My Town Shoot Out - Local Foods, Restaurants and Watering Holes

This Week's My Town Shoot Out is all about Local Food. Since America is a melting Pot, and really our native food could be considered fast food, AND since I covered plenty of fast food last week, I decided to go with the no franchise rule for this week (even though there are no rules). You can find listings of participants in the comments sections of Patty, and Reggie Girl's Blogs, as well as the side Bar on Gordon's blog. Let's start with Breakfast, shall we? The first stop on our partial culinary tour of West Dublin starts at Johnny's Donuts. Johnny's has been around for decades, and this is where The Dude used to go after middle school got out for the day. You can still find kids there after school as well as the early morning construction/contractor crowd, and many retirees.
Next up is my favorite breakfast place in Dublin. Zac's Cafe has a home cooked meal and good, old fashioned brewed coffee waiting every morning. They are usually quite crowded with long time Dublin families.Denica's is a bakery and pastry shop. I have never eaten here, but The Dude's step dad works nearby and has said the pastries are very good.Moving on to Lunch and Dinner, there is an abundance of restaurants, however most are franchises that you could find nearly anywhere else. Los Pericos is the taqueria near the boys' Tae Kwon Do studio, and the food there is fairly good, and really reasonably priced.For upscale Mexican cuisine, you need to try Casa Orozco. There are only two of these restaurants, both in the tri-valley area. It is family owned and operated by the Orozco family. When they first opened, Mom and Dad would come out of the kitchen on your birthday and sing to you, then pour you a tequila shot! It made for many happy birthdays! Way before I was vegetarian, I would eat the Chile Colorado, and as far as I know, it is still the best around! the Dublin location used to share a building with a Foster's Freeze, but in recent years took over the entire building and renovated beautifully!There is a host of Asian Food here as well, with two Asian specific markets. My favorite Chinese restaurant in the world was Great Szechuan in Livermore, and I would kill for their dry fried string beans. Alas, the family sold Great Szechuan, and I have not been able to find the same beans, nor recreate it on my own. They were spicy and salty, and had no meat! That having been said, I do like China Village. I've been going here since I was a child and first learned how to use chopsticks. I do not have a favorite Sushi place, as a vegetarian, I can find good veggie sushi almost anywhere, and we are so near the coast (though certainly a drive), that fresh sushi is not a problem. Amakara is new in town - this building was once a Sizzler, then a pasta place. It seems like a very popular restaurant, the parking lot was crowded at about 7:30 Thursday night.Athens Burgers hosts many after ball game dinners and end of season parties. As far as I can remember this spot has been a sports bar of some sort for decades. they used to have fine Greek dinning in the back, but now have changed to banquet facilities.Finally, we have McNamara's, the upscale Steak and Chop House. This is where people go for anniversary dinners and marriage proposals. It has an intimate atmosphere, and very good food.I hope you enjoyed the mini tour of West Dublin's unique eating establishments. I can personally vouch for most of these places, and if you want to know about any others, drop me a line and I'll give you the scoop!