EUROPE - which country has the best cuisine?

who are the five nations of the UK, out of interest?

England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Cornwall

I was so worried about accidentally leaving out a country I must have overlooked that error.

you really think adding an extra one was the safe option?

i'm assuming you maybe meant india, that way we can still argue on the football threads.

to be fair, those aren't separate countries.

I'm in Montenegro right now, and would love to rep for all the AWESOME food I've been eating over the last week, but then I remember that my mother-in-law is Russian, and her home country should probably get the credit. Russia over France or Italy though?

proper, home-made irish stew and bacon and cabbage have been my last two meals, so i'm staying at home for this one.

Italy, as I'm going through a major pasta phase.

Panettone cassata > all other food stuffs.

Fond memories of ridiculously cheap and super-fresh seafood (squid, octopus, prawns, sardines...) from shabby seafront cafe in random Spanish port town. So good. Garlic prawns can't be beat.

Spain has the lock on seafood as far as I'm concerned but on the other hand there are seemingly no vegetables anywhere in the country. It's a toss-up between France, Greece, Italy and Turkey for me.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of Bulgarian food when I was there, so I'm giving it my vote as no one else probably will.

Food AND drink? Belgium.

Hungary also deserves an honourable mention. Not a huge amount of variety, but what they do they do very well.

I was thinking Belgium as a dark horse as well...

lol anyone with non-British heritage is gonna vote for their roots

Does Anglo-Indian cuisine count as English?

I was going to say I think so, but on the other hand actual Indian >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Anglo-Indian so it's kind of a moot point.

I love the indian food we get here personally. I've never been to India, though.

Does a Brick Lane curry count as real Indian, anglo-Indian or Bangladeshi? It's usually delicious, wherever you deem it to have originated from.

I'm not sure which country has the best cuisine, I just know it isn't Bosnia. Or, indeed, Croatia.

Bosnian food's ok if you can handle an all-chevapi diet.

English summer food is hard to beat, when it's all freshly caught crab and proper tomatoes and strawberries and Jersey Royal potatoes and asparagus. However, for sheer consistency it's between France and Italy. (Spain looses on the veg front as mentioned above, though scoring highly for seafood, chorizo, jamon, rioja and cava, and Greek food can be glorious, but it's so often done badly - even in Greece.)

I think France has the edge for me - lovely cheese and bread, cassoulet, champagne, crème brulee.

never trust an italian

Panettone cassata > all other food stuffs.-- Dom Passantino
lol anyone with non-British heritage is gonna vote for their roots -- Just got offed

I like Italian food, but there is a bit of a lack of variety: there seems to be about ten basic ingredients and everything is made up of some combination of these. One of the things that bugged me when I lived in Italy was how every single Italian said that Italian food was the best food in the world, but hardly any of them had ever tried any food that wasn't Italian. Outside of the big cities you were lucky to find anything much - maybe one Chinese restaurant. I was teaching English to a class of Italians (aged from about 18 to 60) once and showing them pictures of different meals from around the world - nothing too exotic, maybe a kebab and a chilli con carne and a curry and something with noodles - and most of them had no idea what they were, never mind had tried them. I asked them 'have you ever eaten anything that wasn't Italian?' and they all went quiet and looked sheepish until an old bloke slowly put up his hand and said 'Hamburger'.

that's not really a criticism of italian food as such though...

Most of that should tell you why Italian food is so very, very good. Second only to Cypriot, in fact. ;-)

In all seriousness, the same thing applies there as well. You go to a restaurant. You go to a taverna, eat meze with souvlaki and seafood and veggies and pitta and halloumi and taramasalata and houmous and grilled meats, and you desire nothing else.

but there is a bit of a lack of variety: there seems to be about ten basic ingredients and everything is made up of some combination of these

Cucina povera, innit?

Only in Italy (or a very good Italian restaurant) could a plate of pasta with tomato sauce and pepper be turned into a transcendent experience. The trick to great food is resourcefulness in simplicity.

AA Jagger

italian food: minimalism
british food: grime

salmon calzone: 65DOS

I hadn't even taken cheese into account - shit I'm going to end up voting for France.

really hungry now as a result!

what about countries that do other countries' food really good? such as the Swedes doing damn fine sushi, the Uk and Indian, the Netherlands and Indonesian...

the lack of Cornwall is certainly a sad omission as that would have been my vote.

So Scotland will have to do.

if you include drinks does france really come out any worse?

you've got champagne, muscadet, sauternes, cabernet, cognac, armagnac, pastis, pernod, grand marnier, and on and on

i wanted to say portugal but salted fish, as wonderful and variegated as its different incarnations can be, doth not a conquering cuisine make, even if it is sitting in an inch and a half of melted butter

English summer food is hard to beat, when it's all freshly caught crab and proper tomatoes and strawberries and Jersey Royal potatoes and asparagus

pastid is good???

Hmm I love Portuguese food, not least for the cakes; leaning on the counter of a Lisbon cafe snacking on a custard tart is one of life's truly lovely experiences.

I happen to love bacalhau (salt cod), so the answer has to be Portugal for me.

i knew i was going to catch hell for that

xpost

spanish cuisine has the right ingredients but constantly tend to underachieve.

Yes, Ken, and Portuguese food goes down far too easily.

whereas by using simple, well-disciplined and dependable dishes, Greek food somehow finds itself succeeding over its flashier competitors.

Israel

impossible. cassoulet vs chorizo in wine vs moussaka etc.

Spain has the lock on seafood as far as I'm concerned but on the other hand there are seemingly no vegetables anywhere in the country.

not true, i had a green bean soup thing in bilbao one time! chris told me that many spaniards eat mostly veg-only dishes at home and will dine out for meat and fish, or something like that.

thanks to fairly recent mallorcan holiday + more recent amazing dinner at Barrafina on Frith Street i am going with Spain.

http://static.flickr.com/72/189171135_d2da6e5329.jpg

question to brits: when was the last time you ate chicken tikka masala anyway?

can't remember

Probably about a year ago - was a place near my old work that had a good lunchtime deal and their ctm was pretty respectable.

I eat out a heck of a lot but hardly ever go for continental European of any kind. Maybe that can be my new year's resolution.

does new yorkers eat more tikka masala than londoners? or does blueski mean people eat different "curries"?

gabbneb i mean for all the talk of CTM being 'the nation's favourite dish LOL' i never think to have it and hardly ever hear it mentioned by someone else.

now i want to go to tayyabs again for the chargrilled lamb chops dammit

i thought about trying to eat at a restaurant for every country in the world or as close as i could get to that, in London, over this year and maybe the one after.

Where's the best Argentine restaurant in London then?

Stick to Gaucho or is there better off the beaten track?

Buen Ayre on Broadway Market seemed good

I ate Chicken Tikka Masala in December. In New York.

was it nice?

Not bad actually. But I was starving. It was a take out from Whole Foods. I ate it on a wall in Union Square.

Also Georgia deserves an honourable mention for wine, and interesting and varied uses of walnuts, pommegranite, spinnach and sharp cheese - but I've only ever eaten one Georgian meal in my life, so it's not much to go on.

buen ayre is incredible but a word of advice: have somehting besides meat if you plan on drinking heavily later on

anna there's a georgian restaurant just south of broadway market, i can't remember what it's called but it is thee awesome

it used to be on broadway market proper but their landlord raised the rent and now the former location is a terrible french restaurant called "la vie en rose"

orig restaurant reviewed by Freaky Trigger!

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/pumpkin/2004/02/little-georgia-broadway-market-london-e8/

I think 'La Vie en Rose' translates to 'terrible french restaurant'.

i will try that - only tried one Georgian place so far (Tblisi) xp

Holland--worst cuisine in Europe?

depends on yr policy towards hash brownies

i would probably say yes altho you can get excellent steak there (not just in the south american places) and hey giant pancakes! xp

Yeah pancakes are about all I remember fondly.

Tblisi on Holloway Road was the setting for my one Georgian meal - it was lovely, so will probably try this place.

The Dutch have... edam...

Bless.

Zuurkoolstamppot, sauerkraut mashed with potatoes. Served with fried bacon or a sausage. Sometimes curry powder, raisins or slices of pineapple are used to give a stamppot an exotic touch.

Where's the best Argentine restaurant in London then?

I dunno about the best but there's a cracking one right on the heath in Blackheath. Also the proprietor is a weird ex-paparazzi bloke who looks like Tugay and began his career taking homoerotic shots of Che Guevara lying on a bed with his shirt off.

Chicken tikka masala etc count not because they are an example of England doing Indian food really well (it doesn't, by and large) but because they're dishes invented in England to cater to local tastes.

it doesn't, by and large

how come? i take it you're including Indian restauranteurs here

What is aforesaid cracking Argentine place called? There are a couple of South American-looking places there.

Not bad actually. But I was starving. It was a take out from Whole Foods. I ate it on a wall in Union Square.

that's a salad bar, not a restaurant, but it's pretty great (if expensive) for a salad bar

I dunno about the best but there's a cracking one right on the heath in Blackheath. Also the proprietor is a weird ex-paparazzi bloke who looks like Tugay and began his career taking homoerotic shots of Che Guevara lying on a bed with his shirt off.

-- Matt DC, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 15:54 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Think this may be Buena Ayre mentioned upthread: http://www.buenayre.co.uk/chemenu.htm

Also Georgia deserves an honourable mention

I ate in a Georgian resturant in Krakow, and it was fantastic, a very refreshing change from the Polish red meat n stodge.

Yeah I presume they're owned by the same dude. The one in Blackheath is called Buenos Aires Cafe I think, served one of the best steaks I've ever eaten. I'm tipping Argentina to win the CONCACAF poll.

Ah, excellent. A good 30 seconds' jog away from the infamous Zero Degrees, too!

Any other good Blackheath eating-holes, just name 'em here. I've not been to that many.

It'll never win, but I voted for Romania, especially for its Transylvanian cuisine. But it should be said that Romanian cuisine has its own great oddball Latin sensibility and takes from the best of Hungarian and German cookinh, not to mention specialities derived from Turkish, Russian, Jewish and Greek styles. And some other places too, I'm sure. And it's dirt cheap. And the Romanians are lovely.

how come? i take it you're including Indian restauranteurs here

There actually aren't that many, the majority of so-called 'Indian' restaurants in the UK are run by Bangladeshis and what you get is heavily Anglicised. Generally speaking there are a lot of okayish bog-standard curry houses around but there's so much demand out there that there's not that much incentive for them to be much more than adequate.

Additionally there's a greater proportion of fuck-awful 'spice it to death or leave it largely tasteless' Indian restaurants in this country than there are for pretty much any other cuisine, although Chinese and Mexican may run it close. In my experience the best curry places (in London at least) tend to be either Pakistani, Sri Lankan or focussed on one region of India.

No Svalbard, no credibility!!

Where abouts are you Louis? Because there's a lovely gastro-pub type place on Royal Hill in Greenwich. It's called The Hill - love them for their lamb shank and not their uninspired name.

I'm Lee Green, myself, that well-renowned hubbub of fine dining. Royal Hill, eh...is that near Coombs Hill? Thanks for the reccy, anyway; I may give it a go! The best pub food I've had in an absolute age, incidentally, is the traditional-yet-sublime fare at The Mill in Cambridge. Their bangers and mash was streets ahead of any other I've tried.

There's actually a full-blown Greek taverna in Lee Green, but for some unfathomable reason we've only been there once. Reasons for this are unknown, but I think it may be because the restaurant is a) Greek rather than Greek Cypriot or b) not up to our relatives' home cooking standard.

Or c) we don't really eat at restaurants very often on account of cash/reluctance to organise, unless it's a special occasion in which case we'll treat ourselves to Zero D.

there's so much demand out there that there's not that much incentive for them to be much more than adequate.

depressing but applies to so many other aspects of life here i guess

italy or france are really the only two choices here.

having said that i've never eaten at/ordered from an 'indian' res and found it less than adequate but then the more you know the harder you are to satisfy xp

an 'indian' res

haha

can you stop doing this bullshit quoting thing? say what you mean or stfu

hugz

long year ahead...

sorry, i is just entertaining the north americans

an indian res (or, more often, rez) does not refer to a restaurant over here. not making fun.

what does it mean? *feels sheepish now*

1. rez

Native American slang for "reservation," as in "on the Indian reservation."

Ayy, there's always a party Saturday night on the rez, man.

serious lols @ anyone voting for anything from UK

Someone's already claimed they're voting for Russia, which is absolute insanity.

maybe they like cabbage and a whole lot? even still, there are better cabbage countries ...

http://www.thinkvitamin.com/images/articles/features/cal/trifle.jpg

serious lols @ anyone voting for anything from UK

-- remy bean, Wednesday, January 2, 2008 6:01 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

whole poll is ridic, but we get a claim on anglo-indian food and shit i dunno maybe food from the many other places we lorded it over, so we break even. eat that, france.

culinary imperialism?

wtf did tuomas just explain something to somebody else?

you know tuomas is all about indians, man

.jpg

who needs culinary imperialism when you've got a pork pie?

culinary imperialism?

-- remy bean, Wednesday, January 2, 2008 6:05 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yes, england, alone among european nations, has been prone to imperial adventures on occasion. our national fuckin' drink comes from the empire. there isn't really a 'british cuisine'.

good:

spain
italy
france
belgium
germany (pastry)
portugal
turkey

okay:

everything else

crap:

wales
latvia

who the fuck knows:

cyprus
faroe islands

who the fuck knows:

cyprus

who indeed

i didn't really have any good food when i went to berlin except for a hungarian goulash and 'austrian-style' fried chicken at cafe einstein

crap:

wales

Rarebit isn't to be fucked with.

crap: latvia

Your best bet in the Baltic states is the resturant chain Cilli Kamas (I think that what it was called) which serves traditional fare and is actually rather good.

isn't cypriot food mostly just greek food? wiki says halloumi comes from cyprus, and that is good. so +1 for cyprus

at any rate, all Euro food beats Newfoundland food hands down.

NEWFOUNDLAND FLIPPER PIE

* 4 seal flippers
* 1 L water
* 500 ml soda
* 125 ml fat pork, diced
* 1 cup milk
* 2 onoins, chopped
* 5 ml salt
* 60 ml flour
* 250 ml cold water
* 5 ml Worcestershire sauce

Soak flippers in 1 L of water and soda. Trim off excess fat. dry flippers and dip in seasoned flour. Brown in pork fat. Add onions and make a gravy of flour, water, and sauce. Pour over flippers. Cover and bake at 160o C for 2-3 hours. Make a pastry and cover the flippers. Bake at 220oC for 30 minutes. Serves 6-8.

FRIED COD TONGUES

* 32 cod fish tongues
* 1 1/2 cups of flour
* 3 tbsp. margarine or cooking oil
* 1 tsp. salt
* 1/2 tsp. pepper

Carefully wash fresh cod tongues and dry in a paper towel. Put flour, salt, and pepper together in a plastic page. Add tongues and shake until they are covered evenly with flour. Melt margarine in a large saucepan. Add tongues and cook until golden brown. Serve hot, with mashed potatoes, carrots, and green peas, garnished with lemon wedges on a lettuce leaf.

Cypriot food is miles better than Greek food. It has as much in common with Turkish as Greek, less of an emphasis on one big dish at a time (hence the meze, the olives'n'pitta side-dishes aplenty and the assortment of meats), and more halloumi.

i got completely sick of halloumi but probably just because i kept over-frying it.

it's not a very original answer, but i've been going through a french food renaissance lately, both as a cook and a diner.

Spain and France tie for me, so I'm voting Andorra.

And people slagging off British/English/any part of the Uk food - do you really know what the fuck you're talking about? Honestly?

yay!

I found outside of London the food was really terrible, sorry. Soggy chips served with every meal, instant coffee, poor quality overpriced red meat. Curries were nice in Brum tho.

I voted for Italy.

I'm voting germany because I think overall I prefer their combination of drink and foodstuffs over any other. there are certainly many things italy and spain can do that are above and beyond all challengers but neither approaches the total package according to me

Where's Liechtenstein?

Can there be any doubt as to how I voted?

Trayce where the heck were you eating? Aberdeen Steakhouses?

Not even that good! I was staying in the country and eating at shitty diners, casual eateries, Wimpys, that kind of thing. I judge a place as much on its cheap food as its posh stuff, and I wasn't inspired. In fairness the home cooking I was served was nice (gammon and things yum) but god, enough with the chips.

I should be fair and point out that if you ate in rural Australia you'd likely be equally revolted as it happens.

they have Wimpys in the country? huh

I was going to say, rural WA had some absolute howlers.

And Angus steakhouses = the absolute Nadir of eating in the UK - Wimpy = twice as good IMO.

it must be difficult for tourists coming here to find what could be classed as 'British food' outside of the bog-standard variety served in most pubs tho (as opposed to UK takes on American fare). you'd have to research in advance to pick out gastropubs with the best ratings.

i would like to, just every now and then, go out for dinner at an actual restaurant serving trad British dishes, nothing too fancy but not like Harvester standard either. this is seemingly very difficult.

rivington grill was good the couple of times i went.

pub food in ireland is normally pretty good, in my experience.

It'd be hilarious if the Netherlands won. Belgium? I think our food is quite good but certainly no contender.

I think I just voted for Turkey

only the dark meat, though

France scores pretty highly for its cheap food as well, you can go to an auberge mostly frequented by lorry drivers in some village in the middle of nowhere and still get a really good meal, incomparable to what you'd get in an equivalent establishment over here. It's kind of a cliche to say that but in my experience it's true.

I slag off the food having lived on it for a year.

To be fair, you should also hear me bag on the american protestant meat & potatoes fare i spent 17 years eating.

serious lols @ anyone voting for anything from UK

-- remy bean, Wednesday, January 2, 2008 6:01 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

it's actually kind of heartbreaking to be honest

I am voting Germany, because sausage plus beer plus sweet white wines = heaven and I want to be a little contrary, but really France or Italy should just kill this.

It's not terribly difficult to find good Scottish food when eating out up here, with not a chip in sight. Game, haggis, Aberdeen Angus steaks, Scottish lamb, Ayrshire potatoes, OM NOM NOM. Then we have whisky and Deuchars IPA and heather ale and Mackies ice-cream (and Irn Bru and deep fried mars bars, obviously).

i spent a week eating UK food in London in late March. I recall eating in at least two better-known trad pubs and one contempo-ish one, church cafeterias, a Brick Lane curry place, a mod-ish chippie and a mid-range purportedly contemporary-French-influenced place in addition to takeaway sandwiches and pasties. The overwhelming flavor profile was bland/indistinct (if not in a few cases outright unpleasant), weaker than the rather good beer it seemed better-suited to than wine. the overwhelming texture was mushy or close to it. quality ingredients were rare, and what light foods I had seemed somewhat misunderstood by those who produced them. while hearty meats and grains could be quite satisfying, fruits and vegetables (potatoes don't count) appeared largely as afterthoughts, punctuation. the better foods I had went some measure to cut through the fog by introducing some minor but essential sharpness in the form of "curry," yeast, lemon, tomato, cheese and/or vinegar. they were also more often the non-british (indian or gastro pizza) or simply uncooked-or-even-composed (salad greens, cheese) meals. i'm sure there are many much poorer cuisines, but that doesn't mean it compares to what I get at home (or the no-better-than-bistro-level places I ate at in Paris). this could just be my native palate talking, but british cuisine is being defended by those whose palates are most accustomed to it as well. It's also entirely possible I just picked unwisely as blueski said.

Pubs - which ones? I could probably tell you whether or not the food is any cop at any of them.

Chippie - chances are it was crap, good chippies are increasingly few and far between, especially in London.

Brick Lane - almost certainly awful

As I hinted at upthread, the overwhelming problem with British food in pubs and some restaurants is a sense of 'will this do?' half-arsedness you get throughout the UK service industry (especially the bits tourists are likely to be coming across). There are a loads of good non-gastropubs for food in London but they're diluted by so many serving pretty bland stuff.

Really if you want to have good British food you're best off being invited into someone's house, even then I think there are several countries here that would comfortably beat any part of the UK.

The terrible reputation of traditional British food is a little undeserved but I'm not really going to defend it because of the nationalities on this list I would claim to have tried there are hardly any I'd be happy saying it's better than (lots of countries I know almost nothing about food-wise though).

There's good food in rural UK pubs and restaurants but it must be impossible to find the ones which don't just do soggy chips, cz chain anything is usually bad news so local knowledge required (lol food rockist?) and even £15+ main courses and the gastropub compulsion for unnecessarily fancy side ingredients on everything is no guarantee of anything being worth the money (and sadly for the most part any "British"-style restaurant or pub which wants to look like it has good cooking will be about that expensive or worse, which must be an automatic point-docker for the UK).

I mean whenever I've been in Ireland we've been at a total loss as to where to eat and ended up going for sandwich + soggy chips or Wagamama, but I'm sure that's not because Irish food's bad, just because we didn't know where to look.

I was very happy with all my meals when I was in Germany but they were pretty much all fried pork + maybe some mushroom sauce + a mountain of carbohydrates so I'm a little puzzled any time anyone votes for it (though German breakfasts and cake shops are beautiful, beautiful things) (and, oh yeah, sausages, wines, all the Christmas gingerbreads, FEDERWEISSER!!"£$*... oh hell, maybe Germany it is! no, no, that cannot be)

pubs - Bank of England, Ye Olde, mod/yuppie-ish place up in NW somewhere with quite good pizza
chippie - in Peckham, taken by local more-than-half-merkin, the contempo stuff my friend had was much better than the trad stuff i thought i should try
Brick Lane - don't remember, but was really pretty good

Bank was pretty good even if the vegetables were mostly nuked

Original British food that is good:

Garden fruits
Baked fish
Ploughman's lunch
Bread'n'butter pudding

Nothing wrong with staples like shepards pie and roast dinner either, even if they're uninimaginative next to some other countries' food.

Clotted fucking cream

I actually like shepherd's pie better than the French version.

There are a loads of good non-gastropubs for food in London

what are your top 3 picks right now? i haven't eaten pub food within zone 1 for ages. but then i've not had anything quite as bad as gabbneb describes either, unless my standards are just that much lower than his (and it's not like i really know more than a half a dozen places i like and would go to often anyway).

my favourite brit food experience of last year: a cafe in totnes eating perfect bacon and cheddar sandwich and then some excellent local clotted cream on a scone. why yes my cholesterol levels are fine thank you for asking...

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i134/dgoobl/cheese-map-smallcopy.jpg

France (but England for dessert)
A friend and I drove from London to Scotland and back last summer. Out of all the places we ate, the random pubs we chose along the way turned out to have the most reliably good (really! good!) food.

But we abandoned hope of getting any decent veggies or leafy salads in the pubs on day three and instead had whatever treacle tart-y clotted creamy thing was around for dessert. Turned out to be a damn good trade off.

Got to be Italy. France, Spain and Portugal fighting it out for minor honours.

Politically-charged choice to use that UEFA list, by the way. Spain's campaign to freeze out Gibraltar claims another success.

Pubs - which ones? I could probably tell you whether or not the food is any cop at any of them.

Chippie - chances are it was crap, good chippies are increasingly few and far between, especially in London.

Brick Lane - almost certainly awful

this is a bit unfair on gabbneb -- if the pubs/curryhouses/chippies-that-serve-good-food have to be found in a guidebook, that's a problem right there. who has the time? if you're looking for a general high standard, i can't see this not being france/italy; i know it's boring but srsly.

I agree. Good British food *is* really good, but your chances of finding it aren't really that high, but in France and Italy you're pretty much guaranteed something delicious.

I haven't had that bad luck with chippies in London, at least compared with Reading where I used to live, where they were nearly always terrible - I lived up Oxford Rd for a bit and tried every one between the town centre and my house and they were all inedible.

I grew up in Worcester and the chippies were pretty good as a rule there. I dunno if it's a geographical thing or if the standard has deteriorated generally since the early 90s (price of potatoes causing cutting corners quality-wise?) - I'm going up there this weekend, maybe I shall get a portion of chips and investigate!

this is a bit unfair on gabbneb -- if the pubs/curryhouses/chippies-that-serve-good-food have to be found in a guidebook, that's a problem right there. who has the time?

Yeah that was the point I was making really, it's all a bit needle/haystack, especially in big cities. I suppose this is why when British people go out to eat, it's not often to eat 'British'.

Re French cheese and fucking with it, that's maybe the only foodstuff I think Brits do well - I'd take cheddar & stilton over any of that fancy French muck, but that's probably just my undeveloped British palate.

chicken tikka massala went out of favour as the nation's favourite since world cup 1998 innit and vindaloo took over. i had one just two nights ago

pies pies pies

most curry houses it's just code for not-very-hot/quite-hot/hot/very hot/rugby player.

most curry houses it's just code for not-very-hot/quite-hot/hot/very hot/rugby player.

and hence brilliantly british.

Also: Gastropubs.. are they "British cuisine"? Some serve Thai food! and like lasagne and stuff! Does food become British when it's served inside a vaguely british establishment?

Are there as many fried chicken shops in the UK in cities other than London? If so.. does that make fried chicken british??

i guess most people accept britain has great traditional dishes but that it's far more effort than it should be to get a good version of it easily given the number of places around.

perhaps we should send gabbneb a hamper.

Thai pub != gastropub. Most gastropubs probably do focus largely on British cuisine.

Lots of gastropubs near me have quite french-influenced menus.

I'd take cheddar & stilton over any of that fancy French muck, but that's probably just my undeveloped British palate.

I am currently enjoying enough imported Neal's Yardiana that I wouldn't even think of disagreeing, though it helps that a certain percentage of it is goat, towards which I am especially biased

my parents brought that hamper back

fruits and vegetables (potatoes don't count) appeared largely as afterthoughts, punctuation

vegetables are often in the UK referred to as "rabbit food"

mmm rabbit with vegetables

yeah i was thinking that!

if you let the rabbit eat the salad, then immediately kill it and eat it, you can eat a rabbit AND have the 5 portions of veggies that you need for day in one sitting!

vegetables are often in the UK referred to as "rabbit food"

-- Tracer Hand, Thursday, 3 January 2008 16:48 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

The worst crime of English food is how they, as a rule, cook vegetables, which is to dump them in a pot of unsalted water and boil them for 22 hours. It's probably a tie as to whether England has treated Africa or mushrooms worse in its history.

Mushrooms should of course be fried for 22 hours.

iirc in the the old days veggies were only ever eaten by royalty if the royal chef didn't have enough meat to put on the table; perhaps in our modern world where everyone has to have dior this and chanel that there is an unconscious aspiration to this attitude

africa is of course supposed to be poached for 100 years

Well, in our household veggies are regularly messed up, with the exception of mushrooms, which are lightly fried in garlic and butter and thus come out beautiful.

mushrooms, of course, != vegetables

I believe the Aussies were originally responsible for the term 'rabbit food'.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Anyone saying Spanish food is good - have you actually been to Spain???

Also Portugal wtf?

yea, as someone from a Spanish-American family, I have to say that Spanish food isn't all that good. the rest of my family loves it, but I was never much of a fan.

Italy is it, for me. Whoever talked about the simplicity of it as its main virtue is OTM. Some Italian wines are nice, too. My girlfriend's family is always drinking such good Italian wine, I love it.

I think I might to a beer-country poll, that'd be pretty interesting, with at least 5 or so serious contenders. Or a wine poll, that'd be interesting too.

I'm sympathetic to England (for the curries), the Netherlands (for Indonesian food + Maoz falafel), and Germany (for all the 2 euro falafel), but those don't really count. Even if they did, Italy would still reign supreme.

Georgia is the correct answer here, folks, you just don't know it

Read this as "EUROPE - which country has the best cocaine?"

Anyone saying Spanish food is good - have you actually been to Spain???

no but i did go to Taco Bell Uxbridge one time. mindblowing!

aw i wish there's still taco bell in the uk

Scotland won't be winning this poll

seven layers of funk

warning do NOT look up "seven layer burrito" in the urban dictionary

omg this sounds awesome. wish i'm not at work!

Scotland has at least one vote.

Spanish food gets worse the further you are from the sea.

never been to inland Spain

I was swithering between Italy and France, then remembered a conversation I had with my mother about the number of teenage boys in France who'd know how to cook a half-decent meal compared to the number of teenage boys in Italy who could rustle up a good pasta and sauce. That, and the fact that too many restaurants I've been to in France recently have favoured gimmicks and flash over simple good food swung me in favour of the Boot.

i have a huge sentimental attachment to spanish food but in the country itself quality is hugely varying and i would never say it was a mind-blowing or sophisticated cuisine, certainly not comparable to italy or france. samewise portugal.

It's suddenly occurred to me that of all the many meals I've eaten in France, most of the worst have been in Paris.

Paris is quite far from the sea innit

I had with my mother about the number of teenage boys in France who'd know how to cook a half-decent meal compared to the number of teenage boys in Italy who could rustle up a good pasta and sauce.
-- Madchen, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 14:59 (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

My cousin bought a goat recently.

I'm not sure I've really had much proper French food. I can't really think of any. I went on a school exchange to Bordeaux when I was 13 but I don't remember the food being anything special at all, apart from quite liking crepes. The wine definitely made an impression though.

And yeah the only time I've been to France as an adult was to Paris and it was shit.

xposts

I voted Spain on a 'what i like to eat and actually can eat fairly often' basis i guess.

But what makes France that much better really?

heartbreaking.

just answer!

i had great food in Brittany just over a year ago but didn't strike me as particularly finer than what i've had in various Spanish coastal places. talking more everyday/standard dining rather than the gourmet/high-end/elite(?) cuisine i know France has a stronger rep for than anywhere else (but i have no real experience of that and wanna know if it still stands up, with examples offered).

foie gras

creme brulee

Surely Crystal kebabs will garner some votes for Turkey?

I don't know I've only had it 3 times in the past 3 years

swedish chef CRACKS ME THE F UP.

yeah i just gotta go with italy. it's just so bloody comforting.

although each time it was GOOD (except the last time when i had kebab meat on a plate, with chips, rather than a kebab)

Surely Crystal kebabs will garner some votes for Turkey?

I thought it was Lebanese.

problem is basque and catalans have great stuff but wouldn't want it to be known as spanish

the last time i was in france i ate lunch just before going to the airport. it was in someone's home. it was a very casual meal. the people who owned the home and whipped it up were a secretary and an electrician. it was:

scallops and langoustines, white wine
pork loin with potatoes, red wine
endive salad, a glass or two of water
cheeses (comte, gruyere)
cognac

this was just a normal saturday lunch cooked by normal people..!

i envied the father of the house, who i knew was about to light a cigar, prop his feet up, watch the television with the sound turned down, and fall asleep.

whilst receiving a blow job

what's lebanese -- kebabs? lebanese cuisine does have a lot of kebab action but i don't know if that's the origin. i'm sorry i tuned in late here.

Crystal Kebabs on Holloway Road is allegedly Lebanese

and part Alsatian

French again?

the kebabs are allegedly labrador and part dalmatian

the answer is england, although hardly any of it is english.

Scotland has better curries

^^^ this

wonder how that would be the case

fewer rugby lads

hmm

scotland has better and more widely available pakora

I do not agree with Tom D. Most of the curry houses of repute that I've visited in Scotland have served up something very red which appears to have been microwaved. There are, of course, a couple of corking exceptions. But on the whole I've been underwhelmed.

I imagine to do with immigrants from areas of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh which are renowned for their cuisine settling into specific areas in the UK - Glasgow for instance.

I'm sure curries in Scotland as a whole are crap, I'm only talking about Glasgow

Can you seriously imagine a French person having to boost their national cuisine by going 'well we've got some excellent Franco-Moroccan dishes'?

i hear the wee curry house is nice. and that it's nice even when there's wee in it so the ones without must be awesome.

I dunno, the Moroccan food I've had was well nice!

Can you seriously imagine a French person having to boost their national cuisine by going 'well we've got some excellent Franco-Moroccan dishes'?

I'm sure they wouldn't bother to give the Moroccans any credit

True, true.

Even less over their empire than we are.

I'm also talking about Glasgow, Tom. How somewhere like the Ashoka got a good reputation I'll never know. And I'm still searching for a great no-frills Pakistani byob place with maybe five dishes on the menu and but every one of them is a winner. But maybe I'm just an old fusspot.

the two people i mentioned who cooked that great meal have never eaten indian food in their lives. they are almost 60.

this kind of parochialism is a perhaps overlooked weakness of french cuisine.

Does the Ashoka have a good reputation these days?

I think being located on Ashton Lane must give it a certain je ne sais quoi.

I always thought it was considered kind of middlebrow meself - can curries be middlebrow? Well, you know what I mean

this kind of parochialism is a perhaps overlooked weakness of french cuisine.

similar point was made re Italians upthread. so funnily enough i think Britain can (at least potentially if not always in practice) have the best of both worlds as a result and this is one of the best things about living here.

What if instead of a service culture built on tipping otherwise underpaid waiting staff (I don't mean in the UK obv.) there was a culture of tipping the cooking staff?

India wasn't called The Jewel In The Crown for nothing!

is France big on cooking shows on TV? does it have it's own love-to-hate TV chef stars?

oh yeah, britain isn't parochial at all, especially with regards to food, as this thread clearly demonstrates!

I think you've hit the nail on the head with the middlebrow thing. This review pretty much sums up what many people I know think about it, ie. not the absolute best but a reliable old chum of a restaurant. Whereas I've found it to be more like a not-great small-town Indian transported to a trendy location.

Oh man, I really want a curry now.

My mouth is actually watering!

oh yeah, britain isn't parochial at all, especially with regards to food, as this thread clearly demonstrates!

not as much as france or italy, but it's complicated.

Native food so crap so need to import/co-opt others

so it can be poorly cooked and overpriced as well? yeah that worked

What if instead of a service culture built on tipping otherwise underpaid waiting staff (I don't mean in the UK obv.) there was a culture of tipping the cooking staff?

A waiter in a Brick Lane curry house the other week told me quite bitterly not to leave a cash tip, and moreover not to do so in any other Indian restaurant, because the staff never see any of it!

i know that happens a lot and waiters often won't get anything here but maybe the cooks don't either - point is you don't usually know.

similar point was made re Italians upthread. so funnily enough i think Britain can (at least potentially if not always in practice) have the best of both worlds as a result and this is one of the best things about living here.

what are the two worlds?

Spanish because I just had some manchego and had some jamón serrano the other day. Italian most of the time though.

sweden. mmm reindeer steak

Baguette and salted butter from Bretagne can't be topped.

Some Saint Félicien comes close though.

there's a bar in A Coruna, all it sells is cheese, ham and sausage, I could go there every day, eat their plate of home cured ham and tetilla cheese with a basket of bread on the side and die a happy man, so yeah, you could say that Spain has decent food.

My MD at work (of Italian descent) derides the spanish waste of good ingredients with it's crudity and over-use of oil, he is just so wrong, it's just proper food, yet they can still do high end tremendously well, for example, in the Kursaal in San Sebastian, you can eat a Martin Berasetegui meal, four courses, tremendous quality, bottle of wine on the side and pay just the 12 pounds each for the privilege, which is why SPain just wins over the uk and France for me, you can go out and eat the best quality food you can wish for every night and not bankrupt yourself.

The thing that throws this to France for me is the variety. You have Germanic cooking in Alsace, Ligurian cooking on the Riviera, several distinct styles of seafood from Normandy to Brittany to the Mediterranean coast, Alpine cuisines, excellent wine in almost all of regions, world class cow's, ewe's, and goat's milk dairy products, excellent fowl and meats, delicious Arab food in several cities as well as other post-colonial/immigrant foods ranging from Chinese to Vietnamese to West-African, they know how to cook local vegetables and have local gastronomic hubs in places like Lyon, that are more than just regional capitals. I really like Iberian and Italian cuisines but there's not the same breadth of terroir and Germanic cuisines are good but simpler still, coming as they do from a far less forgiving and less propitious environments. The British palate is too sweet for my tastes, though there are lots of local specialties I adore and I have often eaten well there.

I have been to that bar with Porkpie (I think) and can attest to its greatness. One of the great things about Spain is you CAN just crawl around from bar to bar and eat something in every one and it be potentially fantastic.

For me though, France just wins out of sheer variety, consistency and quality, both at the low and high end. Italy and most places around the Mediterranean runs it close though, and Maltese cuisine is kind of underrated as well(mmmmmm bunny).

Rule of thumb = food gets worse as you get further north, the bouze gets better. The worst cuisine of any country I have visited = Denmark by a mile.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Fratelli d'Italia,
l'Italia s'è desta,
dell'elmo di Scipio
s'è cinta la testa.
Dov'è la Vittoria?
Le porga la chioma,
che schiava di Roma
Iddio la creò.

UK ties for first with 21, great stuff everyone

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/8123/jrpo3.jpg

"Salted cod! We taught the world how to eat"

lol @ 10 votes for england

noodle vague sock puppet frenzy

This is a mockery.

I call shenanigans. I voted for Belgium. Belgium has 0 votes.

http://images.worldcupblog.org/www/zidane%20butt.jpg

LOUIS I ONLY VOTED FOR ENGLAND ONCE HOW DARE YOU?

I wanted to vote for Pizza Hut.

I want to know who was repping for Serbia, Latvia and San Marino.

Serbs, Letts, San Martians?

DJ San Martian.

BRING BACK CHANGEABLE USERNAMES :(

I voted for Latvia. We're off there on holiday in a few weeks, so it was kind of a vote in hope: if I *say* they have good food, maybe I'll find some when we're there.

loving the England vote, give me a sunday roast over anything you get elsewhere in Europe. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Judging by the Polish shops/restaurants round our way I am unsurprised at Poland's showing here.

i don't know why everyone's getting so hot under the collar. the poll never mentioned "indigenous" cuisine - just cuisine in general. hence my vote for England, which I think has richer variety thanks to the broad palate of many of its residents.

In what world Irish cousine is better than Russian? In what world, I ask you? And pierogis? How come pierogies get no love?

WHAT A FARCE

Shall we just post a load of pictures of footballers and potentially racist bottle openers and chalk this one up to experience?

whcih country has the best crusade

i'm pleasantly surprised someone else voted for ireland, as i felt quite guilty doing so myself.

brother, please!

oh yeah, britain isn't parochial at all, especially with regards to food, as this thread clearly demonstrates!

alright, who voted for the Netherlands? And WHY?

Mmm, pancakes.

the dutch are good at pancakes and rijstaffel and pretty much horrible at everything else. Boiled eel is a national dish! They can't even make good beer despite bordering Belgium and Germany!

However, they do eat hagel on toast, which is the king of breakfasts.

http://www.thehollandring.com/food/food-hagelslag.gif

omg there's worms on my toast!

i don't know why everyone's getting so hot under the collar. the poll never mentioned "indigenous" cuisine - just cuisine in general. hence my vote for England, which I think has richer variety thanks to the broad palate of many of its residents.

-- CharlieNo4, Wednesday, January 9, 2008 11:37 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

INGREDIENTS

English summer food is hard to beat, when it's all freshly caught crab...

Here is a blurry photo of the best meal I've had this year.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2432/3829276997_26951387b3.jpg
Fucking hell it was delicious.

Whoever voted for Norway is crazy. Now... Wait. Nobody did. Oh well, right then.

Whoever voted for Norway is crazy. Now... Wait. Nobody did. Oh well, right then.

― Tied Up In Geir (Geir Hongro), Tuesday, 18 August 2009 00:02 (4 years ago

lol