I’m not one to go to mega tourist hubs when I travel tbh. I see and talk to what mostly seem to be people who live there. I’m not really buying that the process of eating is similar in many places in the US to the rest of the world. Most people in the US don’t live in mixed use areas as near as I can tell. Whereas it is the norm elsewhere.
And yes a lot of this is getting skewed by where I live and how I grew up. The vast majority of my family travels around the US and then eats at the same chain garbage they do at home. I assume lots of people must be doing it because those types of places all look full around the country.
ok? this is some goalpost shifting. You can live in a city center if you want, even if other people dont, just as you can eat at chilis or not, regardless of whether it’s the “norm” or not. anyway, good luck dying on this extremely weird hill.
Kansas City used to be good BBQ and some decent Mexican and Italian, and crap with everything else. Now it’s a town full of foodies if you know where to look.
Fair enough. I’m also weird in the sense that I travel 4 months or so out of the year out of the US and largely do so to wander around eating and drinking. It’s something I love doing. People always ask what I did expecting to hear the big boxes like the Eiffel Tower getting checked off and then look at me bizarrely when it isn’t that. Then I come home and sit in my house for 8 months of the year largely cooking all my own food which I also enjoy.
There are places in the US you can do the same thing though. You guys are right about that. So in a way I agree that part of my take is about my own experiences. I do think an overwhelming amount of Americans live like my family does though. And it’s really a shame. I went to Florida with my in laws recently and my FIL had never had fish, crab or oysters. It made me wonder how something like that is even possible. They live maybe 20 minutes outside of Wichita and will drive in to go out to eat all the time.
Haven’t tried the Biryani yet but the Tikka and the Butter Chicken are excellent if you want something really quick and simple. Don’t know if you can get them in Canada tho.
I have my own law practice and another lawyer in my office who can cover things for me if needed although I do have to work some when I’m gone. I practice in Federal court only and my home district decided after Covid not to go back to in person hearings for routine stuff so I can also do hearings over the phone while gone. I have 4 of them on my current trip. So really I can do almost everything while gone as if i was in office. Prior to Covid it was a bit trickier.
That’s also part of why I can’t leave OKC or the US permanently very easily. The law license doesn’t travel out of the US and I would have to find a job or restart my business from scratch elsewhere in the US. Neither are that appealing.
My hot take is that all food is good food and that having access to variety is more important than having access to high end stuff. Against that metric most usa cities are just fine.
this is an insane take. i don’t know about kansas, but virtually anywhere else you could up your restaurant game with a little effort. except indiana, that was a wasteland when i spent 3 weeks there.
I’ll admit it was partially hyperbole and partially referring to land area more than population area which was a mistake. Obviously more than half the country lives in a place with lots of good food options. I think you could also easily argue that the major US cities have better overall food scenes than the ROW major cities on average. Where that breaks down for me is after that. I would not agree that small-mid sized cities in the US would beat their similar sized ROW cities. At least not for me.
And you know what liking Olive Garden is fine. There is nothing wrong with it. It tastes fine and is relatively cheap. I do think part of my point is getting conflated with fine dining when actually I think it’s kind of the opposite. At least from what I can find there are better cheap eat options elsewhere than the US. Give me a piece of meat on a stick out of a food cart or a random kebab or a bowl of street noodles on a walkabout any day.
After thinking about my original take (which was made with the help of wine, all the best takes come out of a bottle) I think my frustration is just with Americans rather than the “food scene” per se. The reason that Chili’s and the like disgusts me isn’t that they exist. It’s that people in the US choose those over what would likely be better options and that’s why they exist. On the islands of Greece for example my wife and I commented that there were actually ZERO American chains that we saw and what appeared to be very few or no greek chains either. Normally you will at least see a stray KFC or Burger King or whatever. I mean maybe there is a law against it but more likely they don’t exist because the demand doesn’t exist for them. So if you look at your options in a major US city vs. a Wichita, KS the options are different why exactly? I would imagine demand.
The rest of my take is mostly poor city planning stuff I am sure we mostly/all agree on. I mean who doesn’t love stumbling home after a night of drinking and getting a random assortment of takeaway from some random hole in the wall. Having uber eats delivered or having your uber driver drive you through somewhere just isn’t the same thing.