Last year, journalists with the Lansing State Journal did some intensive reporting to create a bracket to narrow down and determine the best restaurant in the city.
Soup Spoon Café got the top prize.
This year, LSJ reporters tackled what the best dish you can order around the city is with a podcast.
WKAR's Sophia Saliby spoke with journalist Nate Atkins who was a part of the Greater Lansing Food Championship podcast.
Interview Highlights
On How They Selected The Dishes To Put In The Bracket
We started with a 32-restaurant bracket, and what we did [was] split it into four regions, those being Mexican, American, international, and pizza, so eight per region. And so within those, to come up with eight per each region, we just kind of went on Yelp. This is something Phil Friend, our digital sports reporter, did.
On The Toughest Matchup
The birria tacos in the Mexican region, that was one that we just knew that those two were going to go really far. And the way that we did this is because it's by region, you know, eventually those two have to match up before they're going to match up against anything else. So, we had Maria's which is a food truck over in Old Town, and we had Pancho's which is over on the Westside near the Lansing Mall.
On What He Learned About The Lansing Food Scene
When you go through the process of also understanding these restaurants, and you learn some of their backstories just how many of them are family-owned [or] how many of them you know are examples of the American dream. I know we had multiple in the international region like Naing Myanmar and Altu's Ethiopian restaurant, for example, of people who came over from those countries over here to Lansing to settle in and offer that food to this area that didn't have it before. And to see those kind of people make it through the pandemic and still be strong, that was a great story
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: This is All Things Considered on WKAR. I’m Sophia Saliby.
Last year, journalists with the Lansing State Journal did some intensive reporting creating a bracket to narrow down and determine the best restaurant in the city.
Soup Spoon Café got the top prize.
This year, LSJ reporters tackled what the best dish you can order around the city is with a podcast.
Joining me to break down the results is journalist Nate Atkins who was a part of the Greater Lansing Food Championship podcast. Thank you for joining me.
Nate Atkins: Thank you for having me, and thanks for taking interest in our little food adventure here. It was a lot of fun.
Saliby: You typically cover sports. Was it just as high stakes to determine what was the best among these dishes?
Atkins: Oh yeah. I don't mess around with food. So, I think I take it more seriously than sports sometimes. You know, especially when you work in sports, you end up getting, you know, whether you're traveling on the road in different cities or just kind of the way they cater some meals, it's a big part of the experience. So, I'm always very keenly aware of what we're eating.
Saliby: Can you tell me more on how your team selected the menu items to be a part of this bracket?
Atkins: Yeah, so we started with a 32-restaurant bracket, and what we did [was] split it into four regions, those being Mexican, American, international, and pizza, so eight per region. And so within those, to come up with eight per each region, we just kind of went on Yelp. This is something Phil Friend, our digital sports reporter, did.
He just went on Yelp and kind of just averaged out some different rankings as far as kind of most reviewed and best reviewed and took the top eight in each region. And there were a couple of adjustments, just things that fell through the cracks that we felt needed to be in there. For the most part, it was just kind of following what is most reviewed and best reviewed around Lansing.
Saliby: And what do you think was the toughest matchup?
Atkins: Well, what was interesting is when we started this, and we just have 32 in the very first round. I mean, most of the food is good, but of course, there's a couple that you quickly realize are not going to stack up. But quickly eating those, the birria tacos in the Mexican region, that was one that we just knew that those two were going to go really far.
And the way that we did this is because it's by region, you know, eventually those two have to match up before they're going to match up against anything else. So, we had Maria's which is a food truck over in Old Town, and we had Pancho's which is over on the Westside near the Lansing Mall.
We just kind of knew those two, eventually were going to clash, and wasn't sure how it was going to go. And so, it was always going to be inevitable when they would actually match up, and they finally did. And we ended up going with Pancho's, but it was a kind of a contested decision.
Saliby: We won't spoil the best dish that was announced in your last episode, but can you tell me about the matchups for the Final Four?
Atkins: Yeah, so we came down to a Final Four where we went with a pizza versus Mexican. So that was The Cosmos/Zoobie's "Trust Us" pizza against Pancho's Taqueria [which] ended up coming on top of the birria battle.
So that one was interesting, because because Cosmos, I mean, "Trust Us," they just come up with a new recipe each day. And so each time we did this, they had a new recipe that they would kind of put out there, but obviously it did well enough and consistently enough to make the Final Four.
And then the other matchup was from the American region was Good Truckin' Diner's Music City Hangover, against La Cocina Cubana's Ropa Vieja sandwich. So, that one [was] a little more of a traditional, you know, sandwich versus kind of a breakfast diner dish.
Saliby: Are there any thoughts about what you guys might tackle next year with this podcast? Are there talks to do another season?
Atkins: What's interesting is this one that we did was just for Lansing establishments. So, that was one thing people kept bringing up, "What about this place, you know, in Charlotte? What about this place in East Lansing?"
We just excluded all of that just to narrow it down to Lansing. So, I think there's a possibility that you could end up expanding it to include, you know, East Lansing and many of the outer areas and find a way to do that.
Saliby: And is there anything you learned about the Lansing food scene that you didn't know before you embarked on this journey?
Atkins: Yeah, well, I just think it's a lot stronger than maybe I had understood or giving it credit for. You know, I moved here in the fall of 2019, and obviously it's been an odd year and a half or so to try to get to know these places, but also an important time for these restaurants that many of which were struggling to make it through the pandemic.
Many of them found ways to have either limited capacity or just ways to do takeout orders. So, I just think they were much stronger especially in, for me, the international and the Mexican regions than maybe you might understand a place like Lansing to have. When you go through the process of also understanding these restaurants, and you learn some of their backstories just how many of them are family-owned [or] how many of them you know are examples of the American dream.
I know we had multiple in the international region like Naing Myanmar and Altu's Ethiopian restaurant, for example, of people who came over from those countries over here to Lansing to settle in and offer that food to this area that didn't have it before. And to see those kind of people make it through the pandemic and still be strong, that was a great story, and it was neat to even play a small role in supporting those places.
Saliby: Nate Atkins is a reporter for the Lansing State Journal who is a part of the Greater Lansing Food Championship podcast.
You can find it wherever you get your podcasts or on the LSJ's website. Thank you for joining me.
Atkins: Thank you for having me.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
