Worst cuisines?

[TGS]

I’ve had mediocre haggis in restaurants, and had amazingly good homemade haggis when staying with a family in Scotland. The same was true for some of the other traditional dishes — I found that they can be tasty, but usually are not.

It was similar traveling in England and eating at pubs. I’d have soggy bland steak-and-kidney pie that was straight out of the microwave in one place, and another day get a version straight out of the oven that was like a completely different dish.

A cone of newspaper full of fresh hot fish & chips is a wonderful thing when walking on a cold damp day.

The interesting thing about the UK these days is that the vast majority of pubs (over 90%, iirc) are chains. So, if it isn't labelled "Freehouse" under their name, you get the exact same menu as any other pub owned by that company throughout the UK, regardless of it still carrying the historical name and decor for legacy's sake.

That said, one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten was a scotch egg; a soft-boiled egg crusted with haggis and topped with a touch of chutney. Good god, what magic......

[Oldherkpilot]

I consider Korean food the red headed step child of Asian cuisine. It just doesn’t rate as highly as Thai, Laotian, Vietnamese.....

I like just about everything from everywhere but kimchi is definitely on my No-fly list! The ROK jumpers would barf it up behind the seats, leaving a disaster for the crew. The stench was almost certain to cause sympathetic detonation. One day we were putting out rough terrain ROKs and the DZ calls up and says, "You're dropping them in the open - put 'em in the trees!" So we did. Barfing bastards.

[Wise_A]

Fucking Vietnamese. I dated a Viet girl once, so of course I had to eat shit her mom made. And I had to go to dipshit parties her "friends" (coworkers) threw, which meant eating their food. It was all thin, watery "soups" that looked suspiciously like dirty dishwater, rice noodles that cost 25 cents in the Vietnamese supermarket...and holy hell, the Vietnamese super market. Land of a thousand health code violations. Half-dead tilapia bobbing in 20-gallon aquarium tanks. Collection of 100 Vietnamese-language bootleg VHS tapes for rent. Shortly before I threw in the towel, we went to some shit restaurant where they served us a whole chicken, prepared via some evil combination of frying and baking that just mixes the worst parts of both, that had not been butchered in the slightest. It had everything: feet, head, and I'm pretty sure, entrails. After awhile, I just gave it the fuck up--I'll smile and talk nice, but I'm not putting that in my mouth, so we're going to Wendy's on the way home.

Looking back on it, if I had to choose between frequent sex of adequate quality and eating that shit, and taking care of myself after devouring a Five Guys burger...



All day. Every day. God bless America.

[mtnbkr]

Where does haggis rate in the spectrum? Are the Scots getting a pass?

I love *good* haggis. Seriously.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

That said, one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten was a scotch egg; a soft-boiled egg crusted with haggis and topped with a touch of chutney. Good god, what magic......

I have never seen a scotch egg made with haggis. I've had both...separately and enjoyed them.

And what you say about the pubs is absolutely true.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

I'm probably going to step on some toes here...

Italian food. I could go the rest of my life without any of it. I mean, it's not bad, but it's just not interesting. Sure, I probably haven't had the "right" examples and it's probably much better in Italy, but I've tried enough restaurants (including some small ones in NYC) and attempts at home to know I'm just not interested.

Otherwise, I've found something redeeming about virtually all cuisines I've tried. I actually like English food and endeavor not to eat at a chain "American" restaurant while I'm in the UK.

Chris

[Grey]

I consider Korean food the red headed step child of Asian cuisine. It just doesn’t rate as highly as Thai, Laotian, Vietnamese.....

Korean fried chicken can be very good, but DUH! it’s fried chicken.

Haggis and gefilte fish are both revolting.

My grade school cafeteria was trying to kill us. They served grilled cheese sandwiches and they didn’t remove the plastic wrapper.

I would venture that you haven't had GOOD Korean food... I'll try not to take your dislike of Korean food as a personal insult :P

There is plenty of it that I would never eat but there are some real gems

[RoyGBiv]

I like just about everything from everywhere but kimchi is definitely on my No-fly list! The ROK jumpers would barf it up behind the seats, leaving a disaster for the crew. The stench was almost certain to cause sympathetic detonation. One day we were putting out rough terrain ROKs and the DZ calls up and says, "You're dropping them in the open - put 'em in the trees!" So we did. Barfing bastards.

Thanks for the laugh.!

I really like kimchi... spicier is better. There's a local Vietnamese grocery that stocks some really good stuff.

This was my lunch yesterday.... After >1 hour of working out followed by a sweat-soaked 2 hours of trimming shrubs.
-- Sushi roll: Salmon, cream cheese, roasted hatch chili, curry riced cauliflower with crab stick (unrolled) instead of rice (low carb). Smothered in Sriracha (original) with soy sauce.
-- Kimchi with (mas piquante) Valentina hot sauce.
-- Shannon Brewery Salted Caramel Chocolate Stout. Not too salty, just a bit. Nice and bitter, like a good espresso.
-- P-F on the tablet.

Thankfully Cultural Appropriation has no legal ramifications, yet. I'm more of a "Melting Pot" kind of guy.

[BehindBlueI's]

I'm probably going to step on some toes here...

Italian food. I could go the rest of my life without any of it. I mean, it's not bad, but it's just not interesting. Sure, I probably haven't had the "right" examples and it's probably much better in Italy, but I've tried enough restaurants (including some small ones in NYC) and attempts at home to know I'm just not interested.

It's not the same in the US because the ingredients aren't the same. To go back to Napoli pizza, you have to have a license from the city to sell pizza. You can sell anything you like, you just can't call it "pizza" if you don't have a license, so street vendors sell "pizzitas". An inspector makes sure you are using the correct fresh tomatoes, cheese, flour, etc. and using the right oven. Even Italians in the US aren't quite there because the tomatoes and bufalo mozzarella aren't readily available. Every "Italian Pizza Kitchen" in the US I've been to burnt the crust and tried to tell me that's how it's supposed to be.

American food often sucked in the Middle East because the "beef" sucked. It was some bland gray oily mass that we joked was actually water buffalo. I don't know why we picked water buffalo, it's just what we went with. If you got beef from Australia it was better, but the only way a burger there tasted like a burger here is if you went to somewhere that imported frozen Angus.

Seafood on a dock is usually excellent anywhere, but freshly made linguine, quality olive oil, and just-off-the-boat mussels are quite different then versions I've had in the US.

What kind of surprised me during our trip was how different regional cuisines were. The food in Florence was very different then Naples. I don't know what traditional food in Rome was, like any huge city it was just a mix of everything from everywhere.


On a side note, I know China is huge and I'd suspect there's large variations in cuisines there as well. While living abroad, one of my friends married a Chinese woman who taught my wife to make dumplings, along with a bunch of other stuff she never made again, but the dumplings were quite good. That's my only exposure to authentic Chinese. I do like Korean quite a bit, Kim-chee is awesome and I buy jars from a local Asian market fairly often. I've never had real Japanese.

[modrecoil]

Eastern European (Ashkenazi) food.

Gefilte fish comes to mind...defenders of the faith notwithstanding. On the whole, give me Sephardic (Mediterranean) cuisine. I guess with all the wandering, cooking classes were an afterthought.

That said, there is good stuff, mostly base around potatoes or noodles.

This is right. I have my sentimental favorites (varenyiki, borsch, pelmeni, dry sausages, some types of pirogis) but on the whole, it's unremarkable, bland food. I liked it more as a kid with no point of reference but it doesn't compare well to other world cuisines.