I was rebelling against another knife thread 
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Middle Eastern tends to mean Lebanese or Syrian where I live. Other types of Middle Eastern often mention the specific region or country.
Turkish food is another cuisine, which has some common dishes with Middle Eastern and many common dishes with Balkan countries which had been under Ottoman control.
Also- one other way to keep Turkish separate from Middle Eastern is the language group. Middle Eastern food, is made mostly by Arabic speakers, so the dish names tend to be similar throughout the Middle East.
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This is so true! Maybe not hamburgers per se, but I tend to mostly eat ‘local’ food and people always think I’m crazy doing so. So, as I live in Europe, and being a die hard fan of Asian food, I rarely eat Asian here… Not even in big cities with large Asian communities, like London, Paris or my own city. Somehow it always feels like a watered down version of what I’d eat in Asia. Likewise, when I’m in Asia I won’t be eating typically western foods, like pasta or oysters.
Do the US do hamburgers better than anyone else? I’ve had good ones here in Europe as well…
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Traveling across the United States by car, I seek out Mexican food and local bakeries making regional American baked goods.
I seek out pie when I’m driving through North Dakota and Montana.
Huevos rancheros for breakfast.
The United States has so much more Mexican food than Canada.
In Hawaii, I sought out every regional Hawaiian dish I try.
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Sadly the same in the UK
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I was surprised on my last visit to Geneva in 2015, to see food trucks with the same kind of fancy over the top burgers that one finds in Canada and the US.
I stuck to Swiss food since I only had one night.
I realize people from all over the world work in Geneva, so a fancy burger food truck would do well.
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I had a burger - a Wagyu burger apparently- in Tokyo (in Shinjuku), after circling a block for 45 minutes trying to find a gyukatsu place that my friend recommended, then finding a long line when we found it.
My burger was excellent. First time to order a burger outside North America since 1986.
Don’t we have many more folks of Mexican heritage?
I figured this was the tricky part of the question.
Ethnically/ethically is a state of mind.
Mexican, Italian, Irish, and Southern were around me everyday growing up, so I don’t think of those as anything exotic, even though to others those cuisines might fit right in their ethnic wheelhouse.
I don’t have the answers, just questions.
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You have more people in general. Canada’s population is roughly the same as California’s.
We have a considerable number of Mexican people who work here or have immigrated in the past 20 years. We don’t have the same situation with respect to restaurants. It’s changing in some cities. The menus at the Canadian Mexican restaurants owned by Mexicans tend to offer more direct -from- Mexico dishes.
The people working kitchen jobs in the Greater Toronto Area tend to be Sri Lankan or Tamil.
At the taqueria I visited on Sat, in southwestern Ontario, the Mexican owner had one employee, who was new, and was South Asian. There are a couple Mexican restaurants near me that are run by Salvadorans- so closer to Mexican, some common dishes, and maybe better than a gringo’s, but not the same as Mexican in California, etc.
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Hi Phoenikia,
Taking the interstate from LA to Madison, Wisconsin–just stopping for gas and restrooms–the only ethnic I saw was Chinese a few years ago.
Off the interstate, traveling between small to medium towns, ethnic alternatives do appear, and things slow down a bit, but finding anything ethnically interesting took a lot of time.
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We have serviceable Turkish and very mediocre Lebanese back home. Very good Pakistani, very mediocre Indian.
No Syrian, Yemeni, Persian.
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I seek it out, while traveling through Google, HO, TripAdvisor, Yelp.
I realize there is less Mexican food in parts of the Midwest .
My last trip to smalltown Montana included a visit to a tiny Mexican restaurant operating out of the Chamber of Commerce, and I got my enchilada fix. My relatives who live nearby choose to go out for steak or Pizza Hut, and didn’t know there even was a Mexican restaurant in Glasgow, Montana.
I haven’t driven from LA to Wisconsin, so can’t comment on that route. I have driven from Green Bay to Glasgow, Montana, from Glasgow, Montana to Great Falls, from Colorado Springs to Glacier Park, Reno to Mammoth, etc.
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Hi bbqboy,
I did stop at a really good Indian restaurant cross country on I-40, but didn’t catch the Punjabi connection until I read the article.
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This is what I do. Google search what I want on Google Maps.
Silver Moon had a tater tot rancheros. Close to my Residence Inn in Perrysburg.
I realize sometimes it isn’t possible to seek out the ethnic/exotic food off the Interstate.
That said, you guys in southern California even have tacos at Carls Jr. I’d be happy with that.
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yes.
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I hate to say it but i think ethnic prejudice is the rule, not the exception.
Japan, Russia and Slovakia were some of the countries with the most in your face prejudice i have seen in the last 40 years.
Canada has done a better job than most, and the UK and the US are doing better than they were but all of us can do better.
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While Mr Google is my travel partner, I would hazard that most tiny ethnic restaurants and trucks don’t have an independent web presence. We have often just taken a leap of faith and wandered into places that look busy and especially if the clientele is the same ethnicity.
As one of the most respected bloggers on Paris dining wrote, “It’s just dinner”. i.e., while sometimes a crap-shoot, it’s just one meal, for better or for worse.
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I don’t get to travel much, but when I do, I make it a point to seek out regional specialties not readily available where I live. Small, locally owned restaurants, family bakeries, even some fast food that I can’t get around here.
For instance, last time I visited family in VA I saw a Red Robin. Now there are none in NY Metro area that I know of, so I’ve never eaten there. Family looked at me like I had two heads, but hey, I want to try something new to me. We went, it was pretty good, and we all had a good time.
I also make it a point to get Amish made apple pies whenever I pass through an area where they are available, as well as the mom-and-pop roadside custard/ice cream/farm stands.
There are a lot of good “ethnic” restaurants available to me, as well as H-Mart and Hispanic markets. I grew up eating lots of Italian and Chinese. So homemade pies and fried chicken and jello molds are sort of “foreign” to me.
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Additionally regarding serendipity, one of our most memorable travel meals took place in a small family run Turkish restaurant in the small city of Villafranche sur Soane, France. Our target restaurant in the Beaujolais was closed for emergency, so there we were, pushing 8 pm in the boonies with no din in sight. We crossed the river to what looked like the most plausible place, only to find them rolling up the streets, lights going off in shops, people leaving for home. We started frantically looking for someplace, anyplace, open. Finally bright neon lights on a back street! Park the car! We were warmly welcomed into a tiny dining room, then ushered into the lush back garden. The oldest son was front of house. I ordered off the menu, and he snatched it away and said, “No, Mama will cook for you, I will decide.”. And he did and she did. We had to turn off the parade of dishes coming to us, each delicious and beautifully served. We closed the place, and Mama came out of the kitchen with a treat bag for us. The whole family came out to pose for a photo, at their suggestion. They were so excited to have guests from so far away, San Francisco! The tab was embarrassingly low. And who knew Turkish wine was so delicious!
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The same is true for basically all countries in the world.
Nothing sad about it.
Just a fact of human nature.
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