On Fri, 7 Sep 2007 11:32:10 -0500, "TMOliver" >
wrote:

>I am comfortable admitting to eating better in France and Belgium than in
>most of the US, especially when it comes to French and Belgian food. The
>same is true in Italy, where I've been a frequent visitor since 1962. But
>on every visit to Europe it seems harder to find the same "good" cafes of
>yesteryear, replaced to often by the fast food morass. Obviously, I am far
>more likely to find good European food in any one of the US's larger cities
>than I might encounter "traditional US cooking" in Europe. As for Asian
>food in Europe, except in Paris, it's almost laughable compared to that
>available in Houston, SoCal, San Francisco or the Seattle/Vancouver area.

Another exception is Indonesian (or Indo-Chinese fuson) in the Netherlands.
And we have excellent Asian and middle-eastern food in the DC area as well.

>Nowhere in Europe is a traveler likely to stumble upon the sort of pleasant
>surprises found across the US in untoward locations, the little Basque
>places around the corner in some near deserted Nevada junction, or the
>upstairs Vietnamese seafood hangout in Kemah where the shrimp, squid and
>tiny octopi are sautéed on a harrow disc. No French village has anything to
>match the Napa with that old second rate winery with the grand deli, fine
>selections of area cheeses and cured meats (and a rack of baguettes) and
>plenty of shady tables outside to sit and enjoy them with the fruit we road
>food travel fans have learned to always carry along.

We've found lots of similar surprises in small French towns, such as Carnac and
Cahors.

>Fortunately, I am grandly happy with good Italian and French food,
>especially the "plain vanilla small town/family/cafe" sort, available with
>plenty of local and regional variety. But then I need to be, because in
>much of France and Italy, the alternatives to that cooking are unacceptable,
>either sad imitations of "foreign" recipes or a choice of grotesquely
>over-priced restaurants caught up in fleeting media frenzy. Just as I am
>pleased to add a name to my old directory of "Decent Italian Dining Rooms"
>circulated among my friends who travel there, I'm always sad to remove one
>of the great finds of yesteryear now departed (or worse ruined by trying to
>be fancy and popular). What we do not have in the US are many small hotels
>with good dining rooms, a tradition in much of Europe. Most hotel food in
>the US falls into the late-term abortion category, deserving of prevention
>on moral grounds alone. As for the UK, I'm never sure, but do note that
>every "improvement" in English food seems accompanied by a collateral
>increase in the number and spread of plastic ranks of fast food and what we
>used to call "Greasy Spoons", institutions that the British seem willing to
>not only tolerate but frequent

Nicely put, overall.

-- Larry