I do not think I can pick a favorite, mostly I cook at home so just make what I want. But my most usual restaurant orders:

Burrito Jaliscience from Crazy Burrito. BBQ pork (asado, not like with BBQ sauce), refried beans, rice, grilled onions and their absolutely addictive so very hot hot sauce.

Pho from Pho Quyen. The one with thin sliced raw beef that the broth cooks.

Sag/Palak paneer and garbanzos masala from Rasoi Indian. And the curried okra.

And the best restaurant meal we ever had, ever, was at a Peruvian restaurant in Sarasota that is gone now. It was like 10 years ago and we still talk about it. Even the salad dressing was exquisite, every part of the meal so good. Seared tuna & a chicken dish with yellow sauce. Tableside bananas foster. Better than it sounds because every part of it was incredibly delicious.

Favourite is a tough ask.

I love southern US style BBQ, and if they do a good ‘Jacob’s ladder’ beef rib I’ll be there on the regular.

I also love a good curry, but it has to be either authentic Indian, or authentic BIR. If it’s the former then I love a Dosakaya Pappu, an authentic Goan Pork Vindaloo, or a Mutton Paya. If it’s the latter then I love a good Lamb Madras or Chicken Jalfrezi.

I love good Mexican food, there was. a place I used to go to in London that did an amazing fish enchilada, but they’ve taken it off their menu and it’s the only thing I ever ordered it was so good.

But, for favourite it has to be a good steak house. And in an ideal world, I’ll have the ribeye, cooked as the chef suggests (which usually means a medium rare for a ribeye) with a bonemarrow butter sauce, thick cut chips, and maybe a couple of portabello mushrooms.

Most any restaurant is fine by me, but there’s an absolutely fantastic small chain Indian restaurant near me that does absolutely divine curry, but I tend to get chicken vindaloo if I remember correctly.

Also a fantastic local German restaurant nearby that does amazing everything from sides like their freshly made sauerkraut to fantastic spätzle, so you know I gotta get both of those.

Edit:

1. I think it may have been lamb vindaloo. Been a while since I was last there.
2. There used to be a local Chinese restaurant that I absolutely LOVED. It was most likely authentic considering you’d see Chinese families ordering family style and doing the whole lazy susan thing. I’ve never seen a nin-authentic Chinese restaurant do that.

Chinese buffet. To-go box loaded with all the meats, rice cooker at home.

Vietnamese - BBH (bun bo hue) which is a spicy beef noodle soup. Clay pot catfish, if they have it.

Chinese - Whole steamed fish, if they have it. Favorite veg dish is eggplant and green beans stir fry.

Indian - I gotta get the vindaloo!

Mexican - If it’s a food truck, al pastor and lengua tacos. Enchilada rice plate at a sit-down restaurant.

Italian - Probably the puttanesca or aglio e olio. Anything with Calabrian chilis is automatically tempting.

Dick’s [burgers]. A “bag of dick’s” [burgers] is the appropriate measure.

Indian—Chicken Vindaloo and Samosas and butter naan. I’ll be honest though, I’ve never had anything I didn’t like at an Indian restaurant, and when you ask for extra hot, they don’t give you a pussified “white people” extra hot, no, they try to murder you with spice like you were personally responsible for English colonialism and I’m here for it.

Thai—Chicken Panang is pretty good most places I go that have it. I’ve had plenty of Thai food I don’t like, but most places have something pretty good if you try a few different things.

I don’t think I have mainstays at other types of restaurants. I will say, for all the shit it gets, avocado toast is pretty good if you’re at an indie restaurant or local chain breakfast place. And try their specialty Bloody Marys. They are sometimes shit, but sometimes good, and if it’s shit their regular Bloody Mary was also shit so you didn’t miss out on anything. But if they have a dozen different kinds—they are all shit and just have a mimosa.

The deli inside one of the Asian grocery stores we shop at. $12 for 3 huge portions of mains and another huge portion of noodles as the side. Basically a meal for 2 people for the price of one.

All you can eat sushi. It doesn’t need to be great, just all I can eat.

Fast food borgor.

Specifically an In-n-Out Double Double.

Although, I would really like Carl’s Jr. to bring back the ORIGINAL Bourbon street steakhouse burger. Burger with the crispy onion things (not onion rings but the shit you add to greenbean casserole), blue cheese crumbles, and a bourbon sauce made from Jack Daniels.

The Jim Beam one sucked by comparison.

Mexican, about any kind. Sometimes I want the real deal at the taco truck, sometimes I want white-people Mexican, sometimes I want Taco Bell. Favorite sit-down place is mostly Mexican with a bit of white-people Mexican mixed in. Only place in the metro area that has truly hot salsa, homemade.

I go for US southern BBQ, particularly a brisket sandwich and sausage with cornbread, mac & cheese, and some collard greens or slaw.

Vietnamese. Tom Yum Soup.

Local rural Mexican restaurant. Nothing special. There’s hundreds of similar places near me. But I know the staff at this place. I can order an amazing burrito and a good, generic margarita. It’s my comfort food.

it’s a family-run chinese place, and idk what my go-to order is, I can’t pronounce it. I get it because I walked in and a no-nonsense old chinese lady started chattering at me in mandarin and I panicked and pointed and what they brought me was really good so I keep getting it.

there’s like 30 other things on the menu that I also can’t pronounce, so maybe one day I’ll have tried them all.