Ah, there are some good places in the midwest, too. But there's many more independent restaurants here, all doing different things. I don't know what a "real" restaurant is to you, but to me, the biggest city in the united states certainly has more than a few of them.

Compare this to where I grew up: the only places to eat closeby were mcdonalds, wendy's, and burger king type places. We didn't even have (and still don't have) a starbucks, and it was a ~big deal~ when chipotle and then a panera came in.

I do miss cheap gas station slushies, though. They're hard to find here in NYC.