I’ve been really happy with a Slovenian brand of juice called Fructal , for their sour cherry and black currant juices. Better than the Polish Hortex brand.
So many languages use visne/ visnia/ vissino or other related words for sour cherries throughout the Former Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires.
I’ll resist the temptation to break those down into regions. Barbecue doesn’t make my list because eventhough there are regional variations, I consider barbecue to more of a method than a fully developed cuisine.
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Presunto
(--> Back in Athens - Goat's/Sheep's Yoghurt every day ... [Fleeced Taxpayer :@)) :@)) ])
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I like so many things so this is hard to answer.
Not in any particular order (pick any 5 of the following):
Taiwanese
Vietnamese
German & Austrian - They have some similar dishes but varies a lot regionally.
“Japanese” - Specifically cuisine of the southern islands.
Seafood-heavy cuisine - Portuguese, Japanese.
Tomato and aubergine-heavy cuisine - Turkish/“Italian”
“Middle Eastern”/Mediterranean
I also love cheese and potatoes but don’t want to mention specific nations as it’s too broad.
Italian (preference for Northern cuisine, from Tuscany up, and especially Emilia Romagna and Veneto). Also because of the wines. I just love Italian food (but only in Italy…)
Cantonese (love how they are using a wide array of cooking techniques, from deep frying to blanching, and also just when making one dish; using every part of the animal, focus on vegetables, and just general technique and recipes from older generations being kept alive)
General South East Asian (Singapore, Thailand especially)
Spain (amazing seafood, very bold flavours)
French, mostly because of the interplay with their wines.
(Special mention at number 6 for Japanese)
At home, I mostly cook French and Italian because where I live in Northern Europe I can get their local produce, and their cuisine fits the local weather. If I were to live in Hong Kong for example I would be cooking Cantonese, and hardly any French or Italian.
It’s so hard to find good ones in Toronto that the few we have automatically get a bigger following than a Cantonese restaurant because we have so many Cantonese restaurants and so few Malaysian or Peranakan options. Even fewer Macanese, if any, right now. Very little in terms of Indonesian, except for my friend’s 2 Dutch Indonesian places.
For Malaysian restaurants, I guess it’s always easy to get a larger slice of the pie if there are fewer of you. Less competition.
I hear from Singaporean & Malaysian friends who’d been to Toronto that the Cantonese restaurants at your end are actually better than what we have here.
(from Charles? Our friend? cc @THECHARLES ) I don’t know, and what do I know anyways? I will leave it to the experts.
(I know what I like, I’m a little obsessed with redang and laksa, and I’m seeking out a Hainanese chicken rice in TO. But the Singaporean spot/ French cheese shop in my neighborhood of Little Italy closes at 4 pm and I was too late yesterday)
Nowadays, almost all of my favorite cuisines have a ’ Japanese ’ component influence to them, be they French/Japanese fusion, Nordic/Japanese fusion, Spanish/Japanese fusion, Peruvian/Japanese fusion…etc!!
Only one that managed to escape this invasion is ‘Chinese-Cantonese’?!!
Oh no, dear Charles, to his credit, has never, ever hinted that Toronto’s Cantonese spots are better than those in Singapore.
But it’s almost an accepted notion in Singapore that one can get better Cantonese in Toronto, due to the proliferation of good HK chefs over there, plus the availability of good produce/ingredients.