Worst offender in my experience: the Dutch. I actually think their way of “seasoning” is to actively remove any natural flavour from the ingredients. They have the best Indonesian food outside South-East Asia though. Also, the Nordic Countries do a lot of things right, food is not one of them.
Also every “Mexican” food dish I’ve had in Europe has just been bad. Y’all are doing it wrong.
Yes, I read that a lot from Americans. I don’t think Europeans care much for Mexican food because there’s mostly no cultural connection to Mexico and no Mexican immigrants (Spain might be an exception). The rare Mexican restaurants you’ll find in Europe are there for the American soldiers stationed here. Basically, when in Europe, go for Arab, Asian, or African food if you don’t like the local food.
I had some pretty terrible Thai in Poland, so it’s definitely not uniquely Mexican food 🙂 That’s just one that I’ve had a few more encounters with that was more consistently bad.
Fair point about the cultural influence; it’s probably less cultural influence than number of immigrants (and the US definitely has a lot of immigrants from asia and Mexico). I live in Ohio, so I’m fairly far from the border, but the Mexican food still ranges from “pretty good” to “fantastic.”
Meanwhile finding like good French, German, or Belgian cooking, even in areas with historic immigration from those areas in decades or centuries past is quite difficult.
Even more traditional “early European American immigrant” food (like chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, mush, turkey, roast beef sandwiches, etc) can feel endangered outside of Amish country, family kitchens, and large chain restaurants that do it badly.
Worst offender in my experience: the Dutch. I actually think their way of “seasoning” is to actively remove any natural flavour from the ingredients. They have the best Indonesian food outside South-East Asia though. Also, the Nordic Countries do a lot of things right, food is not one of them.
Yes, I read that a lot from Americans. I don’t think Europeans care much for Mexican food because there’s mostly no cultural connection to Mexico and no Mexican immigrants (Spain might be an exception). The rare Mexican restaurants you’ll find in Europe are there for the American soldiers stationed here. Basically, when in Europe, go for Arab, Asian, or African food if you don’t like the local food.
I had some pretty terrible Thai in Poland, so it’s definitely not uniquely Mexican food 🙂 That’s just one that I’ve had a few more encounters with that was more consistently bad.
Fair point about the cultural influence; it’s probably less cultural influence than number of immigrants (and the US definitely has a lot of immigrants from asia and Mexico). I live in Ohio, so I’m fairly far from the border, but the Mexican food still ranges from “pretty good” to “fantastic.”
Meanwhile finding like good French, German, or Belgian cooking, even in areas with historic immigration from those areas in decades or centuries past is quite difficult.
Even more traditional “early European American immigrant” food (like chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, mush, turkey, roast beef sandwiches, etc) can feel endangered outside of Amish country, family kitchens, and large chain restaurants that do it badly.
Yeah, the number of mexicans or mexican restaurants in Europe is very low, so each one doesn’t have much competition to incentivise improving.