Poll - best food by country/ethnic group

[warpus]

I like wine, but it's not refreshing

 

[AdrienIer]

Loire Valley reds can be served at 12°C but southern Italy is not the best place to drink Loire valley wines. My suggestion would be some kind of Prosecco, served cold.

 

[warpus]

Yeah but it's still not refreshing. You can take a swig of beer on a hot summer's day and go "Ahhhh".

Wine has to be sipped slowly and savoured and isn't designed to be refreshing. It compliments the food much better but it doesn't make you say "Ahhh" while your thirst is quenched

 

[Akka]

Both wine and beer are disgusting. Alcohol, bleuargh.

 

[Perfection]

 

[Gori the Grey]

For all that, I'm going to buy stock in Olive Garden. In my area, there is one located about 50 meters north of a major intersection that I pass through maybe two, three times a week.

So I've just been freed from the light and I'm starting to pick up speed and almost invariably the car in front of me slows down to make the turn into Olive Garden and I have to brake.

Doesn't matter time of day. Defies all probability to be accounted for as some fluke. I've drawn the conclusion that everybody eats at Olive Garden.

 

[warpus]

I ate there 15 years ago or something like that and all I remember is free unlimited salad and bread and maybe soup.

The pasta was ok, but I can't really remember much. I don't remember any olives at all, nor a garden

 

[metalhead]

A few years back some hedge fund people wrote an EPIC 294 page report basically taking down every aspect of Olive Garden's operations.

Key takeaways include NOT SALTING THE WATER THEY COOK PASTA IN. A bigger and more absurd culinary blunder I cannot fathom. I'm guessing they fixed most of these issues because they appear to be more profitable than ever, but that confirms I made the right decision in never eating there. And I'm not even anti-chain restaurant. Some give you decent food and drink at a really good value (Cheddar's), some just give you really really good food (Bonefish Grill). Many are crap, but such is life.

Wine has to be sipped slowly and savoured and isn't designed to be refreshing. It compliments the food much better but it doesn't make you say "Ahhh" while your thirst is quenched

You need to widen your beer horizons, my friend

 

[civvver]

I ate there 15 years ago or something like that and all I remember is free unlimited salad and bread and maybe soup.

The pasta was ok, but I can't really remember much. I don't remember any olives at all, nor a garden

Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's downright awful. The bread is extremely overrated. It's mediocre at best even pipping hot out of the oven. It's just like a stick of white bread with no chew or flavor and no crust. Fresh bread should have some crunch unless it's like yeast rolls. I'd much rather have carabbas, another italian chain though a smaller and much better one. They serve small crusty loaves of fresh bread.

The food, sometimes it tastes gummy and gross, their red sauces are very bland. What I usually get is shrimp scampi over pasta. It's not bad, white wine garlic butter sauce with shrimp.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

So, what's the different between American pizza, NY pizza and just pizza ?
I've had slices from Pizza Hut in Germany. Is this greasy mediocrity representative ?

 

[warpus]

Pizza Hut is a chain and so average at best. The best pizza places (in North America) aren't chains

 

[Lemon Merchant]

The best pizza in North America is from little Italian restaurants where mama does the cooking. If they serve pizza there at all. Some places don't.

 

[PhroX]

The best pizza in North America is from little Italian restaurants where mama does the cooking. If they serve pizza there at all. Some places don't.

That doesn't just apply to North America - it's the same here in the UK. The big delivery chains (Pizza Hut [they have restaurants too but who the hell would go out for a Pizza Hut pizza?], Dominos etc) are pretty crap to the extent I'd rather just get a frozen pizza from the supermarket - it's no worse and about a fifth of the price - the somewhat proper Italian restaurant chains (Strada etc). along with Pizza Express do reasonable pizzas, but to get a really good one, you need to find a little independent Italian place somewhere. The best I've found in this country is a restaurant in Richmond called Pizza Rustica.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

For all that, I'm going to buy stock in Olive Garden.

Why? Just buy a chicken carcass and make that stock yourself :^)

The best pizza in North America is from little Italian restaurants where mama does the cooking. If they serve pizza there at all. Some places don't.

Disagreed. Nonna should do the Pasta dishes while the slightly overweight, slightly balding Italian daddy should do the Pizza dough with his overly hairy hands. That is the only way to have authentic Pizza.

Can't fathom Americans eat their Pizza without hair in it..Barbarians..

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Can't fathom Americans eat their Pizza without hair in it..Barbarians..

Does it count if it's cat hair and the cat is Canadian?

(not that I deliberately serve food with cat hair in it, but it's a fact of life for people who are owned by cats)

 

[civvver]

So, what's the different between American pizza, NY pizza and just pizza ?
I've had slices from Pizza Hut in Germany. Is this greasy mediocrity representative ?

Well the first thing I'd say is in my experience fast food type restaurants in other countries don't replicate the american taste as well.

Also there's a huge variance in quality of food at many restaurants. Like one day my fries at mcdonald's are piping hot and delicious, another day they taste like they were made yesterday. And this is at the same restaurant. It's very frustrating.

That said I don't mind generic carry out pizza. Pizza hut's deep dish is too greasy and kind of bland but their hand tossed crust is not bad. Same with dominos. They both changed their crusts in the past couple years to add some garlic butter flavor spread on it and it's good. Little caesars or pizza! pizza! in some countries is not good. It's super cheap and taste very bland. It's like what old dominos in the 90s tasted like. Papa johns is kind of in between, good pizza but the crust is bland.

Anyway, ny pizza vs american vs traditional italian are all just varieties. American pizza is like topped with meat usually and shredded mozzerella covering the whole thing plus a lot of red sauce and usually a crust that has risen a bit. Like this

Spoiler :

Compare that to italian style which will have a thinner, crunchier crust but not thin crust cracker crunchy, it will have way less sauce, sometimes no red sauce, it will often have olive oil instead or oil as a finisher on the pizza, and fresh mozzerella but not covered in cheese, maybe some fresh herbs. This is what italian style looks like in america. I don't know how truly authentic it is though.

Spoiler :

Ny style pizza is basically the same as other american pizza except it's thinner and bigger so a lot of people fold it over like a sandwich.

Spoiler :

Other prominent styles are chicago, which is like a calzone almost. It's a really deep bready crust and usually layered crust, cheese, toppings, sauce on top. You eat it with a fork like a cassarole.

Spoiler :

Detroit style is like a deep dish style square pizza. It's basically like regular pizza in terms of toppings and sauce but on a thick crust baked in a pan so the edges get crispy. Some people would just call this pan pizza or deep dish, but it's distinctly square.

Spoiler :

 

[yung.carl.jung]

That said I don't mind generic carry out pizza. Pizza hut's deep dish is too greasy and kind of bland but their hand tossed crust is not bad. Same with dominos. They both changed their crusts in the past couple years to add some garlic butter flavor spread on it and it's good. Little caesars or pizza! pizza! in some countries is not good. It's super cheap and taste very bland. It's like what old dominos in the 90s tasted like. Papa johns is kind of in between, good pizza but the crust is bland.

I've tried both Pizza Hut and Dominoes in multiple countries spanning three continents and it was always complete garbage. Yes, maybe it's different hues of garbage, but it's still not food I would ever spend my money on ever. A supermarkt Pizza done on a Pizza stone with additional ingredients will always be twice as good (yet still not really "good" for Pizza standards). Otherwise though I 100% agree with your assessment of American chain restaurants, very spot on. For me it is Dominoes > Pizza Hut = Papa Johns > Little Caesars.

Just if anyone is curious why I ate at those restaurants even though I think they're terrible, it was always a social get-together and I'm only a snob about food if the company is right. I never really complain unless I'm going out with my food-crazy friends and even then it is all in good fun.

 

[warpus]

I had some pretty good pizza at random middle-eastern ran places in Norway. For some reason a lot of the pizza places there are operated by Turkish people and/or people from the middle east or wherever. Most of the pizza places I was at were pizza/kebab places. Anyway, it was never amazing, but it was a bit different than what I am used to. Most of the time the pizza rated as "pretty good" on my pizza scale, or better.

My favourite part was that they always offered you "dressing". Stuff you put on your pizza after it comes out of the oven. The first time I was asked this I was like "what?". But then I asked what they recommend and they brought out my pizza with Bearnaise sauce. I put that &*$!$! all over my pizza and it was delicious. I wish we did that here in North America.

I tend to get bored of eating the same pizza over and over, so I enjoyed my exploration of Norwegian pizza offerings. For the same reason I don't mind occasional pizza hut. Their crust is unique, and it's all super greasy, but every once in a while I don't mind it.

When we immigrated to Canada and our sponsor family was taking us around showing us the city and what Canada has to offer, after about 2 weeks of this they asked me what I thought of Canada overall. My first impression.

Almost word for word this is what I said: "Canadians sure seem to love pizza"

I saw a pizza place at almost every corner. So I assumed it was the national dish or something.

 

[metalhead]

I'm assuming then it's like the U.S. - one of the first 2 or 3 businesses a town is "big enough" to support is almost always a pizzeria.

 

[W|M]

Condiments are great on pizza, especially ketchup

Spoiler Here's me with a slice of shrimp and garlic pizza with ketchup on top from a local bar/restaurant :