Over-the-Top Festive Eats: The Best Holiday Dishes on Top 5 Restaurants — Vote for Your Favorite
Going out to eat for the holidays may seem like an unusual custom, but when you see the list of Top 5 Restaurants, you'll wonder, "Why haven't we done this sooner?" If you have a hankering for a succulent suckling pig, a perfectly done prime rib or a traditional Italian Christmas Eve feast, look no further. On the special holiday episode, hosts Geoffrey Zakarian and Sunny Anderson revealed the best places to get a great holiday meal along with a festive atmosphere. Find out which places and dishes made the list.
If you like over-the-top tradition, then the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes is one you'll appreciate. At the Daily Catch in Boston, you'll find three dishes — the lobster fra diavolo, broiled haddock and the Monkfish Marsala — totaling eight different types of seafood. It's authentically Sicilian, and customers agree.
In Las Vegas you'll find plenty of buffets serving the gambling crowds, but Bacchanal inside Caesar's Palace is probably the only one where you'll find Cantonese-style roasted suckling pig. It's such a popular dish that the restaurant cooks at least 30 pigs during the holidays.
For a skirt steak with some Jewish flair, head to Sammy's Roumanian Restaurant on New York's Lower East Side. The steak is schmeared with ground garlic and served with mashed potatoes that have been flavored with greeven and schmaltz. The restaurant is also famous for its chicken, stuffed cabbage and chopped liver — all of which keeps families coming to the restaurant for a taste of tradition.
Tamales may not sound like holiday food, but in Mexico it's customary to enjoy tamales on Christmas. At La Choza in Santa Fe, N.M., co-owner Sarah Carswell honors the tradition with a pork tamale laboriously made by Chef Maricela Perez. For some extra holiday flair, it can be ordered with Christmas sauce, made up of both red and green chile sauces.
Just outside of Los Angeles you'll find Tam O'Shanter, an institution that's served the area's celebrities and regular folk for the past 92 years. Their prime rib roast is so popular that they sell 4,500 pounds of it every week. And it's served with Yorkshire pudding and creamed spinach. Families flock to the restaurant during the holidays to find an atmosphere befitting Christmas.
Browse through the photo gallery to see what Top 5 Restaurants features as the country's best holiday dishes. Then vote in the poll to tell us which dish is your favorite.[pollcaster widget="poll" id="MK4dlWrXQRjvYCpw1BcZiVyu3Ji" width="100%" height="auto"]