4 ms·
I'll be downvoted for this too. Visited some friends in Memphis. Was told this restaurant was amazing, it's famous, that restaurant was amazing, it's famous,
by PakG1 8y ago
I'll be downvoted for this too. Visited some friends in Memphis. Was told this restaurant was amazing, it's famous, that restaurant was amazing, it's famous, so on. Tried them all. Wasn't impressed. They were OK, but they didn't live up to expectations. Realized that Memphis is actually not a big city, so there isn't a huge amount of competition to motivate restaurants to up their game. Don't get me wrong, the restaurants were OK. But they didn't deserve to be called famous outside of Memphis. And I realized that a lot of American cities are probably similar size and probably face a similar situation. Hence no wonder why many Americans don't get to know what actually good ethnic food tastes like, or even good "American" food, for that matter. Can't blame them for not having developed palates.
- quacked 8y agoI experienced this when I moved to Houston, and I've commented about it before. People told me everywhere that the abundance of restaurants was incredible, that I had to try X restaurant and Y cafe, etc. After trying them all, I've found them to be pretty bland. There's not a lot of complex flavor, food is inconsistently cooked, stored, etc. The weird thing is that the meals look incredible, like they're visually stunning but boring to eat. I only really noticed this after I started copying some Gordon Ramsey videos I was watching online. Preparing easy, simple meals the way that he prepares them (taking care to select produce and quality dairy, using fresh herbs, etc.) yields food that's better than I've eaten in 90% of restaurants. These aren't the really long "how to cook like a Michelin chef with a blowtorch and truffles" videos, either, these are like the "quick and easy broccoli soup with goat cheese and walnuts" videos.
- gm-conspiracy 8y agoI have found this to be true with meal delivery kits, as well. I can get better ingredients mailed to me than what I can purchase locally, and the meals taste better than the area restaurants. Consistency is key, but seems hard to implement in practice.
- User23 8y agoThe ethnic food in Memphis is BBQ and if you ate that you’d have had some of the best in the world.
- quacked 8y agoI mean, principle of charity- we're talking about ethnic meaning ethnic non-American. Regardless, I've also been to Memphis, and I had some really good BBQ there, and I had a lot of really average BBQ. I think another problem is that a lot of regions coast on the reputation of their "regional" food, and there's a lot of people that aren't great chefs or aren't dedicated to the art of food that ride the coattails of the region's reputation.
- User23 8y agoThe really charitable thing to do would be to recognize that there are indigenous, albeit relatively young compared to the old world, American ethnic groups with their own culture and cuisine. This is a consequence of demographic change. Historical Americans are just another set of ethnic groups now, equal with any other. Another big reason for the decline in the quality of these cuisines is that the old people who know how to make them are retiring and dying and their descendants aren't interested in maintaining their own culture.
- PakG1 8y agoYou can't call local specialty foods ethnic food. That's not what the phrase means. Yeah, the BBQ was good, but I didn't get the "best in the world" effect in my mouth. I once ate meat cooked by a Texan at a house party, I was seriously impressed and blown away after the first bite. This guy told me that he caters BBQ parties in Texas as a hobby. He told me about his marinade process, it bordered on science. His skill was legit. It's possible that the my Memphis friends directed me to the wrong restaurants. But if I can't trust the locals to tell me which are the best restaurants in their city, who can I trust? Plus, their opinions matched up with what I saw on Tripadvisor. I'm sorry if I've offended anyone. But I've also anecdotally found that some people who brag about their food haven't tasted food around the world, so their frame of reference is a bit limited. For example, I'll never say I've tasted really good Italian food because I've never been to Italy, and my gosh, the descriptions I hear about real Italian food blow my mind (and I think I've been to a few good Italian restaurants in North America). It's just like my high school friend once recommended a bunch of us go to the best sushi restaurant he ever tasted on the last day of school; as we ate there, the rest of us realized he had just unfortunately never been to an actually good sushi restaurant in our city. Either that, or his tongue actually couldn't tell the difference the way a tone-deaf person is incapable of hitting the right notes. I'm not trying to be condescending when I say certain people lack a good frame of reference. It's not their fault. It is what it is. I'm sorry for not being able to figure out a different way to say it.
- naravara 8y agoHonestly supply chains for food are pretty bad in most of the county. Access to fresh, consistently good produce is difficult to get at the scale and price that a restaurant would need. That and most of these family owned restaurants just don't have the headroom to try challenging their clientele, so they stick to what's tried and true with their local diners. They have to keep the prices low and the food broadly palatable to unadventurous eaters.