item 1. WORLD CUISINE WORLD CUP.

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Yeah, Georgian, Armenian, proably Uzbeki or whatever - all great. Russian food itself is awful, tho. I spent a year there as a student and mainly ate in McDonalds cos evertyhing else was so greay and bland. Also McDonald's had clean toilets.

Ah ok, you know way better than me then! Which city did you live in?

On another note, a friend of mine surprised me by saying that he experienced very little racism in Russia (his heritage is East African Indian and Congolese) - I guess I'd just assumed the racism would be endemic.

Not had Armenian. There's a Kazakh restaurant in Camberwell btw, if you dind't know.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
In lebanon - stuff liek in leb restaurants in london, but i'v ehad better in west london to be honest. syrian similar, but more fruit (or so i found anyway), and slightly better, but that's only a selection of restaurnats anyways. i'll bet the home cooking is awesome.
That's always kind of the problem with food match-offs, though, isn't it - what are you actually comparing? Eg if you talk about france, are you talking about michelin starred haute cuisine, idealized french farmhouse cooking, actual normal french home cooking that most people do on a daily basis (ISTR some famous chef complaining that the majority of french housewives would benefit greatly from a copy of Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking...), day-to-day cheap restaurant food, or what?

I mean, france is a bad example because they do quite well at most of these things, but places like Britain, Turkey, China, Russia etc are quite mixed. I'd rate good British cooking as being among the best in the world insofar as it does simple but almost perfect combinations of an amazing variety really excellent ingredients - but to get that you either have to be rich or to live somewhere with just the right shops and put in the time and effort to do it youself, and apart from comparatively recent immigrants, Britain as a whole has a fairly shit national food culture.
 
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Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
The omission of South American countries here is foolish, no less because we are employing a world cup analogy
 

BareBones

wheezy
SHIT yeah i forgot how much i love mexican food. not that that's south america but you know. Ok Mexico have ran onto the pitch uninvited and scored a controversial late winner against India and Thailand to claim third place.
 

routes

we can delay.ay.ay...
fuck Spanish food is good actually. i made a chicken, chorizo, butter bean and red pepper stew last night, with some rice. was pretty Moorish.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
fuck Spanish food is good actually. i made a chicken, chorizo, butter bean and red pepper stew last night, with some rice. was pretty Moorish.

mmm, looking forward to going on an exclusively Spanish diet when I move to Granada later this year. Proper Tapas too. Gonna take a while to get used to eating so late though.
 

hucks

Your Message Here
mmm, looking forward to going on an exclusively Spanish diet when I move to Granada later this year. Proper Tapas too. Gonna take a while to get used to eating so late though.

TAPAS IS FUCKING FREE IN GRANADA! FREE! IT IS THE GREATEST CITY ON EARTH!
 

routes

we can delay.ay.ay...
yeah it's dangerous.... you end up getting a beer if you feel a bit hungry

the best thing is the proper places where you get a different tapa for each drink and they get better each time. so you start with a bowl of olives or some tortilla or a bit of cheese on bread ... by the time you get to your 7th caña you're getting a nice bit of stew or a meatball or whatever.
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
I thought about this for a very long time and could only come to the conclusion that there is really nothing prepared well that i wouldn't love....
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
im not sure greece gets to be part of the levant does it? feta cheese is nice tho....
always thought greece was fairly different, and worse actually.... whats moussaka? ive never eaten it but i hate the name. it sounds disgusting. yuck. ouzo, fucking disgusting, always someone would have to steal it from their parent liqour cabinet. is that greek?? i hate it.

Ouzo is minging but does 'cuisine' include drink? In that case you'd have to rate England and Belgium pretty high for the beer alone...and ouzo's probably no worse than various kinds of aniseed-flavoured filth you find everywhere. I like Greek food, it's tasty and hearty without being pretentious (which French can suffer from, obviously). Turkish is brilliant too, maybe suffers too much from association with doner kebabs in this country, however (even though they're from Berlin originally).

Moussaka is delicious BTW but is made with lamb.

Mexican, anyone? I guess most UK people (inc. me) have not had much exposure to really good Mexican food, but even just fajitas can be amazing when done properly.

Can't fault luka on placing Indian and Thai so highly, just so much good stuff.
 
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luka

Well-known member
why is mexican the only food that apparently cant be replicatd in another country? it seems like a lame excuse to me. if every mexcian food outlet in the world is shit outside of mexico then i feel entitled to draw some conclusions.
 

luka

Well-known member
french cooks think its a matter of personal honour to snub vegeetarians which is their pergotive i suppose but i have to ratee france just on cheese alone. one village probably produces more varities of cheese than the entire british isles. (and britain is no cheese slouch) ive never eaten anything nice in spain or from spain. im sure their pigs are great and everything though.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
french cooks think its a matter of personal honour to snub vegeetarians which is their pergotive i suppose but i have to ratee france just on cheese alone. one village probably produces more varities of cheese than the entire british isles. (and britain is no cheese slouch) ive never eaten anything nice in spain or from spain. im sure their pigs are great and everything though.
Spain for fresh fish and smoked paprika if nothing else. But asking a vegetarian about mediterranean food is like asking a deaf person about their favourite singer.

France is surprising alright for veggies (based on having been with my girlfriend) in that even in normal budget restaurants you say at least say 'can you do that but without the bacon' or 'can you make me an omlette instead' the answer is normally yes. Unlike eg the UK where if it isn't in the freezer to reheat they can't do it. A friend of mine once ordered sausage and mash in a pub and they came back and said "we're out of mash, do you want boiled potatoes instead?"

Questions:
Why are people going for Italy over France and Spain? (I wouldn't.)
Why is vietnam the top SE asian choice? (I don't know.)
What is so good about mexican food? (I don't know.)
 

luka

Well-known member
thai is better than vietnamese, but there are a lot of cheap and good viet places on kingsland rd that 80% of dissensus users have been to whereas thai in the uk is generally overpriced or fairly uninteresting or both. also invariably blanded out for our wussy palates. i rate italy very highly as it is the bst euro country for veggies. the best place i evere ate in france was a vegetarian italian place in nice.
 
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luka

Well-known member
http://www.lazuccamagica.com/

one of the best meals ive evere eaten. my dad is quite serious about food. he go up to chef de partie level which is not gordon ramsey but is defineitly compotent. i certainly ate better than any of my friends and resturaints were one of thee most important things about going abroad. im not a great cook myself but i think i have a fairly good palate.
 
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