let this opportunity for meat on meat on meat action slip through my fingers. I also got me some fries.

The cook seemed pretty impressed with my choice and I watched as he grabbed three ground beef balls and tossed them on the griddle. He also grabbed a few slices of bacon and salami for the griddle as well. It was good to see that everything was cooked on the spot, especially the bacon, because I know a lot of places cook their bacon ahead of time, and then throw it on the griddle for a few seconds to heat up. After a little cooking, he flattened out the ground beef into a more burger-like shape and started getting my artery clogger into a nice stack, ready for the bun.

The cashier asked me what I had gotten on my burger and when I told him, he asked if I had a doctor’s note. I laughed and told him I didn’t, but I might need one tomorrow for work after this meal. I asked for a some BBQ sauce on the burger and then it was ready for eating.

I unwrapped the meaty monstrosity and it looked beautiful. I was almost afraid to eat the work of art, but my hunger for unvegan glory forced me to eat. I was glad it did, because this was one amazing burger. I mean how could it not be? There wasn’t one bad thing on there and t wasn’t simply a burger of excess like the one at Hamburger Mary’s. It was a carefully thought-through burger that was cooked with heart.

But what about the salami? Great question. The salami, like the rest of the burger, was awesome. I can’t believe this concept hasn’t spread to other burger places. The place has been around since 1953, so there has been plenty of time for people to copy the idea, but I just haven’t seen it. The salami slices were the perfect size for this burger and I loved every bite.

The fries were of the steak-style and although they were tasty, they weren’t at the same level as the burger. I’m a little disappointed in myself for not making my way to Blimpy Burger earlier in my life. I feel like I am a better person having eaten there now and it is sad because I could have been a better person much earlier in my life. Blimpy Burger is officially on my list of places you have to get to if you get to Ann Arbor. Assuming you don’t order any vegetables or make a similar mistake, you won’t leave disappointed.

After failing to grab a late-night snack at Red Hot Lovers (if your damn sign says you are open til midnight, I better be able to show up at 11:57 and get a hot dog), we headed to Backroom Pizza. As a college student, this place was the best. Slices of cheese pizza were a buck and pepperoni ran 1.50. No one would ever claim it was great pizza, but at 2:30 am, you don’t need great pizza. Now that I’m no longer a poor college student, I was wondering if it would still have the allure it once did.

When we showed up, there was a sign stating that the price of cheese slices had jumped to 1.25. According to the sign, it was their first price increase in 20 years. Is the oil spill to blame? Or Obama? More realistically, it probably has something to do with Rich Rodriguez (just kidding coach!). Still, the price of pepperoni remained unchanged. I walked into the hole in the wall and ordered two slices of pepperoni. They were handed to me instantly and I stepped outside to see if they withstood the test of time.

And they did.

Bear in mind that I never called this pizza great. It still wasn’t great, and to be honest if I hadn’t been drinking, I would have some trouble calling it good. But I had been drinking and that’s what Backroom Pizza is for. Why waste four bucks on a slice of pizza while drunk? You won’t appreciate it as much as you should. So for that drunken munchies niche, Backroom is exactly what it should be, even if a slice of cheese isn’t the same value it once was.

Everyone in LA seems to know that the place has no good beer culture, yet no one has really done anything to fix that. Sure, there’s BJ’s (no good) and a couple other microbreweries that are difficult to get to, but come on, LA is a huge city that deserves more. So when I left LA for Ann Arbor for a bit of a bachelor party, we headed to the Grizzly Peak Brewing Company. I’ve loved the Grizzly Peak for a long time, even dating back to before I could drink their beer and drank their micro-brewed root beer. I have a lot of great memories of the place and hoped that my most recent visit wouldn’t be a disappointment.

While their menu switches things up every once in a while (ooh Bison Sloppy Joes?!), their burger has been a constant source of satisfaction for me. Not wanting to be risky, I stuck with The Grizz Burger, which starts out with lettuce and tomato for $8.50 and goes up about 35 cents per topping. I ordered without the wasteful lettuce and tomato, then topped it with bacon and smoked gouda. I had it cooked medium and then got some fries for an extra buck fifty. As for the beer, they have some great staples and some seasonals to go with them. I stuck with one of their staples, a golden ale. It was 4 bucks for a pint or 4.95 for a 22-ouncer, so I opted for the 22.

The beer came first and was just like I remember it”¦smooth, crisp and tad bitter; the kind of beer you could bring home to mother. Then came the burger. I’m pretty sure Grizzly Peak either changed how they serve cheese or I’ve never ordered it with gouda before, because I was surprised to find the cheese was shredded. I’m typically threatened by change, but I actually kind of liked the idea of this shredded cheese. It fit perfectly on the burger and didn’t cause any cheese to leak over the side. I also noticed that there was no bacon, so I immediately told my server who immediately grabbed some for me. Now I was ready to eat.

Just like I remembered, the Grizz Burger was the perfect microbrewery burger. The meat was cooked just perfectly and was slightly juicy. The smoked gouda and bacon added nice flavoring and the bun was just the right size. It is the pub burger by which all other pub burgers are judged. I say pub burger because I kind of feel like pub burgers fit into their own class. They don’t do anything crazy like load up with chili or extra patties. They aren’t huge, but they are definitely bigger than fast food. Essentially, they are made for good beer and good company, and by these standards, the Grizz Burger is just awesome.

After a fruitless attempt to grab lunch at Blimpy Burger, we had to think fast and find ourselves another quick place to eat in Ann Arbor. We decided that Pizza Bob’s would be a great option. Pizza Bob’s has been in Ann Arbor forever, but for some reason I never went while I was a student. Once inside, I decided I didn’t really need any pizza for lunch, but the calzone looked awesome. For $7.08 (wait, how much?), I ordered a calzone stuffed with pepperoni, sausage and meatballs. No need to order without veggies since I got to choose the toppings (innards?) myself. The guy at the counter asked if I wanted white or wheat dough, and I chose white.

We were told the wait would only be about 10 minutes, but 20 minutes later our meals finally arrived. My calzone didn’t exactly have the white tone that I was looking for and upon closer inspection, it became obvious that I had been given a wheat calzone. Too tired and hungry to complain, I just hoped that the insides hadn’t been ruined with vegetables. I cut the doughy sack of meat open and looked inside. All clear.

I found the dough was nice and fluffy and then ingredients inside all blended pretty well together. None of the ingredients tasted amazing, but they certainly didn’t taste bad either. My only real issue was that there seemed to be a bit too much dough. Around the corners, I was definitely taking bites that were just straight up bread. Like I said, the bread was pretty good (for wheat), but I like a calzone to be filled to the brim.

Oh well, I suppose that’s what I get for ordering a calzone at a place called Pizza Bob’s.

Every year, the University of Michigan alumni group of Los Angeles gathers together for the Taste of Ann Arbor. This year, it took place at a bar called South. To make the event work, they bring in foods all the way from Ann Arbor, Michigan, that people miss dearly. These include brownies from Zingerman’s, ice cream from Stucchi’s, pizza from Cottage Inn and special chapati dressing for salad from Pizza House. All of these are staples of the Michigan college student’s diet, but the biggest reason I go is for the Cottage Inn pizza. Opened in 1948, Cottage Inn takes credit for being the first place in Ann Arbor to serve pizza. That’s a pretty huge deal for a college campus and the fact that the restaurant has lasted so long is a testament to how good their pizza is.

At the event, I grabbed a couple slices of their pepperoni pizza and some bread sticks to join them. Cottage Inn pizza isn’t like your typical pizza. It comes in a rectangular shape, with slices cut into similarly proportioned rectangles. For the event, these slices were further divided into triangles so participants could get multiple varieties. Unfortunately, as the pizza had been frozen, shipped and reheated, the pizza wasn’t as good as it could have been. It was still really good and brought back great memories.

Plus, it was a whole lot cheaper than buying a ticket back to Michigan.

Perched on the corner of Detroit St. and 5th St. in the little town of Ann Arbor is the seat of an international empire. It is the Zingerman’s Delicatessen and the little nondescript building that houses it has spawned an entity known by lovers of good food and business everywhere.

When I went to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I knew of Zingerman’s, just like everyone did. I knew it was good, too, but I really never comprehended the magnitude of it until I left Michigan. Since then I have learned that they are nationally renowned for their mail-order service, business practices, overall quality of their food and more. So when I returned to Ann Arbor recently, I knew I had to revisit the wondrous little deli and reacquaint myself with its delectable foods.

Zingerman’s has scoured the globe to find some of the best foods in existence, but they don’t just try to convince you that something will taste good, they give you the chance to decide for yourself. Everything in the deli can be tasted and the people working there are all-too-eager to serve you some samples. On this trip, I tried multiple cheeses (awesome), pretzel bread (also awesome), bacon chocolate (not as bad as it sounds, but still not very good) and some aged balsamic (which was great despite the fact that the guy wouldn’t let us eat it with bread). After the exploring was finished, it was time to get some lunch.

The menu hangs over the deli, but I already knew what I wanted: #74, also

known as Dave’s Open Road. This delicious sandwich is filled with grilled Amish chicken breast, applewood-smoked bacon, Wisconsin muenster cheese and ranch, on grilled challah bread. The only down side is that it also comes with lettuce. I ordered it without and also made sure to ask for it without a pickle, then I headed outside to sit at a purple picnic table under a tent to wait.

Dave’s Open Road arrived just as I remembered and tasted just as perfect. All the components blended together in perfect harmony, yet were all distinct in their delicious flavors. Using Zingerman’s for mail-order purposes alone does not do justice to the original deli. The sandwiches, atmosphere and overall glory are something that everyone stepping foot in Michigan should behold. The prices are a bit steep, but well worth it for the experience, especially if you take your time to enjoy the samples.