Every MLS city is defined by its food. Why, you ask? Because everything is defined by food. So what if we took the top Yelp-rated restaurants in every MLS city, mashed them together and related it back to the hometown club? What you end up with is the best, most objective measure of a team’s identity known to man.

I mean, you don’t really get that at all. But you kind of do. Just follow me.

This highly scientific ranking, cooked up (FUN WITH PUNS) by some of the nation’s top think tanks, are based on how well (or poorly) each institution is reflected by the city’s best restaurants. And how good the food looks. And if none of that fits it’s not really based on anything. Food. Soccer.

TO THE RANKINGS.

20. Colorado Rapids (Commerce City, Colorado)

Top joints: 1. The Butcher Block Cafe, 2. El Jardin, 3. The Bison Grill

Ah, the ‘burbs. Where large corporations stash factories on cheap land to prop up their absurdly overstuffed bottom lines. Commerce City has an oil refinery. Its No. 1 restaurant is also a greasy spoon, which perfectly encapsulates the Rapids. A subdued atmosphere and product with a couple good, young cooks being hampered by management’s reluctance to embrace change and pour money into the restaurant. They’ll leave eventually because the kitchen isn’t ventilated and the owner stops by every now and then to administer his Tuesday face slaps with his rhinestone-studded white glove. But ENJOY ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE HERE, CIUDAD DE COMMERCE. Can… I perhaps get my Sloppy Joe to go? Thanks. It smells like rat farts in here.

19. Real Salt Lake (Sandy, Utah)

Top joints: 1. Los Garcia, 2. Thai Mango, 3. Royal India

Real Salt Lake, which borrowed its name from Spanish tradition, shares a city with top-rated Mexican, Thai and Indian restaurants. Sandy’s demographics, per Wikipedia: 93.5 percent white. If I’m reading this right, the entire Salt Lake City suburb is run by the other 6.5 percent. And I think I’m reading this right. Sandy makes no sense and it seems like the greatest place on earth. Sandy’s slogan: “‘Merica, Where We Have Diversity Even Where We Don’t Have Diversity. Also, CHECK OUT OUR NEW MONGOLIAN-KHAZAK FUSION RESTAURANT GENGHIS BORAT’S.”

18. New England Revolution (Foxborough, Massachusetts)

Top joints: 1. Tavolino, 2. Chickie Flynn’s, 3. Davio’s

With a team like the Revs, you’d hope to see some restaurant like REVERE’S MIDNIGHT COLON RIDE or VALLEY FORGE OF THE GODS. As it is, we get three tepidly reviewed 3 1/2 star restaurants, two of which are freaking Italian. Is this the cradle of American democracy or MUSSOLINI’S PLAYGROUND? You can get fries, wings and beer from Chickie Flynn’s, but is it enough to mitigate the sadness? I don’t know. I don’t know, man.

17. San Jose Earthquakes (San Jose, California)

Top joints: 1. Back A Yard, 2. The Table, 3. Claw Shack

San Jose is San Francisco’s buttoned-up cousin. Were you scarred by that uncomfortably skinny, mostly naked guy on Haight playing off-beat hand drums on what looked to be the skulls (and there were so many skulls) of indeterminate animals? Well COME ON DOWN TO SAN JOSE, where you can scope out some buildings and tie your shoes if they become untied and walk in several different directions. The food reflects that burbling excitement. San Jose’s top three restaurants are named after a plot of land behind a house, a thing you eat food on and then the literal name of the place you’re walking into. This is a shack with claws in it. These places are probably fine, but WHAT IS SAN JOSE CUISINE? I’ve got it: it’s food. Goonies reference.

16. FC Dallas (Frisco, Texas)

Top joints: 1. Mash’d, 2. Hutchins BBQ, 3. Platia Greek Kouzina

Featured available moonshine at Mash’d, just miles from whatever brand recently attached itself to FCD’s stadium (MASH’D STADIUM ‘TIS): Pineapple Bomb, Fitch’s Goat, Russian Hillbilly and five different varieties of something called “Ole Smoky.” So if you wanted to get MASH’D on some “Berry Good Lemonade” before floating over to Hutchins for some brisket and then stopping off at a Target, Frisco’s most happnin’ boutique store, for some designer shopping, the doctor is in. FCD: hillbilly moonshine, BBQ and random Greek food in a strip mall. THIS. IS. FRISCO. *kicks random passerby in the chest*

15. Vancouver Whitecaps (Vancouver, Canada)

Top joints: 1. The Flying Pig, 2. Tuc Craft Kitchen, 3. Fable

Vancouver has one of the largest populations of Chinese in the Western world. Seventeen percent of the entire city is ethnically Chinese. It owns one of the largest Chinatowns in North America. It has some of the best dumpling places anywhere outside China. AND NONE OF THEM ARE HERE YOU DEVIANT CANADIANS. Oh yes, The Flying Pig is nice. You can dine on Lobster Risotto, and you can get pork belly at Tuc Craft and Fable will probably feed you a video game cartridge made out of fois gras if you ask for it. But we need dumplings, man. Or some Korean BBQ. Maybe some Indian curry. Some painfully authentic sushi? I can get pork in Commerce City, Vancouver. Give. Me. Dumplings.

14. Houston Dynamo (Houston, Texas)

Top joints: 1. Kitchen 713, 2. Local Foods, 3. Luna Y Sol Mexican Grill

It’s a bit disappointing the Dynamo are located in the actual city and not some soulless suburb, because Houston has Real People Food. Kitchen 713 is a serious southern soul food institution, with well-reviewed shrimp & grits, jerk chicken and boudin. Local Foods, meanwhile, has something called a Truffled Egg Salad, which actually makes me want to try an egg salad, a feat on par with Hannibal’s crossing of the alps with a pack of elephants. Luna Y Sol is Tex Mex, so if you don’t like smothered enchiladas and refried beans, I guess you can emulate Custer’s Last Stand here. Again, disappointed in you, Houston. May I suggest a move to The Woodlands? Or perhaps Huntsville?

13. NYCFC (Bronx, NYC)

Top joints: 1. Trattoria Zero Otto Nove, 2. Taqueria Tlaxcalli, 3. Antonios Trattoria

Two trattorias? ALL OF THE TRATTORIAS. The Bronx is more of a bareknuckle borough than Brooklyn or Manhattan these days, so to not see a greasy stop-in pizza joint in the top three is more than mildly disappointing. Would it have rated higher had the Cuban place at No. 4 cracked the top three? Yes. Yes. Further, none of these restaurants has more than two $$. How do you expect your City overlords to enjoy New York when they have to eat lengua tacos and Capreicciosa with the rest of us plebs? 3/10, would eat again but with more shaved white truffle and edible gold leaf.

12. Sporting Kansas City (Kansas City, Kansas)

Top joints: 1. El Pollo Rey, 2. Bonito Michoacan, 3. Joe’s BBQ

BBQ and Mexican food. Alright alright alright. I need to point out here that the Joe’s location prominently listed on Yelp is embedded in a gas station. Delectable meat served amidst gas station bathrooms and Funyons. This is the Sporting KC experience.

11. Philadelphia Union (Chester, Pennsylvania)

Top joints: 1. Give Me Suga, 2. Sungate Diner, 3. Furillo’s Sandwich Shop

Chester is one of the few suburbs that allows you to eat a cheesesteak, lose your hard-earned money at the ponies and then watch the Union lose. You can’t watch the Union lose just anywhere these days. The diner and the sandwiches, yes. Thank you Philadelphia suburb. This, along with the graffiti-tagged, crumbling buildings on Avenue of the States, is why you come to Chester. But heaping slabs of Caribbean food in Styrofoam containers in Delaware County? Soul food in a soulless building? This is now why you come to Chester. Approved by nine out of 10 goalkeepers. The one outlier was traded for a different keeper.

10. Chicago Fire (Bridgeview, Illinois)

Top joints: 1. Al Bawadi Grill, 2. Thai Twin, 3. Duke’s Drive-In

MLS 1.0 teams are almost all gloriously arrayed in suburbs, which makes for some random culinary experiences. That leads you to Bridgeview, where an Italian beef place is interspersed with a supposedly bomb Arabian place and a Thai joint that serves hearty helpings of Pad See Ew. But, you know, you’re in Bridgeview, and Chicago’s lights twinkle off in the middle distance with the promise of Bigger & Better. There’s a Brian McBride joke in here somewhere.

9. Toronto FC (Toronto, Canada)

Top joints: 1. Under The Table, 2. Kaiju, 3. The Harbord Room

Toronto is so big that almost by definition it can’t have a single adhering culinary identity. Thankfully none of its top three restaurants spends a lot on pricey ingredients only to watch them wither and die before they get to the impatient 2-top that’s been waiting on its dinner for nine years. Luckily, one of these restaurants is billed as “Canadian,” which apparently means Ricotta doughnuts, burgers and something called “sea bream” at The Harbord Room. Canada is weird.

8. Orlando City (Orlando, Florida)

Top joints: 1. Kappo at East End Market, 2. The Rusty Spoon, 3. The Meatball Shoppe

Orlando is one of the weirdest places on Earth, a virtual Disney-created moonscape of sprawl, permanently steamy undercarriages and shapeless food culture. This is why it’s rated No. 8. Who knows what Orlando City’s deal is? Teenage U.S. youth national team players on a team with one of the four Balon D’Or winners still active in the game mixed with a keeper whose name sounds like “Tally HO!”? THIS TEAM MAKES NO DAMN SENSE. So it fits that we have meatballs and a ridiculously highly rated sushi place in the top three sandwiched around an American gastropub. I get extra points for pissing off every adult Orlando native with the Disney reference.

7. Montreal Impact (Montreal, Canada)

Top joints: 1. Bouillon Bilk, 2. Au Pied de Cochon, 3. Rotisserie Romados

Oh Montreal. You’re too good for us. As the only MLS city to land three $$$ restaurants inside the top three (including New York!), it’s clear your haughty opinion of yourself has infiltrated every ounce of your psyche. What with your Hitler Youth haircuts and your Frenchtalk and your haughty hyphenated last names and your damned delicious foie gras. For the love of all things holy, your No. 3 restaurant is a PORTUGUESE BBQ/BAKERY. WHAT IS THAT AND WHY DOES IT SOUND SO DELICIOUS. I once watched Anthony Bourdain eat the weight of a whale in French/Canadian food at Au Pied de Cochon and my life was never the same. We’re all simply urchins pressing our noses on your perfectly dimpled glass, Montreal. I hate you because I love you.

6. New York Red Bulls (Harrison, New Jersey)

Top joints: 1. The Greenroom, 2. Enzo’s Deli, 3. La Fiamma

A deli named Enzo’s and an Italian restaurant. How original, New Jersey. Next you’re going to tell me the No. 1 restaurant in Harrison is primarily so highly rated because of stiff drinks and its reputation as a divey hangout for Red Bulls fans. WAIT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. Positively rated dishes at the Greenroom: chicken fingers, wings, buffalo chicken quesadilla. This is so perfect I shed tears. Pant suits and Trans-Ams. I see pant suits and Trans-Ams. I had to refresh the restaurant search four times to make sure this was in the right category. But really, this is the literal embodiment of the Red Bulls’ embattled stay in the urban tangle of northeast Jersey. You can get drunk there and then leave.

5. Portland Timbers (Portland, Oregon)

Top joints: 1. Screen Door, 2. The Observatory, 3. Carte Blanche

A southern/cajun/creole restaurant, a “new American lounge” place that serves a ‘Lavender Gin Lemon Drop’ and an Asian fusion food truck. WE HIT THE PORTLAND TRIPLE CROWN. Portland cuisine is a hearty mish-mash of everything distilled into a hipstery blend of farm-to-table burlap and horn-rimmed nonchalance. You can get praline bacon at Screen Door, The Observatory throws “fry bread” at you and Carte Blanche offers something called a coconut-cashew-kaffir lime shrimp bowl. Which sounds delicious. It also sounds like a night out at a machine sounds recital by your activist acquaintance “Delphirius” whose mouth noises are meant to skewer modern convenience. Or something. You’re just there for the free hipster food.

4. D.C. United (Washington, D.C.)

Top joints: 1. Founding Farmers, 2. Old Ebbitt Grill, 3. The Pig

There is no town that’s less an embodiment of the physical home of its MLS team than D.C., which is hilarious and deserves all of the ranking points. There’s so much money in the nation’s capital, and United plays in a foxhole of crumbling concrete burrowed out by the cosmic embodiment of a bad decision. Concrete literally fell off the building and into the press box during a soccer match last fall. And yet in our cuisine, we have lovingly crafted fried green tomatoes (Founding Farmers), an exquisite rendition of Eggs Benedict featuring local crab cakes (Old Ebbitt Grill) and an literal embarrassment of pork riches (The Pig). Just down the road you can get a concussion and rabies at a soccer match. Never leave RFK, United. Never.

3. Columbus Crew (Columbus, Ohio)

Top joints: 1. Hot Chicken Takeover, 2. Harvest Kitchen + Bar, 3. Wolf’s Ridge Brewing

Sometimes, man, things just come together. And they really come together here. The Crew are the MLS embodiment of Middle America. MAIN STREET AMERICA. They still sign (and play) four-year college players, more than any team in the league. Their Homegrowns are literally made of corn. Their DPs? Modest. Federico Higuain probably rents a room from an adorable elderly couple that shares tea with him on Wednesdays. So that Columbus has THREE AMERICAN PLACES in its top three is so many times yes. A fried chicken place (!), a burger/pizza joint (!!) and a local brewery (!!!). No. 4 isn’t listed, but it’s a BBQ place (!!!!). Columbus is the most dos-a-cero place on Earth.

2. LA Galaxy (Carson, California)

Top joints: 1. Evan Angelo’s Gelateria and Coffee Bar, 2. Poke Etc, 3. Rosario’s

It MEANS SOMETHING that the top-rated restaurant in all of Carson is a gelato place (which shares a plaza with a dentist’s office) that serves Brazilian iced coffee (JUNINHO IS COLD AS ICE BOOMING VOLUMINOUS FARTS), Ferrero Rocher-flavored gelato and Girl Scout Cookies. Poke Etc, meanwhile, is a real name of a real place. The Galaxy are a dainty boutique team with international influences, but it’s a bunch of softies at heart. Except Bruce Arena. He’s the plain crepe stuffed with Nutella and mashed coffee grounds. Oh, they serve it. You just have to scream a little.

1. Seattle Sounders (Seattle, Washington)

Top joints: 1. Radiator Whiskey, 2. Paseo, 3. Pike Place Chowder

Atticus slowly rolls the tapered end of his mustache between a thumb and forefinger adorned with knuckle tattoos of Betty White doing ironic yoga. He swills a gulp of his small batch Fremont whiskey before tucking into a succulent Cuban sandwich from Paseo. “I don’t know man, Twin Peaks seems to embody all those things, but you can’t have Karl Marx without Caesar Augustus.” His companions nod demurely, each thinking of his own troubles, his own past, his own backyard chicken coop. The sounds of Cloud City, of the market echo outside. Atticus pauses to wipe away a stray strand of pork from his billowing beard. “Life is just life,” he says, the words passing into immortal memory.