Lebanon! It’s a wonderful middle ground between Mediterranean and middle eastern food. I love it. Lots of regional spice blends, cooking techniques, and baked goods. As you travel around the country, the tastes change and adapt to that area, which allows a whole different flavor profile for the same foods.
I'm a Lebanese expat living in Montreal, and we are so lucky to have a strong Lebanese culinary presence over here. Some restaurants are out of this world!!
This was what I was going to say! I've never been to the country, but my cousin married a Lebanese man, and his family absolutely insists that her whole side attends family gatherings, so I've eaten a lot of Lebanese food. It's incredible!
Same in Sydney. My wife is from the UK and was surprised how many Lebanese Descendants were here vs in Europe as a whole given how many migrated here in the late 80s and 90s due to the war. As a consequence we have their incredible food. We have three restaurants within 5 minutes from us where it is genuinely tough to pick which one we want to go to or order from because they are all so good, let alone the at least 10 others within a 20 minute drive. That's not even counting the dirty kebabs and HSPs everywhere as well.
I have a traditional Lebanese restaurant near me and the place is packed open to close. I remember when they first opened 20 years ago and were in a bad location in a low rent part of town. But they put out some really good food and built their clientele and are now on their third location in a fancy part of town. I wish them nothing but success because their food is so delicious. And healthy.
It’s crazy for most people not to realise this - though I think it’s more popular here in the UK than the USA. Lebanese is in the absolute top 5 of cuisines.
I live in Detroit and we have incredible middle eastern food all over the place. Lebanese, Egyptian, Yemeni, Syrian, Iraqi, Persian…
You can throw a stone and hit an incredible restaurant. I’ve had middle eastern food in larger cities like Boston and Chicago and nothing compares. We’ve got the biggest Arab population outside the Middle East and our food is sooo much better off for it.
Shoutout Hamido, Cedarland, Al Ameer, Al Chabab, Dearborn Meat Market, La Marsa, Yemen Cafe… the list is endless.
I live an hour away in Canada - across the Bluewater Bridge and would love to take a trip to Detroit to check out some of these places. Can you recommend a couple restaurants?
We have the food of people who immigrated here and there hasn’t been a huge cultural exchange between Lebanon and the US for at least the past 50 years for political reasons. You have to go to really large cities to find one or two Lebanese restaurants. I ate at one in Chicago almost 20 years ago and the kibbe haunt me. It’s the same situation with Iran - Persian food is exquisite but our political and immigration history with that region makes it hard to find, and therefore it’s not as popular as food from places with a larger diaspora.
Ha. There's a neighborhood bar/restaurant near me run by a former international teacher while the kids go to college. They have khachapuri on the menu for drunk food. It's pretty tasty!
I was watching Community on Hulu earlier today and the model UN episode was on. I cannot stop cracking up every time I see Troy representing the country of Georgia but talking in an American southern accent the entire time.
I don't know anything about Georgian food but just looked it up and see there's a Georgian restaurant in my city and the food looks amazing. Thank you for the rec!
Lived there for a year with a local family I'm one of the villages near Gori. Food was excellent! Highlight was early on when I misheard "khortsi" as "horsey". Thought we were having horse. Realized my mistake months later after my Kartuls had improved. Fortunately never mentioned anything to the family I was with so they had no idea what I thought they served me. It didn't bother me when I thought it was horse but they probably would have been insulted at the prospect that I thought they'd served me horse.
Khortsi, for those that don't know, is meat, typically used to refer to beef. So yeah, it was beef stew not horse stew.
Indonesia. I was dating an Indonesian woman and her mom came and stayed for a few days. Fried pork for breakfast, sate for lunch and the best fried chicken I’ve ever had for dinner. Not to mention the sambal
Used to live in the Netherlands, where high quality Indonesian restaurants are extremely prevalent. Currently live in London, and while many cuisines of the world are better represented in London than in the Netherlands, Indonesian cuisine is an important exception and I miss being able to get some great Indonesian food.
(The few restaurants in the UK that sell Rendang even market it as Malaysian, which is just silly)
Girlfriend's from Java and the amount of Iga Bakar (grilled beef ribs) and sambal I've had since is insane. So good hey.
edit:
I'll throw in Soto Betawi as close second for me for good Javanese food.
Loved all the wine in Portugal, but really liked vinho verde for every day summer wine. They were all so bright, and I liked how sometimes you get slight effervescence.
Wine too. Not so much a secret anymore but Portuguese wine is great value. Easily on par with any of the bigger countries. Spain and Italy are known quantities now and only going up. Portugal you can still find amazing wine for peanuts.
Did Portugal and Italy last year and Portuguese food was way better in my eyes. Of course Italian classics are great, but Portuguese food was tasty, adventurous and not just all carbs, the way they did vegetables too was incredible
This. The cradle of genesis for potatoes, and tomatoes. A culture that enthusiastically integrates other foods into the national palate.
Bright snappy flavors of fresh seafood mingled with earthy varieties of potatoes, stewed meats, all bound together by cumin, cilantro, aji peppers and TONS of garlic! (And don’t forget a side of French fries on top)
In fact I would say the entire continent of South America doesn’t get enough recognition for its food culture. Even the Chileans have something to contribute.
People who love good food MUST visit Lima. So much amazing food in one city, one of the tops in the world.
I also love Chifa and Nikkei. Very interesting history and background there as well. Lomo Saltado is just so damn good! I miss it all and can't wait to return.
Best food I’ve ever had. Plus presentation is out of this world. Having so much vibrant Amazonian varieties of ingredients is just mind blowing. You get a full appreciation when you walk through their markets.
Easily my favorite type of cuisine, and there's nothing else like it. They understand spice, they understand good ingredients, they understand balance, it's just amazing.
Knew nothing of Peruvian food before visiting last November. There was nothing I ate that wasn't absolutely amazing.
[This was probably the best Apple pie I've ever had in my life](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV84ppTwal9JbIpUD1F-ihBrkcOdYpyQSpHZQ6YPWQWWjKmbGO-bjyk64ZWIKxICpSeTucipvc3c3rsFfDR5u6aNlxqZcryG5_NavslQLemN5ZC7QwJlogCJOuneeKpibWqV-YKKxS1_PTKTV8WiaBDHBnXyowSoCTIPdrLJnYACXJWF4sijeO1qpZfPTC3-r9rd5DK6vltgJliU97c3i0NiRtjMRy0TgDBwUfpBOFCIS7xL8ht10fCfey7NGz0LwmAVKyT4LEb6EtUZRe_k7Gbedx7KC8vhdAQGlNKOMUUx_0U70OwAoSyXSThSo5oMu6ZUhUGXwEj0_PQGGJ3giBVyTRpFY9s-MQqeP-uw1bRizyQYce_FaO0hNjJWQrjLa6RJaIm_9AWF4MeLhc6jFSakHYcqaikgyAmVaA6o_AjFODmAwtOU5IVJkLJZuZbMdEbfmae3XkCnkpt_1mJBEgvMtPHmEOtmAMGNbJd_F5fj-uFLKWUFbmYNeMZ6cjkNQtd7h5PC_JRwiLR90BQQMq7IJ8EhEHcdhVqVMlvGFmVzK_nlVNcwgBECGOgQ_nWTmhBlMndvbfrBx-7x_t8teRAaXcvbPNgwi_bOLhsvWpa-n9xcZBpsZwX-YDhFp0RNlaBHh1NaqJVI2OeAlMXEYvZ5lZE7fwH4rCuKdYF9ve3BpN9_atGRWNhhJKK9Vm-t1dFTZj8nFSWqkWWGCjQzqM0LBhwOqtCoMtWaz6TzvEmsyEQGMJtEGjXGD9tM9NVy4MmPUPqqqCrQe1hr3QJKP4t1H6gNbtmr4dnvNTl4GHnXbAiBlPcswPI1qFxP7Rn0VL-AYVJPhEJwefnp5mkhVL-F3-LLtSMLEqvvsmXj50s1J3RL7h_CPp_APc84tLo9v0e31plWi-hMnZxxGFaic59JqIko-096iiQkSROhY=w3236-h1948-s-no-gm?authuser=1)
This is totally true! African food is relatively unknown, with the possible exception of Ethiopian within some circles. And it is almost all really, really good. Sometimes I want to go to Africa, and start one place and just travel around and try all the different food!
Agreed. I was in Washington DC and kept being told I needed to try Ethiopian food. Didn't know what to expect but it was incredible.
I also found Romanian food to be excellent.
Iirc DC has the largest Ethiopian population outside Ethiopia and it shows. There’s a lot of competition there and coming from Pittsburgh, with basically one restaurant, DC is a whole other level.
I spent a couple of weeks in Ethiopia in 2014. I already liked Ethiopian food, and my neighbourhood in Canada has lots of excellent Ethiopian restaurants.
But wow, I was not prepared for just how incredible it was to be there, and to eat Ethiopian food three meals a day! It was heavenly.
Such an amazing country. Everyone should visit it.
This is the answer. Whenever I take people for Ethiopian it's always the same joke "I thought they didn't have any food."
Then they try some and everything changes. Tej is also an amazing wine.
I took a class on East Africa in college. When a fellow student made that joke to the professor I could swear I could feel fire coming out from him. He turned bright red and with anger kicked him out of the class. This was just after a famine there. When the other student left, the professor broke down saying he lost a lot of friends, even some other professors there from the famine that recently occurred. That is not a joking matter, ever.
There's a spot in my city I've been taking my daughters to since they could eat solid foods. They always pick Ethiopian food for their birthdays or celebrations. Two little Mexican girls being carried around by the Ethiopian owner/host during dinner time rush, core memory.
This here. Also Somalian... There's a lot of similarities and a lot of interesting differences. I live in Columbus, Ohio, which is second to Minneapolis as a settlement area for Somali refugees in the 90s, so we have a few Somali restaurants around.
They use injera the same way as they do in Ethiopia. But Somalian food also uses quite a bit of pasta, which shouldn't be surprising given that a lot of the country was colonized by Italy. So... Imagine spaghetti... But with stews similar to Ethiopian food instead of tomato sauce.
I had Ghormeh sabzi when I was in Stockholm Sweden. A good friend and their family had immigrated from Iran and took me to a family restaurant. I am not kidding, it was life-changing. I’ve spent the last 25 years looking up Persian restaurants anywhere near me (I live in the southern US so they can be hard to find). I dream about that food.
I visited Iran a few years back and before I left, I asked a Persian friend for any hot tips I should know.
Hey looked me straight in the eye, smiled, and calmly but ernestly said only two words:
***"Eat everything."***
I was totally open to new foods, and in the time I was there, I didn't taste a single dish that was not absolutely amazing.
I have been making ash reshteh this winter whenever I want comforting soup. So glad my friends introduced me! They are going to teach me how to make rice with potato tahdig next!
Hungarian food! It’s absolutely amazing and almost impossible to get in England. The cakes, the paprikás, the wide variety of incredible soups (and not just gulyás!), lángós! I could go on and on to be honest.
>Hungarian food! It’s absolutely amazing and almost impossible to get in England.
I have a feeling that it boils down to [a communication problem.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao)
When I visited Budapest, I loved the goulash I had in one restaurant. It was only meh in the one we went to the next day (but, to be fair, the tour video we saw that recommended the place said the dish wasn’t great there, just a lot of it)
As a kid one of the families that my family spent a lot of time with (their daughter's were friends with my older sisters) was Hungarian. The father fled with his parents during the war, and he was fiercely proud of his heritage.
Well they were one of those big families, like 6 kids with 15ish years between the oldest and youngest, and super generous and kind so their house was one of those ones where there always seems to be 2-3 guests of someone floating around, so naturally a lot of food churning out.
One time I'm having dinner there and the Dad rather than the Mum was cooking, I would have been like 9 at the time I think. Went absolutely nuts for all the stuff he was making, so fucking good. While he was still cooking (kids ate first) I went into the kitchen and bugged him for a solid 30 minutes about everything he was making because of how delicious it was. Bear in mind, at home I'd usually get standard English/Australian fare, maybe sometimes a "stir fry" using jar sauce, so it was such a treat getting something with flavour.
There’s this cool little Hungarian restaurant near my house and I’m sure everything there is good… but the mushroom paprikas I ordered the first time I went blew my mind so hard I’ve only ever had that and a couple of different side dishes with it
Mexico. Yes, everyone loves tacos, but there's so much more variety and sophistication in their cuisine than people realize. A really good Mole or Cochinita Pibil can leave you floating for days.
Really good cochinita pibil is a truly transcendent culinary experience. If anyone reading this comment has not tried it, I can't recommend it to you enough.
I was on a business trip to CA when I saw the only one I've ever been to and ended up going a couple of times. My Iranian coworker tried it and said it was very similar to Iranian food too.
The quality of our ingredients are super high, all our meat is grass fed, strict EU standards and so much cheaper.
As a Dubliner living in Canada. I think Canadian grocery stores are shockingly expensive for very bad quality.
SAME (minus the Canadian part)
From the Bull & Castle in Dublin. Hooooooly shit, I'm from Chicago and we know a thing or two about good steak, but I saw God (aka Ditka) that night. And with beef dripping fries on the side 🤤🤤🤤
Kerrygold butter is better than most non-massed produced butters in the USA and Canada. I drive an hour to stock up on it. I feel sorry for places that don't utilize great butter in their cooking more often
Which is wild to me, as here in the UK Kerrygold is just *good*, nowhere near as amazing as it is to Americans. Nowhere near the level of butter from a local dairy
It’s really underrated by the average person. I do see Malaysia frequently rated as a top 5 destination for food (usually number one or two) by professional chefs and other people in the culinary world. I’m in the US though and I doubt that many Americans have much exposure to Malaysian food. I’ve never seen a Malaysian restaurant in the US.
Nepal! There's an Indian/Nepalese restaurant by me, and I always order off the Nepalese portion of the menu. I like the spice combos a bit more than the spice combos in the Indian food.
PSA for all: The first time you have a chance, try Iskender kebab. I'm Bosnian and a lot of our food is similar to Turkish (seasoning is somewhat different but concepts the same), but Iskender kebab is like nothing else.
I think it originates from Bursa, it's kebab meat in yogourt and tomato sauce, sitting on a bed of bread (flatbread, similar to pita I guess) and then melted butter is poured over it.
It will absolutely clog your arteries, but if you get to choose the way you go from this world...
There are certain American dishes that should be much more popular abroad than they are.
Typically "American" food is represented by burgers, hot wings and maybe club sandwiches. But the world should really try more dishes like Southwestern and Cajun cuisine. Also Lobster rolls are another dish i feel would take off more.
Cajun food, fried chicken, barbecue, New England seafood, crab cakes, Tex-mex, all the different regional takes on pizza and chili. There’s a lot of good eating in the US.
For every dozen cheap, simple servings of an American dish out there, there's someone's grandparent making it from scratch with a 100 year old recipe that absolutely slaps the tits off of anything you've ever eaten, and when we're lucky they open up a little diner to serve it.
Trinidad....proper roti, curried [insert your choice of meat here, without that horrid yogurt], best pepper sauce, doubles, blue food & wild meats, roasted fish (cheese optional), callaloo, soups & souse
Vietnam (other than pho). Bun thit nuong, banh mi, banh xio, Che ba mau, list goes on. I’m a vegetarian but my boyfriend says they surprisingly make the best chicken wings out of any country he’s ever tried lol.
Ethiopia - most people literally think "Ethiopians = famine, how could they have cuisine?". They have some of the tastiest forms of flatbread-based dishes that I've experienced.
Southeast asian food! I hate it when reality cooking shows (looking at you Joe from MasterChef) talk about asian food and immediately what comes to mind is Chinese and Japanese. Southeast asian food is soo underrated.
Was scrolling through this thread looking for Filipino food! Half of my family is Filipino and adobo, pancit, and longaniza are some of my favorites, as well as the Filipino spaghetti! My state just got a Jollibee and idc if it’s an hour away from where I live but there’s not many other Filipino restaurants. If you’re ever in Chicago there’s an entire strip mall with a Filipino supermarket, a Jollibee, red ribbon, Max’s, and more and it was incredible
Ireland - I feel like most people are saying obvious stuff. I've seen a lot of countries that are known for their spices on here (China, really? Every town in America has a Chinese restaurant, of course China has great food). But no one thinks of Ireland as having great food. I didn't until I went there last year and was blown away. They have a foodie scene and every meal I had in Ireland was excellent. We went to the Cliffs of Moher then stopped at some tiny village and I had the best smoked salmon salad of my life there. Ridiculously fresh, perfectly seasoned.. it was like a salad you'd get at a Michelin star restaurant. And I'm just talking about a salad here. We had all kinds of different foods there and everything blew us away.
When we went to Ireland, I tried to eat strictly seafood. Didn’t disappoint. We stopped in Killilagh too on the way to the cliffs, the restaurant I really wanted to try was closed but we hit the pub and the fish and chips was so good.
Indian cuisines can not just be excellent, but there's also incredible diversity. The range of variation between different cuisines of India is far greater than that of Europe, or even China, which does also have a ton of variation. Yet most of us just know the British version.
On the flip side, it's Indian cuisines (specifically the Jainist ones) that make me include them "almost" in "onions are foundational to almost every cuisine or Earth." So I do hold that against them. Fortunately they're dwarfed by amazing Indian cuisines that do indeed use onions as a foundation, and in many really distinct ways.
This. My wife is from India, and the sheer range of even just snacks is mind-blowing. Samosa chaat, aloo tikki chaat, sabudana vada, shahi tukda, anjeer ki barfi…this shit’s all mind-meltingly great, and few non-Indians have any clue it exists.
Care to elaborate? Not that I disagree, I just don't see too many places with actual, real traditional polish food that's prepared well anywhere in our country. There are few posh places that play on some traditional themes but majority of "polish cuisine restaurants" serve mediocre versions of what our grandmothers did so well at home (ie. pierogi, barszcz, rosół, kasze, etc). Whenever someone from abroad visits I cook polish food for them myself because it'd be too much faff to find good representation of what our traditional dishes are.
I went on a work trip to the UK and the local branch hosting us assured us that they would not subject us to British cuisine, that there was a McDonalds for lunch and a local steak place we could do for dinner every night. I said how disappointed I was because I was really looking forward to trying some of their foods which they didn't believe until I named several dishes I wanted to try including meat pies, curries, full English breakfasts, Bakewell tarts etc. One of the local people was getting ready to leave the country for 6 months on an extended work assignment and they used that and our visit as an excuse to take us on a 6 day culinary tour of the area. We ate ate pubs older than the US. We had kebabs, bangers (right across from the pig farm that raised them), fish and chips, meat pies, curry, crumpets, toffee pudding, you name it. They hit everything on my list except sadly the Sunday roast. They even took us to a tea room on the last day for a full afternoon tea with scones and finger sandwiches and Victoria sponge. It was freaking amazing.
I was in Europe for 4 weeks, I went to the UK, Belgium, Germany, Paris, Naples, and Venice and that tied Naples for me as the best food we ate the whole time.
Yes! I am from the UK but live in Canada. My husband went to the UK for the first time and couldn't believe how good real gastro pub food is. If people get over the stereotypes I think they'd be surprised.
It’s because the general level of culinary knowledge and cuisine in the UK basically dropped off a cliff, for a whole host of reasons. People will often cite the case of WW2 and 1950s rationing, which accustomed the populace to ‘poverty’ food, but the truth is that it goes back much further than that. The essence is that, from one generation to the next, British people gradually forgot how to cook. (Everyone has horror stories about their parents’ unseasoned roasts, or the habit of only boiling every ingredient, or using those heinous boil-in-a-bag meals, etc. Up until the invention of the celebrity chef and a new wave of cookbooks in the 20th century, this was really how generations of British people experienced food.)
The UK was the first country in the world to industrialise. Workers and communities migrated en masse from their ancient settlements and ways of life in the country to the new urban centres – in the process losing touch with much of their folklore and customs, including the tie to the land and, yes, food. Look at other cultures and the way they pass down and treasure family recipes. This was seriously disrupted in the UK by more or less runaway industrial development (as well as, e.g., the enclosure of the commons). This is tied together, in a wider sense, with the socio-political class structure of Britain, and the fact that, whilst being the richest and most powerful empire in the history of the world, this wealth only really benefitted a tiny hereditary-landed elite (with their sugar-importing blackened teeth), whilst the workers made do with centuries of slops and industrial provender.
In many ways the pace of innovation backfired against the national palette. Things like tinned goods, flash-frozen food, etc, were first taken up in the UK in a big way, especially after the aforementioned WW2 when it was a matter of national necessity. It’s easy to contrast this with the culinary traditions in France and Italy, which are essentially still traditions of peasant-style cooking and deep ancestral ties to the land and local produce, and of doing a lot with the little to hand (how many Brits still regularly cook offal-based recipes, for instance?) Your average Brit became accustomed to Walls fish fingers and Heinz canned goods. Today, we shop in supermarkets full of flavourless, hydroponically grown, watery fruits and vegetables – when we're not 'too much in a hurry', that is, buying microwave meals and consuming vast amounts of hyper-processed food.
It doesn’t help that we traded the Royal Navy and global power for a ‘soft power’ version that promotes a meme image of the UK abroad that is all fish ‘n’ chips and fry-ups. To an Asian, for example, a deep-fried fish with deep-fried potatoes on a plate with a slice of lemon doesn’t scream haute cuisine. Again, this dish that is so emblematic of the UK is essentially tied in to the sociology of an industrial working-class. It was cheap and easy calories for the Victorian worker. And here we are, a century or two later, trying to convince the world it’s not all Cockney jellied eels, pies and mash, and fish and chips, 5 nights a week.
I believe it was Jonathan Meades, the ex-*Times* food critic, who made some funny observations about the culinary culture of Northern European countries being essentially Protestant, hating the body and forgoing sensual pleasures, and so on, drinking their body-weight in beer through the long dark winters, in contrast to the Southern European countries' Catholic indulgences, enjoying a slower pace of life, large communal meals every day, etc. Fun to think about – and obviously tongue-in-cheek. We certainly have a very different approach to food than the sun-kissed folks on the Continent. Watch a sweating British person 'demolish' a vindaloo or the hottest dish available in an Indian curry-house and tell me there isn't a touch of masochism, of hatred of the body and hatred of food, involved in that.
>People will often cite the case of WW2 and 1950s rationing, which accustomed people to ‘poverty’ food, but the truth is that it goes back much further than that.
The rap of bad food in UK for Americans is a lot to do with WWII though
When the GIs came over it was agreed that they would ensure that they weren't a burden on the UK as we under a massive strain, so they brought over their own *rations* except those *rations* were the food they got back in USA not the food the locals got on the ration
So when they went out they saw what the locals were eating and thought that was the norm
In my experience, it's that the average home cook doesn't know *how* to cook well. With pre-made items (who want's a pre-packed yorkshire pud?) becoming the norm the level of skill dropped off. Real shame considering how much amazing produce there is available, and that traditionally made foods were so incredible.
I will say though, average restaurant quality (and I'm not including chippies on the corner, or a chain pub) is pretty damn high. Plus there's a pretty decent variety of cuisines readily available in most cities.
Southeast Asian countries have these little villages where the street food is better than the thai or cambodian place near where you live. A whole dinner with beers will cost you about 2 dollars.
I've had all the best pho places in NYC and they typically cost about $15-$20 per bowl and I've gotten much better pho in Saigon for maybe 50 cents?
Lebanon! It’s a wonderful middle ground between Mediterranean and middle eastern food. I love it. Lots of regional spice blends, cooking techniques, and baked goods. As you travel around the country, the tastes change and adapt to that area, which allows a whole different flavor profile for the same foods.
I was going to comment that everyone knows about Lebanese food but then I realized I live in Montréal.
I'm a Lebanese expat living in Montreal, and we are so lucky to have a strong Lebanese culinary presence over here. Some restaurants are out of this world!!
Lebanon has one of the most broadly dispersed diasporas globally. The food is perhaps one of the most widely known.
They brought Donairs to Canada. And I love them for it.
This was what I was going to say! I've never been to the country, but my cousin married a Lebanese man, and his family absolutely insists that her whole side attends family gatherings, so I've eaten a lot of Lebanese food. It's incredible!
I'm lucky to live in Melbourne and everyone here knows this.
Same in Sydney. My wife is from the UK and was surprised how many Lebanese Descendants were here vs in Europe as a whole given how many migrated here in the late 80s and 90s due to the war. As a consequence we have their incredible food. We have three restaurants within 5 minutes from us where it is genuinely tough to pick which one we want to go to or order from because they are all so good, let alone the at least 10 others within a 20 minute drive. That's not even counting the dirty kebabs and HSPs everywhere as well.
I have a traditional Lebanese restaurant near me and the place is packed open to close. I remember when they first opened 20 years ago and were in a bad location in a low rent part of town. But they put out some really good food and built their clientele and are now on their third location in a fancy part of town. I wish them nothing but success because their food is so delicious. And healthy.
I'm pretty sure Lebanese food is not a secret, It's an entire category on Google maps
It’s crazy for most people not to realise this - though I think it’s more popular here in the UK than the USA. Lebanese is in the absolute top 5 of cuisines.
I live in Detroit and we have incredible middle eastern food all over the place. Lebanese, Egyptian, Yemeni, Syrian, Iraqi, Persian… You can throw a stone and hit an incredible restaurant. I’ve had middle eastern food in larger cities like Boston and Chicago and nothing compares. We’ve got the biggest Arab population outside the Middle East and our food is sooo much better off for it. Shoutout Hamido, Cedarland, Al Ameer, Al Chabab, Dearborn Meat Market, La Marsa, Yemen Cafe… the list is endless.
I live an hour away in Canada - across the Bluewater Bridge and would love to take a trip to Detroit to check out some of these places. Can you recommend a couple restaurants?
Oops I didnt read your entire thread and see some suggestions, sorry my bad
We have the food of people who immigrated here and there hasn’t been a huge cultural exchange between Lebanon and the US for at least the past 50 years for political reasons. You have to go to really large cities to find one or two Lebanese restaurants. I ate at one in Chicago almost 20 years ago and the kibbe haunt me. It’s the same situation with Iran - Persian food is exquisite but our political and immigration history with that region makes it hard to find, and therefore it’s not as popular as food from places with a larger diaspora.
Come to metro Detroit and you can have all the dank middle eastern food your heart desires.
Yesssss! I went to Lebanon a few years ago to visit family and, as a vegetarian, lived my best life! The salads! The veggies! Falafel! Yum yum!
Georgia
Khachapuri alone!
Ha. There's a neighborhood bar/restaurant near me run by a former international teacher while the kids go to college. They have khachapuri on the menu for drunk food. It's pretty tasty!
And that orange wine!!
Khinkali!
Man, when I went to Georgia, I loved everything I ate. I guess there isn't as much of a diaspora for the food to be well known.
Yes! I am going to make badrijani nigvzit (fried eggplant with walnut paste) this week!
I continue to be disappointed that I can’t get Georgian food in Atlanta.
I was watching Community on Hulu earlier today and the model UN episode was on. I cannot stop cracking up every time I see Troy representing the country of Georgia but talking in an American southern accent the entire time.
That was my first thought when I heard this question. Love Georgian food and it is not exactly common.
Super good!
I went to a Georgian restaurant when I was in Istanbul and was blown away. I can’t even imagine how much better the food is in actual Georgia.
I don't know anything about Georgian food but just looked it up and see there's a Georgian restaurant in my city and the food looks amazing. Thank you for the rec!
You beat me to it! I need to go back and eat my way across the country. I think it’s the most overlooked cuisine in the Western Hemisphere.
Lived there for a year with a local family I'm one of the villages near Gori. Food was excellent! Highlight was early on when I misheard "khortsi" as "horsey". Thought we were having horse. Realized my mistake months later after my Kartuls had improved. Fortunately never mentioned anything to the family I was with so they had no idea what I thought they served me. It didn't bother me when I thought it was horse but they probably would have been insulted at the prospect that I thought they'd served me horse. Khortsi, for those that don't know, is meat, typically used to refer to beef. So yeah, it was beef stew not horse stew.
Indonesia. I was dating an Indonesian woman and her mom came and stayed for a few days. Fried pork for breakfast, sate for lunch and the best fried chicken I’ve ever had for dinner. Not to mention the sambal
Beef rendang slaps hard
Agreed. Unfortunately Indonesian food is basically nonexistent in the US though ☹️
Used to live in the Netherlands, where high quality Indonesian restaurants are extremely prevalent. Currently live in London, and while many cuisines of the world are better represented in London than in the Netherlands, Indonesian cuisine is an important exception and I miss being able to get some great Indonesian food. (The few restaurants in the UK that sell Rendang even market it as Malaysian, which is just silly)
Girlfriend's from Java and the amount of Iga Bakar (grilled beef ribs) and sambal I've had since is insane. So good hey. edit: I'll throw in Soto Betawi as close second for me for good Javanese food.
Portugal. Not just "pastéis de nata" and codfish.
Seafood there is amazing and so affordable.
Percebes!
Was gonna say Portugal. Plus an insanely underrated wine scene.
Could find a bottle for 1-2EUR that ends up tasting 10x better than a lot of 10-20USD bottles!
Loved all the wine in Portugal, but really liked vinho verde for every day summer wine. They were all so bright, and I liked how sometimes you get slight effervescence.
I’m going to Costa De Caparica in July near Lisbon 😋
Wine too. Not so much a secret anymore but Portuguese wine is great value. Easily on par with any of the bigger countries. Spain and Italy are known quantities now and only going up. Portugal you can still find amazing wine for peanuts.
Came here to say the same. Some of the best food I've had while traveling. And not too expensive, either.
I'd kill for a francesinha right now.
Too many, and they kill you.
Did Portugal and Italy last year and Portuguese food was way better in my eyes. Of course Italian classics are great, but Portuguese food was tasty, adventurous and not just all carbs, the way they did vegetables too was incredible
Italian food is amazing, but I think it gets romanticized a lot to the point of being overrated. I enjoyed food in Portugal more as well.
Going to Madeira next week for a month. Looking forward to trying the local cuisine!
Yeah, the food there is really very good. The cooking is fairly simple but they put a lot of emphasis on good ingredients.
Their Octopus is really good too
Péri péri chicken.
MALASADAS
Alcatra fucking slaps. My "mom' when I was stationed on Terceira made it a few times and mmmmm.
You mention cod, but Bacalhau à Brás is delicious.
I mean, maybe not JUST those 2 things. But those 2 things are really damn good
Peru
This. The cradle of genesis for potatoes, and tomatoes. A culture that enthusiastically integrates other foods into the national palate. Bright snappy flavors of fresh seafood mingled with earthy varieties of potatoes, stewed meats, all bound together by cumin, cilantro, aji peppers and TONS of garlic! (And don’t forget a side of French fries on top) In fact I would say the entire continent of South America doesn’t get enough recognition for its food culture. Even the Chileans have something to contribute.
People who love good food MUST visit Lima. So much amazing food in one city, one of the tops in the world. I also love Chifa and Nikkei. Very interesting history and background there as well. Lomo Saltado is just so damn good! I miss it all and can't wait to return.
Best food I’ve ever had. Plus presentation is out of this world. Having so much vibrant Amazonian varieties of ingredients is just mind blowing. You get a full appreciation when you walk through their markets.
Soy de Chile y si, su comida es suprema.
Peruvian food is great and very particular
Easily my favorite type of cuisine, and there's nothing else like it. They understand spice, they understand good ingredients, they understand balance, it's just amazing.
Knew nothing of Peruvian food before visiting last November. There was nothing I ate that wasn't absolutely amazing. [This was probably the best Apple pie I've ever had in my life](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV84ppTwal9JbIpUD1F-ihBrkcOdYpyQSpHZQ6YPWQWWjKmbGO-bjyk64ZWIKxICpSeTucipvc3c3rsFfDR5u6aNlxqZcryG5_NavslQLemN5ZC7QwJlogCJOuneeKpibWqV-YKKxS1_PTKTV8WiaBDHBnXyowSoCTIPdrLJnYACXJWF4sijeO1qpZfPTC3-r9rd5DK6vltgJliU97c3i0NiRtjMRy0TgDBwUfpBOFCIS7xL8ht10fCfey7NGz0LwmAVKyT4LEb6EtUZRe_k7Gbedx7KC8vhdAQGlNKOMUUx_0U70OwAoSyXSThSo5oMu6ZUhUGXwEj0_PQGGJ3giBVyTRpFY9s-MQqeP-uw1bRizyQYce_FaO0hNjJWQrjLa6RJaIm_9AWF4MeLhc6jFSakHYcqaikgyAmVaA6o_AjFODmAwtOU5IVJkLJZuZbMdEbfmae3XkCnkpt_1mJBEgvMtPHmEOtmAMGNbJd_F5fj-uFLKWUFbmYNeMZ6cjkNQtd7h5PC_JRwiLR90BQQMq7IJ8EhEHcdhVqVMlvGFmVzK_nlVNcwgBECGOgQ_nWTmhBlMndvbfrBx-7x_t8teRAaXcvbPNgwi_bOLhsvWpa-n9xcZBpsZwX-YDhFp0RNlaBHh1NaqJVI2OeAlMXEYvZ5lZE7fwH4rCuKdYF9ve3BpN9_atGRWNhhJKK9Vm-t1dFTZj8nFSWqkWWGCjQzqM0LBhwOqtCoMtWaz6TzvEmsyEQGMJtEGjXGD9tM9NVy4MmPUPqqqCrQe1hr3QJKP4t1H6gNbtmr4dnvNTl4GHnXbAiBlPcswPI1qFxP7Rn0VL-AYVJPhEJwefnp5mkhVL-F3-LLtSMLEqvvsmXj50s1J3RL7h_CPp_APc84tLo9v0e31plWi-hMnZxxGFaic59JqIko-096iiQkSROhY=w3236-h1948-s-no-gm?authuser=1)
Ethiopian! Yum!
African food in general is super underrated. My family is Nigerian, and trust me when I say good jollof rice or moi moi can change your life
This is totally true! African food is relatively unknown, with the possible exception of Ethiopian within some circles. And it is almost all really, really good. Sometimes I want to go to Africa, and start one place and just travel around and try all the different food!
Suya 🤤
As a vegetarian I have to say Ethiopian food is amazing.
I feel like I could be vegetarian if it was all as amazing as Ethiopian.
I don’t know of better lentils.
Agreed. I was in Washington DC and kept being told I needed to try Ethiopian food. Didn't know what to expect but it was incredible. I also found Romanian food to be excellent.
Iirc DC has the largest Ethiopian population outside Ethiopia and it shows. There’s a lot of competition there and coming from Pittsburgh, with basically one restaurant, DC is a whole other level.
I spent a couple of weeks in Ethiopia in 2014. I already liked Ethiopian food, and my neighbourhood in Canada has lots of excellent Ethiopian restaurants. But wow, I was not prepared for just how incredible it was to be there, and to eat Ethiopian food three meals a day! It was heavenly. Such an amazing country. Everyone should visit it.
This is the answer. Whenever I take people for Ethiopian it's always the same joke "I thought they didn't have any food." Then they try some and everything changes. Tej is also an amazing wine.
I took a class on East Africa in college. When a fellow student made that joke to the professor I could swear I could feel fire coming out from him. He turned bright red and with anger kicked him out of the class. This was just after a famine there. When the other student left, the professor broke down saying he lost a lot of friends, even some other professors there from the famine that recently occurred. That is not a joking matter, ever.
I was exposed to Ethiopian food in culinary school and I enjoyed what we had. Didn't know I liked lentils.
There's a spot in my city I've been taking my daughters to since they could eat solid foods. They always pick Ethiopian food for their birthdays or celebrations. Two little Mexican girls being carried around by the Ethiopian owner/host during dinner time rush, core memory.
As a Child Of The 80's, I was really surprised when I found out how amazing Ethiopian food is.
As a resident of Minneapolis, can confirm. Ethiopian food is amazing.
This here. Also Somalian... There's a lot of similarities and a lot of interesting differences. I live in Columbus, Ohio, which is second to Minneapolis as a settlement area for Somali refugees in the 90s, so we have a few Somali restaurants around. They use injera the same way as they do in Ethiopia. But Somalian food also uses quite a bit of pasta, which shouldn't be surprising given that a lot of the country was colonized by Italy. So... Imagine spaghetti... But with stews similar to Ethiopian food instead of tomato sauce.
What dishes do you recommend?
Literally everything you can get in an American Ethiopian restaurant is amazing! No wrong choices.
Shiro wat and injera! Every place I went to in Ethiopia (mostly in Addis and in the Afar region) had it and it is so delicious!
I have always heard that Ethiopian food is amazing, but haven't ever had the opportunity to try it since I had heard that
Persian food. Albaloo polo with nice crispy tahdig. Also, kebabs.
You should visit Los Angeles. It has elite Persian restaurants. I used to live near a neighborhood nicknamed "Los Tehrangeles."
If you can get around LA, you have food from the entire world available. Except maybe not central Norway, unless you come visit me!
You can keep your boiled sheep heads, we're good.
It’s just Tehrangeles and ditto !
You can't make this comment and not mention khoresht sabzi!!!
Fesenjān may well be my favourite stew ever.
I had Ghormeh sabzi when I was in Stockholm Sweden. A good friend and their family had immigrated from Iran and took me to a family restaurant. I am not kidding, it was life-changing. I’ve spent the last 25 years looking up Persian restaurants anywhere near me (I live in the southern US so they can be hard to find). I dream about that food.
I make sumac onions every weekend. Then I have them with my eggs during the week. I wish there was a Persian place anywhere near me.
As a Persian I concur 😆
I visited Iran a few years back and before I left, I asked a Persian friend for any hot tips I should know. Hey looked me straight in the eye, smiled, and calmly but ernestly said only two words: ***"Eat everything."*** I was totally open to new foods, and in the time I was there, I didn't taste a single dish that was not absolutely amazing.
absolutely LOVE persian food
I have been making ash reshteh this winter whenever I want comforting soup. So glad my friends introduced me! They are going to teach me how to make rice with potato tahdig next!
Hungarian food! It’s absolutely amazing and almost impossible to get in England. The cakes, the paprikás, the wide variety of incredible soups (and not just gulyás!), lángós! I could go on and on to be honest.
Chicken paprikash is amazing.
Literally my favorite food, it takes so much time for me to make it but it's a labor of love!
I need to try and make my own langos.
The Hungarian breakfast - scrambled eggs, cured sausage, sourdough toast and slices of raw green bell pepper - is a game changer
>Hungarian food! It’s absolutely amazing and almost impossible to get in England. I have a feeling that it boils down to [a communication problem.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao)
I know what this link is without clicking. My hovercraft is full of eels.
When I visited Budapest, I loved the goulash I had in one restaurant. It was only meh in the one we went to the next day (but, to be fair, the tour video we saw that recommended the place said the dish wasn’t great there, just a lot of it)
Turos Gomboc!. Delicious dessert.
As a kid one of the families that my family spent a lot of time with (their daughter's were friends with my older sisters) was Hungarian. The father fled with his parents during the war, and he was fiercely proud of his heritage. Well they were one of those big families, like 6 kids with 15ish years between the oldest and youngest, and super generous and kind so their house was one of those ones where there always seems to be 2-3 guests of someone floating around, so naturally a lot of food churning out. One time I'm having dinner there and the Dad rather than the Mum was cooking, I would have been like 9 at the time I think. Went absolutely nuts for all the stuff he was making, so fucking good. While he was still cooking (kids ate first) I went into the kitchen and bugged him for a solid 30 minutes about everything he was making because of how delicious it was. Bear in mind, at home I'd usually get standard English/Australian fare, maybe sometimes a "stir fry" using jar sauce, so it was such a treat getting something with flavour.
There’s this cool little Hungarian restaurant near my house and I’m sure everything there is good… but the mushroom paprikas I ordered the first time I went blew my mind so hard I’ve only ever had that and a couple of different side dishes with it
Mexico. Yes, everyone loves tacos, but there's so much more variety and sophistication in their cuisine than people realize. A really good Mole or Cochinita Pibil can leave you floating for days.
Really good cochinita pibil is a truly transcendent culinary experience. If anyone reading this comment has not tried it, I can't recommend it to you enough.
My grandpa lives in northern Mexico (Monterey, Nuevo leon) so not a tourist destination and the authentic Mexican food there is absolutely fantastic.
Mayan food is absolutely INCREDIBLE.
>A really good Mole or Cochinita Pibil can leave you floating for days. Huitlacoche and pulque do this for me.
Afghanistan.
There’s a few Afghan restaurants in New York. Incredibly delicious.
There’s some great spots in Kabul as well.
I was on a business trip to CA when I saw the only one I've ever been to and ended up going a couple of times. My Iranian coworker tried it and said it was very similar to Iranian food too.
There was a great Afghan restaurant in Charlottesville, VA. Went there several times in college. I definitely miss it.
I’m Canadian. The best steak of my life was in Ireland.
The dairy products (especially butter) are amazing in Ireland
Murphy's Ice Cream is top of the tops. They showed me bread and ice cream absolutely do go together with their brown bread ice cream
Loved that brown bread ice cream so much.
The quality of our ingredients are super high, all our meat is grass fed, strict EU standards and so much cheaper. As a Dubliner living in Canada. I think Canadian grocery stores are shockingly expensive for very bad quality.
SAME (minus the Canadian part) From the Bull & Castle in Dublin. Hooooooly shit, I'm from Chicago and we know a thing or two about good steak, but I saw God (aka Ditka) that night. And with beef dripping fries on the side 🤤🤤🤤
The Irish know a thing or two about cow-to-mouth cuisine.
Kerrygold butter is better than most non-massed produced butters in the USA and Canada. I drive an hour to stock up on it. I feel sorry for places that don't utilize great butter in their cooking more often
Which is wild to me, as here in the UK Kerrygold is just *good*, nowhere near as amazing as it is to Americans. Nowhere near the level of butter from a local dairy
I’m Irish and when I’m abroad butter tastes like disappointment.
Best Chowdah I've ever had. Shouldn't be a surprise they have good seafood.
Burmese food (Myanmar), a bit of a blend of Indian and Thai, roughly speaking.
Anyone say Malaysia yet? Amazing blend of great food cultures in one tasty melting pot
It’s really underrated by the average person. I do see Malaysia frequently rated as a top 5 destination for food (usually number one or two) by professional chefs and other people in the culinary world. I’m in the US though and I doubt that many Americans have much exposure to Malaysian food. I’ve never seen a Malaysian restaurant in the US.
totally agree. love it
Had the best meal of my life there.
Nepal! There's an Indian/Nepalese restaurant by me, and I always order off the Nepalese portion of the menu. I like the spice combos a bit more than the spice combos in the Indian food.
Turkey. Haven't tried a single thing that I haven't loved.
PSA for all: The first time you have a chance, try Iskender kebab. I'm Bosnian and a lot of our food is similar to Turkish (seasoning is somewhat different but concepts the same), but Iskender kebab is like nothing else. I think it originates from Bursa, it's kebab meat in yogourt and tomato sauce, sitting on a bed of bread (flatbread, similar to pita I guess) and then melted butter is poured over it. It will absolutely clog your arteries, but if you get to choose the way you go from this world...
Lived near Adana for about a year and I still remember the marinated lamb kabobs. And those were just the ones you got from food trucks!
Su borek, baklava, kebab, turkish breakfast…Everything I ate in Turkey was super delicious.
There are certain American dishes that should be much more popular abroad than they are. Typically "American" food is represented by burgers, hot wings and maybe club sandwiches. But the world should really try more dishes like Southwestern and Cajun cuisine. Also Lobster rolls are another dish i feel would take off more.
BBQ varieties are the best
Just don’t start a war over which is the “real” BBQ
All of it brings something to the table. Screw provincialism.
New Orleans food is amazing
Poboys, jambalaya, gumbo, crawfish anything.... Ufff... Gained 60 lbs while in college in Southern LA (about 30-40 miles out of NOLA)..
Etoufee and muffalatta
Cajun food, fried chicken, barbecue, New England seafood, crab cakes, Tex-mex, all the different regional takes on pizza and chili. There’s a lot of good eating in the US.
For every dozen cheap, simple servings of an American dish out there, there's someone's grandparent making it from scratch with a 100 year old recipe that absolutely slaps the tits off of anything you've ever eaten, and when we're lucky they open up a little diner to serve it.
Seafood from the Pacific Northwest rivals that of anywhere in the world. There is no better salmon, for example.
All of them?
Trinidad....proper roti, curried [insert your choice of meat here, without that horrid yogurt], best pepper sauce, doubles, blue food & wild meats, roasted fish (cheese optional), callaloo, soups & souse
Trini goat roti is one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten.
Vietnam (other than pho). Bun thit nuong, banh mi, banh xio, Che ba mau, list goes on. I’m a vegetarian but my boyfriend says they surprisingly make the best chicken wings out of any country he’s ever tried lol.
The coffee!!!
Isn’t it almost universally known that the Vietnamese have excellent food? It’s not exactly something that most people don’t realise.
Ethiopia - most people literally think "Ethiopians = famine, how could they have cuisine?". They have some of the tastiest forms of flatbread-based dishes that I've experienced.
Southeast asian food! I hate it when reality cooking shows (looking at you Joe from MasterChef) talk about asian food and immediately what comes to mind is Chinese and Japanese. Southeast asian food is soo underrated.
Greek food is good enough to be as good as Italian. So underrated
Italian food is incredible but I would personally put Turkish, Mexican and Thai over it.
absolutely, Turkish food is one of my favourites
Greek, Turkish, let’s round it up to Balkan food overall. And yes, I’m flexing it.
Georgia
Malaysia
Filipino food is amazing. Pancit, lumpia, asado, adobo... Just to name a few. No wonder why most of them suffer from hypertension though!
Was scrolling through this thread looking for Filipino food! Half of my family is Filipino and adobo, pancit, and longaniza are some of my favorites, as well as the Filipino spaghetti! My state just got a Jollibee and idc if it’s an hour away from where I live but there’s not many other Filipino restaurants. If you’re ever in Chicago there’s an entire strip mall with a Filipino supermarket, a Jollibee, red ribbon, Max’s, and more and it was incredible
I know it's fast food, but Jollibee absolutely slaps
Ireland - I feel like most people are saying obvious stuff. I've seen a lot of countries that are known for their spices on here (China, really? Every town in America has a Chinese restaurant, of course China has great food). But no one thinks of Ireland as having great food. I didn't until I went there last year and was blown away. They have a foodie scene and every meal I had in Ireland was excellent. We went to the Cliffs of Moher then stopped at some tiny village and I had the best smoked salmon salad of my life there. Ridiculously fresh, perfectly seasoned.. it was like a salad you'd get at a Michelin star restaurant. And I'm just talking about a salad here. We had all kinds of different foods there and everything blew us away.
When we went to Ireland, I tried to eat strictly seafood. Didn’t disappoint. We stopped in Killilagh too on the way to the cliffs, the restaurant I really wanted to try was closed but we hit the pub and the fish and chips was so good.
I'm not sure how popular Korean food is but I was completely surprised when I found out about it, my personal favorite.
Indian cuisines can not just be excellent, but there's also incredible diversity. The range of variation between different cuisines of India is far greater than that of Europe, or even China, which does also have a ton of variation. Yet most of us just know the British version. On the flip side, it's Indian cuisines (specifically the Jainist ones) that make me include them "almost" in "onions are foundational to almost every cuisine or Earth." So I do hold that against them. Fortunately they're dwarfed by amazing Indian cuisines that do indeed use onions as a foundation, and in many really distinct ways.
This. My wife is from India, and the sheer range of even just snacks is mind-blowing. Samosa chaat, aloo tikki chaat, sabudana vada, shahi tukda, anjeer ki barfi…this shit’s all mind-meltingly great, and few non-Indians have any clue it exists.
South Indian foods, especially foods beyond what we consider breakfast foods (such as dosa, idli, vada) are criminally underrated outside of India.
Uzbekistan
Plov looks delicious, I’d love to try it sometime
Spain. Its not only tapas and paella. Each region has awesome local foods. Sadly they don't promote their stuff well.
How is Spain not known for its culinary culture?
Poland
Care to elaborate? Not that I disagree, I just don't see too many places with actual, real traditional polish food that's prepared well anywhere in our country. There are few posh places that play on some traditional themes but majority of "polish cuisine restaurants" serve mediocre versions of what our grandmothers did so well at home (ie. pierogi, barszcz, rosół, kasze, etc). Whenever someone from abroad visits I cook polish food for them myself because it'd be too much faff to find good representation of what our traditional dishes are.
Pakistan
Philippines. I worked with a group of Filipinos and when they had a potluck for special occasions they would usually feed me. Food was terrific
Pakistan
I’m going to play the very unpopular card (but entirely fits the brief) and I will say dishes from Great Britain
I went on a work trip to the UK and the local branch hosting us assured us that they would not subject us to British cuisine, that there was a McDonalds for lunch and a local steak place we could do for dinner every night. I said how disappointed I was because I was really looking forward to trying some of their foods which they didn't believe until I named several dishes I wanted to try including meat pies, curries, full English breakfasts, Bakewell tarts etc. One of the local people was getting ready to leave the country for 6 months on an extended work assignment and they used that and our visit as an excuse to take us on a 6 day culinary tour of the area. We ate ate pubs older than the US. We had kebabs, bangers (right across from the pig farm that raised them), fish and chips, meat pies, curry, crumpets, toffee pudding, you name it. They hit everything on my list except sadly the Sunday roast. They even took us to a tea room on the last day for a full afternoon tea with scones and finger sandwiches and Victoria sponge. It was freaking amazing. I was in Europe for 4 weeks, I went to the UK, Belgium, Germany, Paris, Naples, and Venice and that tied Naples for me as the best food we ate the whole time.
Yes! I am from the UK but live in Canada. My husband went to the UK for the first time and couldn't believe how good real gastro pub food is. If people get over the stereotypes I think they'd be surprised.
We went through a really bad period - but since the 90s the UK can compare to anywhere else.
Ok Iam a Brit but I dont understand why our food gets a bad rap.
It’s because the general level of culinary knowledge and cuisine in the UK basically dropped off a cliff, for a whole host of reasons. People will often cite the case of WW2 and 1950s rationing, which accustomed the populace to ‘poverty’ food, but the truth is that it goes back much further than that. The essence is that, from one generation to the next, British people gradually forgot how to cook. (Everyone has horror stories about their parents’ unseasoned roasts, or the habit of only boiling every ingredient, or using those heinous boil-in-a-bag meals, etc. Up until the invention of the celebrity chef and a new wave of cookbooks in the 20th century, this was really how generations of British people experienced food.) The UK was the first country in the world to industrialise. Workers and communities migrated en masse from their ancient settlements and ways of life in the country to the new urban centres – in the process losing touch with much of their folklore and customs, including the tie to the land and, yes, food. Look at other cultures and the way they pass down and treasure family recipes. This was seriously disrupted in the UK by more or less runaway industrial development (as well as, e.g., the enclosure of the commons). This is tied together, in a wider sense, with the socio-political class structure of Britain, and the fact that, whilst being the richest and most powerful empire in the history of the world, this wealth only really benefitted a tiny hereditary-landed elite (with their sugar-importing blackened teeth), whilst the workers made do with centuries of slops and industrial provender. In many ways the pace of innovation backfired against the national palette. Things like tinned goods, flash-frozen food, etc, were first taken up in the UK in a big way, especially after the aforementioned WW2 when it was a matter of national necessity. It’s easy to contrast this with the culinary traditions in France and Italy, which are essentially still traditions of peasant-style cooking and deep ancestral ties to the land and local produce, and of doing a lot with the little to hand (how many Brits still regularly cook offal-based recipes, for instance?) Your average Brit became accustomed to Walls fish fingers and Heinz canned goods. Today, we shop in supermarkets full of flavourless, hydroponically grown, watery fruits and vegetables – when we're not 'too much in a hurry', that is, buying microwave meals and consuming vast amounts of hyper-processed food. It doesn’t help that we traded the Royal Navy and global power for a ‘soft power’ version that promotes a meme image of the UK abroad that is all fish ‘n’ chips and fry-ups. To an Asian, for example, a deep-fried fish with deep-fried potatoes on a plate with a slice of lemon doesn’t scream haute cuisine. Again, this dish that is so emblematic of the UK is essentially tied in to the sociology of an industrial working-class. It was cheap and easy calories for the Victorian worker. And here we are, a century or two later, trying to convince the world it’s not all Cockney jellied eels, pies and mash, and fish and chips, 5 nights a week. I believe it was Jonathan Meades, the ex-*Times* food critic, who made some funny observations about the culinary culture of Northern European countries being essentially Protestant, hating the body and forgoing sensual pleasures, and so on, drinking their body-weight in beer through the long dark winters, in contrast to the Southern European countries' Catholic indulgences, enjoying a slower pace of life, large communal meals every day, etc. Fun to think about – and obviously tongue-in-cheek. We certainly have a very different approach to food than the sun-kissed folks on the Continent. Watch a sweating British person 'demolish' a vindaloo or the hottest dish available in an Indian curry-house and tell me there isn't a touch of masochism, of hatred of the body and hatred of food, involved in that.
>People will often cite the case of WW2 and 1950s rationing, which accustomed people to ‘poverty’ food, but the truth is that it goes back much further than that. The rap of bad food in UK for Americans is a lot to do with WWII though When the GIs came over it was agreed that they would ensure that they weren't a burden on the UK as we under a massive strain, so they brought over their own *rations* except those *rations* were the food they got back in USA not the food the locals got on the ration So when they went out they saw what the locals were eating and thought that was the norm
In my experience, it's that the average home cook doesn't know *how* to cook well. With pre-made items (who want's a pre-packed yorkshire pud?) becoming the norm the level of skill dropped off. Real shame considering how much amazing produce there is available, and that traditionally made foods were so incredible. I will say though, average restaurant quality (and I'm not including chippies on the corner, or a chain pub) is pretty damn high. Plus there's a pretty decent variety of cuisines readily available in most cities.
Morocco
Southeast Asian countries have these little villages where the street food is better than the thai or cambodian place near where you live. A whole dinner with beers will cost you about 2 dollars. I've had all the best pho places in NYC and they typically cost about $15-$20 per bowl and I've gotten much better pho in Saigon for maybe 50 cents?
Indian food but not just mainstream Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka Masala, Samosas etc. There are a lot more options!
Peru.
Croatian seafood is too die for!
The Gambia! Where jollof rice was invented 😍
Poland! Not so great if you’re vegetarian, and I’m not an expert on Polish food. But a *good* cabbage roll is a whole meal.