Ask Lemmy

I had pretty good baguette in London.

Look at this Scotch egg! Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Do döner kebabs in Austria count as a Turkish food?

NYC is cheating

I had a blintz in Bali.

I had an excellent home-made lasagne in a restaurant in Gent, Belgium.

I moved to New Zealand six months ago, and I have had exactly one truly bad meal since I've been here. I haven't eaten any Maori food, so I guess all the food I've eaten has been from another country.

The one that surprised me the most was KFC. We moved from one state away from Kentucky, and we had to come here to have truly good KFC.

I was expecting the Chinese food to be good here, but it's really good. So is the Korean, Indian, and Malaysian food. The fish and chips are good. The burgers are great, even from McDonald's. The absolute best was Filipino food from a tiny little restaurant in a random strip mall near Sylvia Park. That food changed my life.

In fairness, I have had a couple of "fine" meals—as in, "well, nothing special, but it was fine."

The one bad meal was Pad Thai made by Thai people at a Thai restaurant down by the beach. It was just way too sweet, which makes me wonder if they saw me and made it "for a white guy" or something.

Indian food in the UK. I don't think this will surprise anyone, though.

puerto rico is not really a country, but it did have the absolute best hummus pizza I've ever had. the food there in general was top notch.

Vietnam has amazing French food. Especially top tier baked good like croissants. Up there with the best in Paris.

I had some really good Chinese takeaway noodles in Athens. Bonus: 500mL Heineken’s were a €1.50.

I had something in Germany they told me was from Austria that was just ham steaks with eggs and potatoes in an incredible red sauce.

I don't remember what it was called, nor where it actually originated from. But fuck, I wish I knew what that sauce was because the rest of it was super simple and something I can get easy at home. It's not the same without the sauce, tho. It wasn't spicy, it wasn't BBQ and it wasn't ketchup. It was just pure deliciousness.

Does doner kebab in England count?

Had the most amazing burger in Japan. I'm not sure what they put in their food, but EVERYTHING there tastes amazing.

Had the best Indian food, in Australia.

I had amazing ramen in Estonia. It was run by a Japanese lady though so I'm not sure that counts.

Sushi in Singapore, and Indian food (Tikka Fahl, iirc) in Czech Republic

Went to an Italian-irish-indian restaurant in a small town on the Shannon. I think it was just the restaurant family that normally ate the Indian food, but they let us order it and it was great.

We loooooooove gelato in Italy. It is magical to my husband and me.

We have tried to find an acceptable substitute in the US, but nothing is "right". I don't know if it's the geographical influence on the taste of our dairy, or USDA standards for keeping ice cream a bit too cold. We haven't found a place here that's advertising "gelato" that gets anywhere close to the experience of gelato in Italy.

But we randomly stopped at a gelateria in Akhihabara, Tokyo. Low expectations, but we wanted a snack. And that was hands down the best gelato we've ever had outside Italy. 5 stars.

Oh, I have A Story.

I studied abroad for a year in Fukuoka, Japan (beautiful city, off the beaten path for foreigners), and the options where I was were pretty limited in terms of foreign restaurants. However, at some point, us international students discovered this little Turkish shawarma place hidden away somewhere, and it was absolutely delicious, very filling (in a way Japanese food generally isn't), affordable, and unlike any of the other options. The word spread quickly through the I-house, and many of us became regulars (although it seemed mostly ignored by the locals). We were there so often we got to know the owner, who spoke English, he was ethnically Turkish, but had actually come from Germany and decided to move to Japan and open a restaurant. Over several months while we were there, we watched the place get noticably nicer, more decor, the guy started importing Turkish rugs to sell out front, etc.

Unfortunately, as our second semester came to a close, we went there one last time to say goodbye to the owner and his delicious shawarma. He said like, "Damn, you're leaving? I don't know what I'm going to do." I'm pretty sure we were almost single-handedly keeping his business going, and it would take several months for the next exchange students to arrive and no guarantee they'd find the place or fall in love with it like we did. We didn't really have a way of leaving a message for that next group, to say, "Hey, check out this shawarma place," and I never did find out if the business survived us leaving.

Funny enough, this was how I learned what shawarma was, just before the first Avengers movie came out (dating myself here).

Curry with nan in Japan

I had one of the best seafood alfredo pasta dishes of my life in Cambodia. Just a random place down the street from our hotel in Siem Reab and I happened to see someone else order it or I'd have gotten another likely amazing plate of Nasi Goreng.

I also had insanely good sushi in Istanbul. Idk if this one really counts because I went with a local friend from university who showed us around, but I was still surprised since it wasn't a super pricey or ritzy kind of place and had a lot of locals working alongside some Japanese chefs.

Namaste in Niamey, Niger has the best Indian food I've ever had, bar none.

I had an AMAZING ramen bowl in NY, I think the name of the restaurant is Ivan ramen, it was the best food I've ever had, not just the best ramen ever, I highly recommend it if you find yourself in NY, hopefully when the orange in power is no longer in power

The best pupusas I've ever had were not in El Salvador, but rather a little shop in Toronto (now closed, RIP).

I've had excellent Thai food in the US.

I've also had pretty bad Thai food too. 😔

https://www.oregonlive.com/topic/typhoon%20discrimination%20case/index.html

dang that vietnamese chili shrimp i shared in travel from osaka is probably right up there.

i have not had as good pizza in italy as i have had in several countries, but I prefer a strong, thick tomato sauce, which is very light in Italian pizzas that I've had, although the Italian fired crust is consistently better.

i prefer indian momos to chinese jianjiao: less oily, more consistently flavorful and healthy.

Where are sandwiches from!?! Because I don't know if I've ever enjoyed a sandwich as much as I enjoyed the Colombian barbecue chicken patacones that use plantains as bread. holy crap that is good and enough food for three days.

The Japanese have perfected the cheese cake, way more decadent without losing any of the flavor.

oh dang though, you know what, a Venezuelan living in Colombia made the best sushi I've ever had, and the best salmon belly sashimi I've ever had.

Brasil everything, pizza, hamburgers, sushi, pasta. They add their own style to international food and it's awesome.