Have you guys heard of Taste Buds? It’s a new travel show on YouTube hosted by two best friends, Krissy and Jessica. In each short episode, they reveal favorite local businesses and hidden gems in different cities across the country.

So far, the girls have visited San Francisco and Los Angeles with help from their friends at Ford. Their latest episode, which I’m excited to share with you today, takes them to Portland, Oregon. Have you been there? I haven’t, but I’m actually planning a trip this October that I’ll talk more about in a future post…

Taste Buds got me thinking about all of the hidden gems waiting to be discovered near our new place in Washington, DC — as well as our old favorites back in Omaha. Believe it or not, one of the things I miss the most about Omaha is the food (after our friends, our child-proofed house, and our fenced-in backyard, of course).

Seriously, Omaha has an abundance of really excellent restaurants. It even has a few James Beard semifinalists. And just last month, a dining critic from the Wall Street Journal included Omaha in his roundup of small cities for food lovers:

In a city like Omaha, a handful of very good restaurants have some of the best beef in the world available to them, and the fruits of thousands of miles of surrounding farms. (In Nebraska, ranches and farms account for 92% of the land, as compared with 23% in New York state.)

The writer, Josh Ozersky, also shared a couple of his restaurant recommendations, and I was happy to note that several of his picks were our favorites, too. Jordan and I used to love Avoli Osteria and The Grey Plume for special occasions and Dario’s and Twisted Cork for more casual fare.

Although they weren’t mentioned in the article, we also had a couple of favorite restaurants for brunch with friends. We did brunch a lot, especially once we all started having babies and late night dinners were no longer feasible. Lot 2 in Benson was a newer choice (it was one of the first places we ever tried French press coffee!), but our go-to brunch restaurant in Omaha was Dixie Quicks.

Technically, Dixie Quicks is in Council Bluffs, but when we first started going, it was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant/art gallery in downtown Omaha. Luckily, it didn’t lose any of its eclectic charm when it relocated across the river to Iowa. Now it’s just a bigger restaurant/art gallery still serving up Southern comfort food with a Tex-Mex twist (the menu is written on a chalkboard in the middle of the dining room).

I took these photos in August 2014, the last time we went to Dixie Quicks for brunch. I got the French Toast with Mixed Berries (although I had a hard time choosing between the Dixie Scramble and Eggs Benedict), and Jordan ordered some spicy looking concoction with cheese and tortilla chips that was probably one of the daily specials. When there’s a choice, I usually go with sweet, not savory for brunch

We’d often take out-of-town visitors to Dixie Quicks for breakfast and The Drover for a Whiskey Steak dinner. And if we had room left for dessert, eCreamery was always a winner.

Oh, who am I kidding? There was always room for ice cream.

Where do you take visiting friends and family to eat in your hometown? I’ll make a note of your local faves just in case I’m ever in your neighborhood!

Thanks to Ford for sponsoring today’s conversation! As always, all opinions are my own.