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What types of authentic ethnic foods are in your city? Which ones have you tried? Love? Hate? Which types are really prevalent in your city, or unique? In addition, what are the best restaurants in your area?
When I was in DC, I saw a lot of Central/South American restaurants, which I thought was unique. I don't think we have that here; in Pittsburgh, we have the following authentic cuisine:
Ethiopian, Lebanese, Chinese, Italian, Indian, French, German, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, Mexican, Japanese/Sushi, Polish, Scottish, Korean, Turkish, Vietnamese, Thai, and some excellent fresh fish markets.
I enjoyed most of these, but I must say that I really don't have much of a taste for Thai or Indian. What do you guys think?
well Around here...
we have Nepalese (from Nepal) food...haha...
We have decent Chinese (in specific areas..not Panda express), Vietnamese (big time), Mexican (MEXICAN not Tex-mex...you have to know where to go...like my house ), Greek is here but not too strong, we have quite a few Mediterranean places (which are sort of like Greek), Thai is pretty strong and can be authentic, Korean (Big time too...only in Korean Town though), Italian (so-so...a few authentic one here and there. A couple of them, the waiters actually speak Italian...it's a family owned restaurant), I think there is are a few African restaurants here and there, we a lot of Indian restaurants too as we have a HUGE Indian population, Out Japanese is ok...really sort of sucks...it hard to find good Japanese ANYWHERE in the US, we have some German, and French, Spanish too (but it's like integrated with the Mexican as Both Mexico and Spain share similar dishes), I have only seem a couple of Brazilian places, and a few Filipinos ones, Polish I've never seen (anywhere in the US, not in Detroit, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Jacksonville, San Antonio, El Paso, Phoenix, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baton Rouge, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, or Chicago(They probably have some there though) )
You'll probably get this thread moved, my food thread did...
Tons of various South American food (all countries represented including some of the ones you haven't heard of), Cuban food, Spanish/Tapas, authentic Italian, NY style Italian, Jamaican/West Indian foods, all kinds of European foods, eastern and western, Romanian, Polish, all different kinds, NY style Jewish deli food, Israeli style Jewish food, Turkish and other middle eastern specialties, Greek baked goods, but Asian cuisine is generally lacking...save a few good Korean and Thai spots. Not really much authentic Mexican food either but it's available. Pretty much anything is available well done actually...except that I can't think of an Ethiopian or West African restaurants anywhere, and also there are certain Asian foods that you can't really find.
It's hard to pinpoint a dominant cuisine because there really isn't one. It's basically an area of transplants from all over.
Last edited by compelled to reply; 03-07-2008 at 02:40 PM..
well Around here...
we have Nepalese (from Nepal) food...haha...
We have decent Chinese (in specific areas..not Panda express), Vietnamese (big time), Mexican (MEXICAN not Tex-mex...you have to know where to go...like my house ), Greek is here but not too strong, we have quite a few Mediterranean places (which are sort of like Greek), Thai is pretty strong and can be authentic, Korean (Big time too...only in Korean Town though), Italian (so-so...a few authentic one here and there. A couple of them, the waiters actually speak Italian...it's a family owned restaurant), I think there is are a few African restaurants here and there, we a lot of Indian restaurants too as we have a HUGE Indian population, Out Japanese is ok...really sort of sucks...it hard to find good Japanese ANYWHERE in the US, we have some German, and French, Spanish too (but it's like integrated with the Mexican as Both Mexico and Spain share similar dishes), I have only seem a couple of Brazilian places, and a few Filipinos ones, Polish I've never seen (anywhere in the US, not in Detroit, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Jacksonville, San Antonio, El Paso, Phoenix, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baton Rouge, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, or Chicago(They probably have some there though) )
You'll probably get this thread moved, my food thread did...
If I get it moved, oh well...I think speaking about ethnic food in the U.S. has a lot to do the individual cites themselves (especially the smaller ones). It speaks to the types of immigrants who've been coming to each area, and the uniquenesses of any particular city (such as crab in Baltimore).
You're right about Japanese, most of that is Americanized (not that I don't like that...I do!), but I find the places in Pittsburgh that actually have the best sushi are the fresh fish markets such as Wholley's.
Polish does seem pretty unique, especially considering that Pittsburgh doesn't have a particularly high Polish population (top three being: German, Irish, and Italian). Furthermore, one of our more famous Polish restaurants is in Little Italy!
Central/South American of different varieties
Caribbean "pollo y habichuelas con arroz" types of places
Moroccan
Egyptian
Pakistani
Arab fish place
Vietnamese pho place
Chinese
fine Italian
not so fine Italian
TONS of South Indian in the India Square section of Journal Square
North Indian places
southern U.S.
Other areas of Jersey City have more offerings. The difference between Journal Square and Downtown Jersey City or Hoboken is that in JSQ our restaurants are cheap, usually take-outish, and cater to the immigrant communities in the neighborhood. Downtown and Hoboken have great varieties of restaurants, but their customers are hipster foodies.
Having such a large Asian population in Seattle we have just about any Asian cuisine you can think of.
As for Ethiopian restaurants I just counted sixteen in the restaurant directory...
The one area where we are probably lacking would be German and other central European cuisines.
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), Greek is here but not too strong, we have quite a few Mediterranean places (which are sort of like Greek), Thai is pretty strong and can be authentic, Korean (Big time too...only in Korean Town though), Italian (so-so...a few authentic one here and there. A couple of them, the waiters actually speak Italian...it's a family owned restaurant), I think there is are a few African restaurants here and there, we a lot of Indian restaurants too as we have a HUGE Indian population, Out Japanese is ok...really sort of sucks...it hard to find good Japanese ANYWHERE in the US, we have some German, and French, Spanish too (but it's like integrated with the Mexican as Both Mexico and Spain share similar dishes), I have only seem a couple of Brazilian places, and a few Filipinos ones, Polish I've never seen (anywhere in the US, not in Detroit, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Jacksonville, San Antonio, El Paso, Phoenix, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baton Rouge, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, or Chicago(They probably have some there though) )
