East Modesto, Modesto, CA

Start with breakfast on Yosemite Boulevard and East Modesto makes sense quickly. Huckleberry's at 2213 Yosemite cooks Louisiana-style, with fried green tomatoes and eggs, bananas foster French toast and a gumbo of andouille and okra. Panaderia La Michoacana, a little farther along, bakes Mexican pastries, and Modesto Cafe is where people go for boba and Thai tea. Behind the boulevard, the housing shows a long build-out. Older Craftsman and Spanish Revival houses give way to stucco ranches, with condos and some multi-family buildings mixed in, and each era tends to sit a few blocks from the next. Walk a few blocks off the boulevard and you can read the city's growth in the rooflines and porches, from steep older gables to low ranches. Parks are small and spread out. Lynndale, Granada, Creekwood and Riverside parks dot the neighborhood, and the Dry Creek Off Road Bike Trails give mountain bikers dirt to ride without leaving the city. Sciabica's, the olive oil and specialty food shop, sits just over the boundary. Groceries are simple, with Cost Less Food Company and Pacific Market both inside the neighborhood. Taquerias line the main road, among them Taqueria El Maguey, Viva Taqueria and El Rancheros Mexican Food, while Cariblue brings Caribbean cooking and Fat Wong's does Chinese food to go. For an evening out, Yosemite Bowl and the 300 Club Lounge are the local choices. Highway 99 is close for commuting up or down the valley. Downtown and Graceada Park are a short drive away. Nearly all of the commercial life stretches along that one road, and chain drive-thrus sit shoulder to shoulder with the local spots, so the strip looks busier than the streets behind it. If quiet matters, go a block or two in. A slow drive down the side streets is the best way to judge a block of East Modesto before you commit to it.