15 Dishes You Have to Try in San Jose.

This is a list of dishes, not restaurants. San Jose's food is shaped by two enormous immigrant communities — Vietnamese and Mexican — plus everything Silicon Valley's payroll has drawn in behind them, and the result is a city where the question worth asking is not "where should I eat" but "what should I eat, and then where is the best one".

Fifteen dishes, roughly in the order a newcomer should work through them.

The Vietnamese half

1. Pho

The baseline, and still worth taking seriously in a city with this much competition. Clear beef broth simmered with charred onion, ginger and warm spice, flat rice noodles, thin-sliced beef, herbs on the side. Eat it in the morning. → Best pho in San Jose

2. Bún bò Huế

The dish that most justifies San Jose's reputation. Lemongrass, fermented shrimp paste and chilli oil, thick round noodles, beef shank and pork hock. Spicier and funkier than pho, and made here by people from the region it comes from. → Best bún bò Huế in San Jose, or read what it actually is

3. Banh mi

Pork liver pâté, mayonnaise, pickled daikon and carrot, cucumber, coriander and chilli in a rice-flour baguette with a crust that shatters. Buy it from a bakery. → Best banh mi in San Jose, and what separates a great one

4. Cơm tấm

Broken rice — grains cracked during milling, cooked to a slightly sandy texture — under a grilled pork chop, with shredded pork skin and a steamed egg-and-pork cake. The standard Vietnamese lunch plate and badly underrepresented outside communities this size. → What cơm tấm is

5. Bún riêu

A tomato broth thickened with freshwater crab paste, topped with a soft raft of crab and egg, fried tofu and pork. Sour, savoury, and nothing like the other soups on this list. More on the whole family in the guide to Vietnamese noodle soups.

The Mexican half

6. Carne asada burrito

The dish San Jose argues about most. Flap steak grilled hot enough to char, chopped, wrapped with rice, beans, salsa and guacamole. The good ones live or die on the char and the salsa. → Best carne asada burrito in San Jose, and what makes a great one

7. Birria tacos

Beef stewed with dried chillies until it shreds, folded into a tortilla dipped in the stew's own red fat, griddled with cheese, served with consomé for dipping. → Best birria tacos in San Jose, and what quesabirria is

8. Breakfast burrito

Egg, potato, cheese and a meat, wrapped and griddled. A genuinely different dish from the lunch burrito, and worth judging on its own terms. → Best breakfast burrito in San Jose

9. Carnitas

Pork slow-cooked in its own fat until it shreds, then crisped at the edges. Order it as tacos with salsa verde. The comparison with asada is in carnitas vs. carne asada.

10. Al pastor

Pork marinated in chilli and achiote, stacked on a vertical spit and shaved off as it cooks — a technique Lebanese immigrants brought to Mexico. Look for a real trompo, not a pan.

Everything else

11. Tonkotsu ramen

Pork bones boiled hard for most of a day until the broth turns opaque and creamy, with thin firm noodles and chashu. → Best tonkotsu ramen in San Jose, and how to order it

12. Italian sandwich

San Jose has a deep Italian-American history, and the delis that came out of it are still here making cold-cut sandwiches on real rolls. → Best Italian sandwich in San Jose

13. Smashburger

A ball of beef pressed onto a hot griddle so the whole underside crusts. Thin, well done, and entirely about the browning. → Best smashburger in San Jose, and why it is smashed

14. Chicken wings

Worth listing separately because San Jose's Vietnamese kitchens do their own version — fish-sauce wings and salt-and-pepper wings sit alongside the buffalo standard. → Best chicken wings in San Jose

15. Detroit pizza

Rectangular, baked in a steel pan with cheese pushed to the edges so it caramelises into a crisp brown wall against the metal, sauce ladled on after baking. → Best Detroit pizza in the South Bay

How to use this list

Work through it one dish at a time rather than one restaurant at a time. That sounds like a small distinction and it is not: the best pho and the best banh mi in this city are rarely in the same building, and a restaurant with a great overall rating is often rated for reasons that have nothing to do with the thing you want to eat.

Every ranking above scores the dish itself, from evidence about that dish. If you would rather browse by type, start at noodle soups, burritos, sandwiches or burgers, browse every ranking in one place, or see what has been added most recently.