Ages ago, there used to be a couple books called "The Interstate Gourmet", which listed good, small restaurants off of various interstates in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic USA. If you were travelling, and wanted to get a good, cheap meal and HATED mickey D's, you could usually trust the books' recommendations. Alas, the author got tired or the publisher reluctant, and they stopped printing updates (necessary as more small family places get driven out of business by Subway, KFC, McD's and other corporate clone food).

We have a few ritual places that we stop at when travelling - not necessarily 5-star Michelin food, but good, home-cooked meals for reasonable prices:

All-American Family Restaurant in Pine Grove, PA (off I-81) - a good truck stop - look for the billboard ad

Blue Colony Diner in Newtown, CT (Exit 10, I-84) - a NOMAD tradition; good diner food and Greek specialties 'cause the owners are Greek - try the "Happy Waitress" sandwich, a grilled cheese with tomato and bacon. Yummy!

My Place Family Restaurant in Newtown, CT (Rt. 6 and Queen St.) - another NOMAD tradition is breakfast at My Place (yes, that's the actual name of the restaurant) - friendly staff, especially Louise, the owner, who welcomes us back every year even though we're a huge group of rowdy folkies who take over several tables and change seats. Group favorites seem to be the Daphne special (2 eggs over easy with fried tomatoes, bacon, homefries and toast) and the Eggs Benedict Flourentine (sic), which has poached eggs over spinach on an English muffin with Hollandaise sauce.

Angelo's Orchid Diner in downtown New Bedford - funky old diner with good, greasy linguica (Portuguese hot sausage) and egg breakfasts

Dudley's Diner, Main St., Belfast, Maine - again, a breakfast hangout

As you might gather, I'm partial to diners - the real thing, not those "retro" yuppie re-creations. The more stained linoleum and 50-year old waitresses, the better. Here in the DC area, our favorites are our neighborhood places in Silver Spring - again, not fancy or excellent food, but warm, friendly and reasonable:

Thai Derm - Bonifant St. in Silver Spring; not just the same old Thai menu, but lots of soups; family owned and run

Vicino's Italian Restaurant - Sligo St.- traditional family Italian place, slow service, lots of garlic, budget prices

El Gavilan - Flower Avenue - Takoma Park - one of the many Salvadorean/Mexican restaurants to spring up in the local Latino district; the Mexican standards are filling and good, but try some of the Salvadorean treats like pupusas (stuffed masa pancakes with pork or cheese filling, served with spicy pickled cabbage called curtido) or platanos fritos (fried plantains = starchy bananas, served with beans and sour cream as a starch side dish)

Allan C., dim sum is still served on Sundays at the Good Fortune Restaurant on University Blvd. in Wheaton, around the corner from the old Dynasty. The family that runs it used to run the Tung Bor, which tried to make it in Bethesda, but failed in the intense competition for the great Yuppie Dollar.

As you might guess, eating is one of my favorite activities (as is demonstrated by my svelte figure as seen in BillD's Getaway photos); I don't actually speak any foreign languages except for the names of good peasant foods in Italian, Spanish, Greek, Persian, Thai, Polish, Slovak, etc, etc, etc.