Ethnic foods in general

[Claire]

I was recently at a luncheon with my exercise buddies, and a woman asked me what I most miss about big-city, or suburban living, since I've chosen to live in this quite small town. I replied Food. We no longer even have a Chinese restaurant. My husband braggs that I can do better than any restaurant in town, but gee, I miss little ethnic places that you get in more urban areas.

 

[GB]

That would be a hard thing for me to give up Clair. That is one reason i will probably always live somewhere that is not off the beaten path.

 

[TATTRAT]

I love the diversity of cuisine in D.C., but I miss the more Pacific influenced cuisine from living on O'ahu. I don't think I could go with out ANY ethnic food, almost every night of the week we are eating something different.

 

[quicksilver]

I agree, Claire. I don't exactly live in Podunk, though, but on the outskirts of a very large county. And in county, most places are national chain cardboard eateries.

 

[BreezyCooking]

When we first moved to Culpeper, VA, 11 years ago, I sincerely bemoaned the lack of interesting local dining. Luckily, that's no longer the case as apparently I wasn't alone! We now have several decent Chinese, Japanese (one that's excellent), Italian, Mexican, & Thai restaurants, along with several truly above-board high-end European-bistro-type restaurants. Right now the only "mainstream" ethnic restaurant we're missing is Indian fare, & I'm sure that will come along some time in the future.

 

[ChefJune]

Breezy, I was in your neck of the woods a couple of Novembers ago cooking for a benefit, and we drove by a number of interesting looking ethnic indies in and around Culpeper. (We were intrigued by the lack of a third "p" in Culpeper. )

I too would miss the ethnic eateries that living in a large city provide. I would also not like having chain restaurants be my only dining-out option!

 

[waaza]

I'm smiling at the term ethnic in this context.

In India, they have McDonald's, but have changed all the crappy burgers etc. for better tasting local variants. Obviously, they can't stand the 'ethnic' offerings from the US of A!

 

[David Cottrell]

I was recently at a luncheon with my exercise buddies, and a woman asked me what I most miss about big-city, or suburban living, since I've chosen to live in this quite small town. I replied Food. We no longer even have a Chinese restaurant. My husband braggs that I can do better than any restaurant in town, but gee, I miss little ethnic places that you get in more urban areas.

Whas ethnic mean?

 

[Claire]

gee, tattrat, were we each other in previous lives? When I refer to these foods, DC and Oahu are exactly the places I'm thinking of. When I left Hawaii I had dreams of the potlucks we had! By the way, when I lived in Hawaii, you could get Portuguese sausage with your breakfast and saimin for lunch at McDonalds.

 

[expatgirl]

first thing I do when I land in Houston is that my family takes me to the nearest hole in the wall Mexican food place..........I have a swimming pool margarita and indulge.......Houston is not known for the fattest city in the US for anything.....you can find ANY kind of cuisine here.......and I mean anything........how they're going to weather the economic slowdown.......hmmmm, I just hope and pray that they can hang on until things turn around........

 

[BreezyCooking]

Whas ethnic mean?

David - to me, "ethnic" in terms of food is basically food that is outside of one's own culture. In other words, food that's indigenous to countries other than the U.S. Now if I were an Indian living in India, than certain types of cuisine that are considered basic to the U.S. (southern-fried chicken perhaps) might be considered "ethnic" to me, while in the U.S., it's Indian cuisine that I consider "ethnic".

I know that's probably not an "official" definition, just how I think of it.

 

[Max Sutton]

Grass Valley, CA

I'm so lucky to live in a Gold-Rush town of 13,000 called Grass Valley, California. We are a one-hour drive from Sacramento. However, we have Indian, Thai, Japanese, Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Latin American, and Swiss restaurants here.

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 32 years before I moved here to the northern Sierra Nevada foothills. I dined at numerous ethnic restaurants there.

 

[Constance]

I live in village (pop. 716) across the interstate from a small town (pop 6880), and while most of our restaurants are chains, we do have a great Chinese restaurant and several mom & pop places with good every day fare. There's also a really good steak house here.
But 30 miles down the road, in Marion, are several good places to eat, including a great Italian restaurant and an Asian place, and if you drive a few more miles to Carbondale, a university town, there are all sorts of Ethnic restaurants.

Do I regret not living in a more urban place? Not at all. I'm just not a city person.

 

[Andy M.]

I'm smiling at the term ethnic in this context.

In India, they have McDonald's, but have changed all the crappy burgers etc. for better tasting local variants. Obviously, they can't stand the 'ethnic' offerings from the US of A!

I'd guess they don't use beef for the burgers.

 

[waaza]

I'd guess they don't use beef for the burgers.

Andy,
they don't do burgers at all, because they have their own versions, a huge variety of fried kebabs. You are correct about the beef, only found in Kerala, everywhere else it's buffalo (and the 'mutton' is mostly goat).

Having said all that, there are many Indian dishes that have been adapted from other ethnic cultures, as have most cuisines, I'm sure.

 

[luvs]

'ol pittsburgh is great fer thier food. not an overwhelming city; city, though.

 

[Claire]

Heck, I'll even call tourtiere ethnic, and it is my family. I guess what I mean by ethnic is a food that is prepared and eaten by one culture. Something you don't get at a chain restaurant in CONUS, or if you do it is really dumbed down. one of my favorite places in Daytona was a owned and cooked by a
Czech man and his Polish wife. Yum yummmy. Then there was the Thai restaurant. And there was ... well, you get the picture. Here, in small town IL, though, it can be scarce. When we hit Chicago (every decade or so) or the QC or even Dubuque, ethnic is what we go for. For our 25th anniversary we found a pet-sitter and ate tapas and Thai. People always think we'll want to go to whatever is trendy. No, I don't want to eat what ever fusion or fashion or latest fad is. I want these mom & pop places. Also grocery stores.

 

[larry_stewart]

Having lived in both philly and new york , Ive never had the shortage of ethnic foods. One of my best ethnic food experiences was when we visited DC and ate in Georgetown. Seemed to be so much variety there. First time I evr had ethiopian food. When I plan my weekly menu here, I try to have a different cuisine each night ( Im typing this as im eating Thai soup for breakfast and preparing Aloo gobi for tonight.

 

[BrazenAmateur]

I love the diversity of cuisine in D.C., but I miss the more Pacific influenced cuisine from living on O'ahu.

GO AHEAD, RUB IT IN!



Anyway, yeah, I'm in DC also and I cannot imagine living somewhere with no ethnic restaurants or markets. I'd go absolutely nuts.

Hell, I live WAY out in the suburbs in a little community, so not where you'd normally expect to find tons of quality ethnic food, and I'm literally within a 5-minute walk to the following:


-Mediterranean/Greek (best little fried anchovies)
-French (good casual workingman's french too, best kind)
-Columbian (Chicharron!)
-Peruvian
-Indian
-Middle Eastern
-Chinese (Sichuan)
-THREE sushi spots (only one of which is worth going to, lol)
-Vietnamese/Pho
-Moroccan
-Thai (It's called "Thaitanium", lol.)
-Mexican (they have beef tongue tacos. I love this place)


Then there are some "American" spots too, 5 or 6.

This doesn't include the 3 top-notch Korean markets and innumerable small Latin and other markets within a 10 minute drive.

I cannot survive more than a day or two without kimchi, lol.

 

[suziquzie]

Honestly, I don't even LIKE to eat out that much.... I'd rather peruse the 'net and find something to make myself.... there's something to me about the "joy of cooking"...

But when I do want something, although I live in podunk, we're only 45 min (I dont find that very very far, even having grown up a city kid) from the "cities" with a HUGE mix of everything.... lots and lots of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Hispanic population here with plenty of restaurants.... and shops to boot. So I can either choose to eat out, or find the ingredients to make it myself.
Best of both worlds, no neighbors, plenty of food!!!!