👋 Did this email get forwarded to you? Sign up here to get the Fresnoland Food newsletter each Friday.
OK fine, I’ll cop to it: This subject line is a lie. Specifically, the question mark is a lie.
“The tri-tip sandwich at Dog House Grill is overrated.”
There, that’s the honest, non-coward’s version of this subject line. It’s an old-timey journalism dodge to couch a firmly held belief in the guise of “just asking questions.”
Here at FAT City, we ask questions and give answers. I’m just trying to ease people into the format.
This week: tri-tip sandwiches. The tri-tip sandwich is certainly one of the candidates for “must-try Fresno food,” and so I scoured every Yelp ranking, Reddit thread, Fresno Bee reader’s poll, and random tip in the hopes of trying every tri-tip sandwich anyone ever claimed was good. And then I applied perspective and editorial authority, for a list of our own.
I won’t say that there’s never a place for a reader’s poll, but in my experience they’re much better at telling you what people have heard of than they are at telling you what’s good.
In the end we ended up with a ranking of 14 different places in Fresno, Clovis, and Madera. Hopefully it’s a pretty comprehensive list, but if I missed something I’d love to hear about it.
One of my takeaways from this process was that a lot of people in Fresno make a pretty mean tri-tip sandwich. I’m not just being charitable when I say that the top six or seven on this list were absolute heaters.
The other takeaway was that the one place that I saw on every tri-tip list, and seemingly half of the must-try-Fresno-places lists — Dog House Grill — was decidedly underwhelming. Granted it was my first time eating the tri-tip sandwich there, but it was my first time at almost all of these places, and almost all of them impressed me more.
If you love it, please don’t hate me for saying so. Some favorite foods are more nostalgic, loves born more of habit than from having your mind blown the first time around, and that’s fine. I love a lot of things that no one would call
“the best” in their class. For me though, it was mid, and even if you disagree, hopefully you read on and learn about another place you didn’t know about before.
Anyway, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from almost 20 years of writing on the internet, it’s that people love a list, and that people love fighting about lists, and that people probably love lists because it gives them something to fight about. It’s human nature. And if you want to have any authority, you might as well lean into the dumb fun of list making, rather than running away from it. That means you’re probably going to get yelled at sometimes, but so be it.
So, as Colin Quinn used to say, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Maybe next time I’ll even be bold enough to announce my latest hot take declaratively, without resorting to The Coward’s Question Mark.
— Vince Mancini, Contributing Editor, Food
This week’s local food news
Fresnoland events first! Come to Ballots and Brews tonight (Friday) at Summer Fox. Talk about politics with the Fresnoland staff, have a drink, things of this nature. Can we talk about how California consistently produces basically zero inspiring statewide candidates? It’s almost impressive. [BallotsandBrews]
And don’t think I’m not going to plug the Fresnoland Food Taco Crawl again. Join Taco Truck Throwdown’s Mike Oz and I as we take you on a tour of some of our favorite taco trucks. Eat tacos. Support Fresnoland. Be free. Hell, it’s tax deductible. You’d be a fool NOT to. [Give Butter]
Fresno Street Eats is coming to Sweet Thistle Farms. This Saturday! It’s the last day for pumpkin patching, might as well have some food trucks while you’re there. [Fresno Street Eats]
The authorities are on the hunt for the Dutch Bros Coffee Thrower. Don’t abuse service workers, people, this shouldn’t be hard. Typical Dutch Bros behavior. [ABC30]
7Brew Coffee is coming to Clovis. I’ve never been to one of these, but I assume it’s some form of Dutch Bros-adjacent sugar swill. Oh God, I’m turning into the Denis Leary “coffee-flavored coffee” bit, aren’t I. It is my firm belief that every millennial knows this bit by heart (along with the Fresh Prince theme song). [Fresno Bee]
Would you believe we’re also getting a new Chipotle and Dollar Tree? They’re taking over an old Applebee’s location on north Cedar and the Dollar Tree is coming to Tulare. Blessings truly abound. [TBJ]
Wait, ANOTHER Chipotle?! That’s right, friends. Your burrito dreams are finally coming true. This is one coming to Maple and Behymer, along with a 7-11, a Haraz Coffee, and a Tesla charging station. [Fresno Bee]
A new app hopes to connect you to your favorite food truck. Sure, why not. I like food truck. [Fresno Bee]
Holy hell, the Bee has written yet another story about Sweet Tomatoes. A Fresno couple drove to Arizona to go to one, and can you believe it was just “OK?” For the love of God, let it go. [Fresno Bee]
Millennial cringe seems to be the specific thing the youngs have chosen to bag on us for (I say “us” as an “elder millennial” who prefers to be called Gen Y for reasons too long to get into here), and so far, I have to say, deadly accurate.
— Vince Mancini, Contributing Editor, Food
Support independent food journalism
We’re not influencers, we’re journalists. Support local food journalism that lifts up our city, our culture, and the Central Valley.
