The cuisine of some nations tastes better in its home country when compared to the same food in foreign places.
Turkey for me is the obvious choice, the food I ate throughout that country many years ago is far superior to anything eaten elsewhere in the world.
An honourable mention must go to Ethiopia - the food there has quite a different taste to equivalents in other countries.
Reply to this Better than? That's a tough question; I can certainly make note of instances that were quite "different than" as ethnic eateries abroad often get put through a lens and filter that interpret and tailor the offerings to meet the needs (desires, wants) of their clientele (or not. Some don't and cater mainly to immigrants. An entirely separate thing to think about altogether). And palates around the world will have different expectations from an eatery.
It's why I've heard such phrases as you "Just can't find good Hungarian food in Hungary" or "The best Chinese food is found in Kolkata."
American "Mexican food" tastes nothing like any of the foods I ate in Mexico and doesn't account for a percentage of the diversity of foods found
in Mexico. And Chinese restaurants in Mexico taste nothing like what they do in the U.S or (presumably) China.
"French" restaurants become tricky territory to discuss, because the American restaurants system is based upon the French model. To be haute cuisine in the U.S for a long time was to 'be' French - although now you find elite Japanese and Italian restaurants as well (that in and of itself is fascinating how certain cooking styles emerge from being 'ethnic' to being revered). Cafe culture, though, is something that I haven't seen replicated here.
English restaurants tend to get replicated here as "pubs" or "tea houses." And that's the key there - replication. British pubs are distinguished as "British" because dark wood paneling (and differentiated from Irish pubs via the name, otherwise they look identical) while Mexican restaurants are identifiable as such because of the flags, or sombreros, or whatever other trope gets deemed suitable. Thai restaurants always have orchids and Buddhas. Indian restaurants always have pictures from of Ramayana. Without these clues, would we know it was an 'authentic' foreign restaurant? Certainly eateries serving up domestic fare don't need to announce themselves as such.
I'm not sure if I answered your question but it got me thinking. Would be very curious to read other responses.
Reply to this You've answered the question perfectly. Re Indian restaurants, I am cautious when eating in Indian restaurants in Australia (for example) because they "Westernise" the taste, which usually involves it becoming less spicy, though there are thankfully a couple of welcome examples within a walk of my apartment. However, in countries with larger Indian populations (UK, Singapore, Malaysia) it is easier to find a flavour closer to that in India - thus I didn't include them on my list.
I've eaten "Chinese" food in India and it still tasted Indian (they must have used cumin or coriander - two very "non-Chinese" ingredients) whereas in Taiwan I went to an "Indian" restaurant and it was very average in quality and definitely tasted like a Chinese variant (thus they probably did not use the correct Indian spices and may have used the wrong oil). But at least it is still possible to find extremely good Chinese and Indian food in other parts of the world.
Reply to this You have both hit the nail on the head. When we lived in the UK we didn't go to Indian restaurants as the taste wasn't what we expected and it used to just taste of coriander rather than the blend of spices we expected (as we hadn't visited India at that point). Even though where we lived had a huge Indian population, the restaurants were still rubbish. Then an Indian friend of ours cooked a daal and it blew us away with how amazing the taste was compared to the restaurants. We avoid Indian restaurants where there isn't a significant Indian population as we know the taste won't be to our expectations. As Shane says, Singapore, Malaysia and also Hong Kong have fantastic Indian restaurants.
Chinese meals in India, as Shane says just didn't taste right probably due to the spices and different oils used for cooking.
The other restaurants we used to avoid in the UK were Thai restaurants - they were never as good as Thai food in Thailand. Even if the chefs were Thai it still didn't matter as the food had been 'blanded down' for British palates and nothing was ever spicy or aromatic enough!
Restaurants need to be successful in the country they operate so that usually means adapting the food to the tastes of the local population otherwise they wouldn't get enough customers to survive!
Reply to this What you say is true about restaurants having to accomodate to the local palate but it does depend where and who you go in. I have been to a Chinese restaurant near me with a Taiwanesee friend and she asks for the Chinese menu and gets a completely different set of food! And it was absolutely delicious.
Also, if you have a quiet word, most restaurants worth their sort will tweak their food for you! I'm half Italian and slightly despair with the overcooked pasta Italian restaurants tend to serve up! A good restaurant will listen to me when I ask for it al dente. (although, if I got dragged to a dubious Italian restaurant then I would usually avoid the pasta dishes!!!) Also, if there are lots of silly spelling mistakes then I tend to get suspicious.
Havin said all this, I got brought to a foodhall in Melbourne and I was really impressed with the standard of food, also in Singapore.
Reply to this That is an interesting point re the local Chinese restaurant that has different menus, and thus serving different foods to different palates.
It reminds me of my first trip to India when, though the food was fantastic, it wasn't as spicy as I'd imagined. On my last day on that trip I went to eat a potato meal from a street stall, and was going to add the available spices on the side, and a local man blurted "garam, garam!" which means "hot, hot!", yet I tried it and found it not to be so. Thus I deduced that when eating in India many places were adjusting the spice level to the foreign palate.
So, my next visit to India, I said at every place I ate "I like spicy, please cook the same meal that you would give to your family" and sure enough, the food served to me was spicier and stronger in taste.
Reply to this Although, in India it also depends on the region you are in for levels of heat and spices used. We were in Madras (Chennai) and the food blew our heads off whereas somewhere like Kashmir seem to be less spicy and slightly sweeter!
Reply to this Aaaah. We're talking about my favorite subject: FOOD. I've tried Greek cuisine both here in my home country and elsewhere, but nothing beats Greek food right there in Greece. I'd have to say that it must be the ingredients, the freshness of the seafood and the quality of the olive oil (from Greece!) and the olives (yes!) used in cooking. A simple dish like Tzatsiki (am i spelling it right?) tastes a whole world of difference in Greece vs elsewhere.
Reply to this I love food and I can't wait to try so many different things. Alot of the supermarkets in the UK have started selling ready meals of foods from Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam etc and the selection of Indian meals have also increased in choice. Of course, whether these taste any where near what they should, I don't know yet.
Waitrose does a Pad Thai that I like. It has no hot spice at all, which I like. I can't take any kind of spice(wish I could)but I have also had one from Asda which is spicy, one from Tesco which wasn't spicy but tasted totally different to Waitrose and one from a Thai restaurant that was very dry and had chilli flakes poured over it. So I have no idea if its meant to be spicy or not!
The best Pad Thai I have tried was in a Thai restaurant in Orlando. Again very different from the others, this one was bright red and very very sweet. It was lovely. So I can not wait to finally taste Pad Thai in Thailnd!
(but I am very worried everything will be spicy)
Reply to this Tina, pad thai in Thailand isn't really spicy as you add your own dried chilli etc... so a great choice for you, I'd steer clear of the red curries which are delicious but very spicy!!
Reply to this I'm not a gastrophile at all--if a meal keeps me alive, it's done its job. However, as someone upthread a bit mentioned, what we lack in the US that I sorely miss from living abroad is a cafe culture. Some of the happiest moments of my life were spent ordering a good cup of coffee for a euro or two and then spending a couple hours people-watching, reading, studying, or chatting. I haven't found anywhere here that replicates this, even in twisted places like Venice. Similar thoughts on pub culture, although I'm not much of a drinker so I miss that less.
So better in its homeland for me--coffee in Italy. Kind of cliched, but god is it true.
Reply to this This topic has been explored in depth and agree that the American version of many ethnic foods is watered down and changed to fit the average American palate.
We love Lebanese food and long for the day when we go eat the real thing. We are anxious for the true experience.
When we lived in Pittsburgh, PA one of the docs sent us to a Chinese restaurant and we were to tell them we knew her and we wanted the real thing. It was a delight.
As Stephanie pointed out Mexican restaurants in this part of the world for the most part can be rather bland. Once in a while you can find the rich flavors, spices and aromas from across the border but they are few and far between. It is exciting when you find one of these places.
I ate in an authentic Chinese restaurant in San Francisco about ten years ago. I'm looking forward to going back and seeing if it remains the same. We have not been to China yet but have some well traveled friends that recommended this place.
Two weeks ago we discovered an Indian restaurant that had some kick to it. We always order our meals hot and spicy. They always question us, we say yes and they bring us the American version-- not trusting what we really want. Our experience recently was that they gave us what the other Indian families were eating and it was very good. We will be going back.
Reply to this Although I largely agree with the Indian comments (toned-down / bastardised), there are some superb Indian resturants in the UK (London, Bradford, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow). Typically these gems tend to be vegetarian (and i'm certainly not) and are the only ones who, as a rule, do dozas.
It has been our experience that good Chinese, Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Greek, Turkish (am fussy on the latter as I have a Turkish uncle) and middle eastern resturants can be found in unfamiliar countries, but they are hit-and-miss. For example, somewhere like Oz has many good S.E. Asian resturants because they have many immigrants from that region...
However, going back to the original question: without a doubt Japanese is the standout cuisine that is just not exectuted as well outside of the home country, both in terms of quality and range.
We're about to visit Mexico for the first time and can only pray that the locals do it better than the Americans because as it stands Mexican would not rate high on our gastronomic scale.
Oh, on seeing Liliram posting a comment I am reminded of some of the great dishes she has reported (and photographed) from her home country, the Philippines. For us traveling there (on a tight budget admitedly), the bland food was the only real disappointment about a wonderful country.
Ok, that's my two-penneth worth.
Andy.
Reply to this 
