About a year ago, I set out to find and highlight five “hidden gem” restaurants in Washtenaw County (you can read part one here). Places that were beloved by locals, and that served deliciously satisfying food in a low-key, un-fussy way, but were often overlooked by media lists and food and travel websites.

Not that you could blame those food bloggers too much: given the lack-of-visibility of their respective locations (the back of a shopping center, strip malls, a commercial no man’s land off Lohr Circle), all five of these new hidden gems might as well be in the witness protection program. These are all places you have to know about or actively seek out to find; you’d never just stumble upon any of them.

But their passionate loyal fan bases are a testament to the notion that sometimes it’s not all about “location, location, location.”

Sometimes, it’s about “the food, the food, the food.” READ THE REST HERE