Photo: Little Outdoor Giants
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Delaware
The ice cream at
Woodside Farm Creamery in Hockessin comes in 25-plus divine flavors, like pink Peppermint Chip; Motor Oil, coffee with swirls of caramel and fudge and Dirt, a chocolate base with gummy worms in crushed Oreo "soil." The 221-year-old farm's Jersey cows produce milk high in butterfat, and Woodside's ice cream maestros whip minimal air into the mix. The result: a singularly rich treat.
Florida
It may look like a mere fruit stand, but
Robert Is Here—a weirdly monikered, open-air produce mart in Homestead—is more than the sum of its Key limes and avocados. On warm days, devotees line up for thick-as-wet-concrete smoothies and shakes made from strawberries, mangoes or exotic fruits like guanabana, mammee sapota and black sapote (which tastes like chocolate pudding).... When in Miami, try a pastelito, a Cuban pastry often stuffed with guava puree and cream cheese, at
Versailles, preferably while sipping a café con leche.... Use your hush puppies to sop up the tomato-y shrimp and sausage pilau at
The Floridian in St. Augustine. The rice-based stew is rich but not heavy, and equal parts shrimpy, herbaceous, spicy and sweet.
Georgia
Slather raspberry preserves or sausage-thyme gravy onto the extra-flaky, big-time-buttery biscuits at casual breakfast darling
Mama's Boy in Athens. Or head to the college town's quirky
White Tiger Gourmet, housed in a 112-year-old space with colorful mismatched tables and chairs; its smoky Tofu Q sandwich, which features barbecue sauce, coleslaw and a toasted kaiser roll, is a worthy alternative to the fan-favorite pork version.
Hawaii
You're likely to encounter a line at either of Honolulu's two
Waiola Shave Ice locations, where the treat, ultrafine like powdery snow, packs so much flavor. And oh, the flavors! Opt for li hing mui (salty sour plum) or POG (passion orange guava), and ask for syrupy condensed milk on top.... Chewy, gluey and altogether wonderful, Japanese mochi is sticky rice pounded into a paste and wrapped around a sweet filling. Call ahead to order the glutinous orbs from the tiny, screen-doored
Two Ladies Kitchen in Hilo, where owner Nora Uchida sells a rainbow of flavors. Strawberry (stuffed with a whole berry and mashed sweet adzuki beans) is a must—if it's not sold out.
Idaho
Dish, perched on the shore of Lake Pend Oreille in Sandpoint, is a shorts-and-sandals waterside grill, but the food is serious business, says Michael Stern, coauthor of
Road Food: An Eater's Guide. The café takes full advantage of seasonal produce in specialties like the earthy vegetarian Eat Mo' burger (meat eaters, don't pass this by—you can always top it with spiced bacon) and the huckleberry margarita, made with local fruit, which Stern calls "wine deep and just this side of sweet."
